Mausoleum

Taj Mahal, in Agra, India is the world's most famous and most photographed mausoleum.
The entrance to Higashi Otani Mausoleum in Kyoto, Japan.
Habib Bourguiba's mausoleum in Monastir, Tunisia.
Kumsusan Memorial Palace, Kim Il Sung's mausoleum in Pyongyang, North Korea.
The interior of the Spring Valley Mausoleum in Minnesota, listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

A mausoleum[1] is an external free-standing building constructed as a monument enclosing the interment space or burial chamber of a deceased person or persons. A monument without the interment is a cenotaph. A mausoleum may be considered a type of tomb or the tomb may be considered to be within the mausoleum. A Christian mausoleum sometimes includes a chapel.

Contents

Overview

The word derives from the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus (near modern-day Bodrum in Turkey), the grave of King Mausolus, the Persian satrap of Caria, whose large tomb was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

Historically, mausolea were, and still may be, large and impressive constructions for a deceased leader or other person of importance. However, smaller mausolea soon became popular with the gentry and nobility in many countries. In the Roman Empire, these were often ranged in necropoleis or along roadsides: the via Appia Antica retains the ruins of many private mausolea for miles outside Rome. However, the practice fell out of use when Christianity became dominant.[2]

Later, mausolea became particularly popular in Europe and its colonies during the early modern and modern periods. These are usually small buildings with walls, a roof and sometimes a door for additional interments or visitor access. A single mausoleum may be permanently sealed. A mausoleum encloses a burial chamber either wholly above ground or within a burial vault below the superstructure. This contains the body or bodies, probably within sarcophagi or interment niches. Modern mausolea may also act as columbaria (a type of mausoleum for cremated remains) with additional cinerary urn niches. Mausolea may be located in a cemetery, a churchyard or on private land.

In the United States, the term may be used for a burial vault below a larger facility, such as a church. The Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles, California, for example, has 6,000 sepulchral and cinerary urn spaces for interments in the lower level of the building. It is known as the 'crypt mausoleum'. A lady in Wyalusing, PA was found to have dug up her late husband and sister in 2010. After a great process, she was said to be allowed to kept them on her property if she built a mausoleum.

Notable mausolea

Africa

Asia, eastern

Asia, western

Europe

North America

Oceania

Latin America

See also

Footnotes

  1. ↑ The plurals mausoleums and mausolea are equally correct in English.
  2. ↑ Paul Veyne, in A History of Private Life: I. From Pagan Rome to Byzantium, Veyne, ed. (Harvard University Press) 1987:416.
  3. ↑ al-Qummi, Ja'far ibn Qūlawayh (2008). Kāmil al-Ziyārāt. trans. Sayyid Mohsen al-Husaini al-Mīlāni. Shiabooks.ca Press. p. 63. 

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