Artemisia built, in 353 BC, this marble tomb for her husband King
Maussollus of Caria in Asia Minor. This area is now southwestern Turkey. The
tomb, from which we get our word mausoleum, was 135 feet (41 meters) high and
featured the art work of four sculptors, Bryaxis, Leochares, Scopas, and
Timotheus. The mausoleum featured a rectangular basement beneath a colonnade
formed by 36 columns. A stepped pyramid rested on the colonnade. At the top of
the pyramid shaped roof was a statue of a four-horse chariot in which were
statues of the king and queen. The top part of the mausoleum was destroyed by an
earthquake, and in 1494 A.D the Knights of St. John, one of the knight groups in
the crusades, used the marble blocks of the base of the mausoleum to make a
castle. By 1522 A.D, almost every block had been torn down and used to make the
castle. Today, the castle still stands, and with them, the separate pieces of
the Mausoleum of King Maussollos.
