The Ancient Seven Wonders Of The World

The 5th old wonder of the world!!!

The Mausoleum was a massive tomb, built in the city of Halicarnassus, in Asia Minor. A man named Hecatomnus of Mylasa died in 377 B.C. He left control of his kingdom to his son, Mausolus. In 353 B.C., Mausolus died. Artemisia decided to build, in honour of her husband, a tomb larger than any that had ever been built. She sent word to Greece that she would pay any price to have the best architects in the world to help build the tomb.The result was huge and unlike anything ever seen before. Stone lions guarded the stairway up to the tomb. The building itself was 140 feet high. The bottom third was solid marble. The middle third contained Greek columns. The top third was a pyramid. On the very top was a large stone sculpture showing Mausolus and Artemisia standing side by side in a chariot. The whole thing took many years to build. Artemisia died two years after her husband did, when the tomb was still being built. The builders stayed on to finish the job. A series of earthquakes during the Middle Ages shattered much of the Mausoleum, and the people who lived in and around Halicarnassus eventually took much of the rest of the tomb to use in their own buildings.