The temple of Artemis at Ephesus
The Hanging Gardens of Babylon
The Porcelain Tower of Nanking
Built: About 353 B.C.
Location: In what is now southwestern Turkey
History: This enormous white marble tomb was built to hold the remains of Mausolus (Mausollos), a provincial king in the Persian Empire, and his wife, Artemisia . Greek architects Satyrus and Pythius designed the approximately 135-foot-high tomb, and four famous Grecian sculptors added an ornamental frieze (decorated band) around its exterior.
Word of the grandeur of the finished structure spread though the ancient world, and the word "mausoleum" came to represent any large tomb.
The monument was damaged by an earthquake in the early 15th century and eventually disassembled. Only the foundation and some pieces remain. The British Museum in London has several of the mausoleum's sculptures.
I have lying, over me in Halicarnassus, a gigantic monument such as no other dead person has, adorned in the finest way with statues of horses and men carved most realistically from the best quality marble. King Maussollos in Lucian's "Dialogues of the Dead"
Similar to the Great Pyramid, we are now visiting the burial place of an ancient king. Yet the Mausoleum is different - so different from the Pyramid that it earned its reputation - and a spot within the list - for other reasons. Geographically, it is closer to the Temple of Artemis... And it was the beauty of the tomb rather than its size that fascinated its visitors for years.
