Mausoleum at Halicarnassus

The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus or Tomb of Mausolus was a tomb built between 353 and 350 BC in Halicarnassus (present Bodrum, Turkey) for Mausolus, an Anatolian from Caria and a satrap in the Achaemenid Empire, and his sister-wife Artemisia II of Caria. The structure was designed by the Greek architects Satyros and Pythius of Priene. Its elevated tomb structure is derived from the tombs of neighbouring Lycia, a territory Mausolus had invaded and annexed c. 360 BC, such as the Nereid Monument. The Mausoleum was approximately in height, and the four sides were adorned with sculptural reliefs, each created by one of four Greek sculptors: Leochares, Bryaxis, Scopas of Paros, and Timotheus. The Mausoleum contained total 400 freestanding sculptures. The mausoleum was considered to be such an aesthetic triumph that Antipater of Sidon identified it as one of his Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. It was destroyed by successive earthquakes from the 12th to the 15th century; it was the last surviving of the six destroyed wonders. The word mausoleum has now come to be used generically for an above-ground tomb. Conquest In the 4th century BC, Halicarnassus was the capital of the small regional kingdom of Caria, within the Achaemenid Empire on the western coast of Asia Minor.