Although it is no longer in its original position, the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus once overlooked the city that Mausolus ruled for 24 years alongside his wife, Artemisia. Much of what remains of the tomb is in the British Museum. The original structure was within an enclosed courtyard sitting on a stone platform. The staircase leading to the top of the platform had stone lions on either side. The tomb itself was made of marble and the structure rose to 140 feet.
Within the tomb were statues of Mausolus and his wife, who died two years after Mausolus. Both statues are in the British Museum today. Many statues of gods and goddesses lined the outside of the tomb and at each corner of the mausoleum stood a statue of a warrior on horseback, which guarded the tomb. On the top of the mausoleum were 36 slim columns, behind which a solid block held the pyramid-shaped roof.
On the roof of the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus was a sculpture of the chariot pulled by four horses. Little remains of the massive chariot in which statues of Mausolus and Artemisia rode. Because a description of the tomb is found in Pliny's writings, an archaeologist was able to find the tomb in 1846 and recover a wheel from the chariot sculpture that was 7 feet in diameter. The chariot was destroyed during a serious of earthquakes that brought the sculpture crashing to the ground.
The mausoleum was untouched for centuries until the earthquakes, surviving through the city's fall to Alexander the Great in 334 B.C. and pirate attacks in 62 and 58 B.C. In 1404, only the base of the mausoleum was recognizable. Sections of the structure were used in 1522 to reinforce the nearby castle when rumors were rife of an invasion. The marble from the structure can be seen at the castle today. It was at this time a group of knights found the coffin that contained the bodies of Mausolus and Artemisia. The knights returned the next day and found the treasures had been plundered and the bodies had been removed.
