Mausoleum

   Mausolus, a satrap (governor) of Caria, in Asia Minor (now part of Turkey), was a virtually independent ruler of a part of the Persian kingdom. He had dreams of controlling larger territories, especially certain Greek islands that he coveted. To this end he engineered a successful coup, after first persuading Greek allies to turn against Greece. Probably the most important decision he made was moving his capital to Halicarnassus. It was there that Mausolus planned a grand difice in which he was to be interred. The best architects were hired to design the monument, and Mausolus himself aided in the construction. Mausolus died in 35 B.C. His sister, whom he had made his queen, the inconsolably grief-stricken Artemisia, completed the project and joined her husband two years later. The se lchral monument was so vast and splendid that it came to be counted as one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. It reached more than a hundred feet in height and contained statuary of the entombed Mausolus and Artemisia. An earthquake in 1375 destroyed it, and the stones that were strewn about were used for other buildings. Sir Charles Newton, in 1859, brought back to England parts of the frieze and two huge statues for display in the British Museum.

   The Greeks called the structure mausoleion after the entombed ruler. The English borrowed the word as mausoleum, a name now applied to any large and imposing burial structure.