MAU'SOLE'UM (Lat., from Gk. parcuJ2.einv, mauso(eion, from Mai•cw-toc, .Muusolos). A sep ulchral 11101111111ent of large size, containing it chamber in which urns or coffins are deposited. The mime is derived from the tomb erected at Halicarnassus to Mausolus, King of Carla. by his widow, .1rtemisia. The work is said to have been begun by Nausolus (B.C. 353), and to have been completed by the artists after the death of _Artemisia (c.350 B.c.). It was one of the most magnificent monuments of the kind. and was esteemed one of the seven wonders of the world. The architects were Satyrus and Pythins o• Pythis, and it is said that Scopus, Bryaxis, Timothens (or, according to Vitruvius, l'raxiteles). and Leoc•hares were employed on the sculpture. It was described by Pliny, and is mentioned by nedia•val writers, as late as the twelfth century. in a manner that seems to imply it was still uninjured. The upper part was over thrown. probably by an earthquake, in the course of the following two centuries; for when the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem. in 1402, took possession of the site of Halicarnassus, they used the ruins as a quarry in building their castle. The interior was still undisturbed, for in 1522, when repairing the castle and excavating among the ruins for building materials, the knights discovered a large chamber decorated with colored morldes, reliefs, and columns. These were all destroyed to furnish lime. An inner chamber contained a white marble sarcophagus. Fragments of the frieze were used to decorate the castle walls, in 1840 these were obtained by Sir Stratford Canning for the British :Mu seum. In I850•83 excavation; conduct ed for
the British Government by Charles T. Newton led to the discovery of the lost site and the recov ery of ninny fragments of orehiteetnre and seulp titre. The foundations and fragments, eombined with Pliny's rather inadequate notice, have led to several attempts to reconstruct the monument, hut without any very conclusive result. It is probable that the :Mausoleum consisted of a lofty Rase or podium, on which stood a chamber sur rounded by an Ionic colonnade (the ptcron); this was surmounted by a pyramid of 24 steps, on the truncated apex of which was a marble four-horse chariot. Whether the colossal statues of Mausolus and Artemisia were placed in the chariot or elsewhere in the building is a matter of dispute. The reliefs belong to three friezes, and represent a battle of the Greeks and Ama zons, the contest between the Centaurs and Laid th:e, and a chariot race. Their exact position in the building is uncertain, though the first is prob ably the frieze of the external Ionic order. In addition to the histories of Greek sculpture, con sult: Newton, History of Discoraries of Aaliear wassus, Cnidus, and Branchiche ( London, 1862) ; and Travels and Discoveries in the Levant (ib., 186.5); Oldfield, in Ar•chwologia, vols. liv. (1895) and Iv. (1896) ; Adler, Das Mausoleum zu Hall karnas (Berlin, 1900) ; A. H. Smith, Catalogue of ,sculptures in the British Museum, vol. ii. (Lon don, 1900), where the fragments are described and sketches of the proposed restorations given.