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The Mausoleum*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

H. W. Law
H. W. Law
Affiliation:
Showells, Chaucer Road, Cambridge
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Extract

To attempt a new restoration of the Tomb of Mausolus may seem to some a hopeless, and to others an unnecessary, task. But I have never felt satisfied with any of those hitherto proposed; and only that of Cockerell (dating originally from before the excavation of the monument by Sir Charles Newton in 1857) and that of Mr. J. J. Stevenson appear to me to explain in any way its reputation in antiquity, especially for lightness and beauty, or its inclusion among the ‘Seven Wonders.’ The sources of evidence as to the construction of the building are the well-known description given by the elder Pliny and the facts disclosed by Newton's excavation; it will be best therefore to quote the passage and briefly to state the facts. Pliny's words are: Scopas habuit aemulos eadem aetate Bryaxim et Timotheum et Leocharem, de quibus simul dicendum est quoniam pariter caelavere Mausoleum. Sepulchrum hoc est ab uxore Artemisia factum Mausolo Cariae regulo, qui obiit Olympiadis CVII anno secundo. Opus id ut esset inter septem miracula hi maxime fecere artifices. Patet ab austro et septentrione sexagenos ternos pedes, brevius a frontibus, toto circumitu pedes CCCCXI, attollitur in altitudinem xxv cubitis, cingitur columnis XXXVI. Pteron vocavere circumitum. Ab oriente caelavit Scopas a septentrione Bryaxis a meridie Timotheus ab occasu Leochares, priusque quam peragerent regina obiit.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 59 , Issue 1 , 1939 , pp. 92 - 102
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1939

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References

1 See BM Sculpture II, p. 74 and Pl. XIVGoogle Scholar.

2 A Restoration of the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, London, 1909Google Scholar. (Reprinted, with amendments, from The Builder, August 27, 1896.)

3 N.H. xxxvi, 30.

3a Vitruvius (VII Praefatio 13) says as to the sculptors employed: singulis frontibus singuli artifices sumpserunt certatim partes ad ornandum et probandum Leochares, Bryaxis, Scopas, Praxiteles non nulli etiam putant Timotheum.

4 351 B.C.

5 Cod. Bamb. ccccxxxx.

6 Id. aequat.

7 As to these feet see Petrie, Flinders in Encyclopedia Britannica,14 vol. XV, pp. 142 ff.Google Scholar, and Prof. Robertson, D. S.Greek and Roman Architecture, pp. 82 and 149Google Scholar. (Cf. Frazer, , Pausanias, Vol. III, p. 497Google Scholar). The foot of 11·66 in. was widely spread by Roman influence, varying up to 11·8 in. On the last basis (11·8 in.) the length of the pteron would have been in English measure all but 62 ft., its height all but 37 ft., the total height of the building 137 ft. 8 in., and each side of a square of 440 ft., 108 ft. 2 in.

8 The results were published by Newton, in his History of Discoveries at Halicarnassus, Cnidus and Branchidae (London, 1862)Google Scholar (hereinafter cited as ‘Hist. Disc.’), containing a restoration of the monument by Newton and Mr. R. P. Pullan, the architect attached to the expedition.

9 In his later work, Travels and Discoveries in the Levant (London, 1865)Google Scholar, Newton states (Vol. II, p. 93 and notes 39 and 40) that the length of the fronts had been estimated by Lieut. Smith (who commanded the party of sappers sent by the British Government for the excavations), at 107 ft. and at 108 ft., of which the latter figure was more likely to be correct; and that the longer sides were 127 ft. on the north and 126 ft. on the south.

10 It was standing in the 12th century (see Hist. Disc., pp. 72–3), and the Knights of St. John were using the materials for building their castle of St. Peter from about 1404 onwards (id., pp. 73–4 and 645 ff.).

11 In Greek Buildings Represented by Fragments in The British Museum (1908), pp. 37–70Google Scholar. See also for restorations BM Sculpture II, pp. 75–8Google Scholar.

12 Archaeologia liv, pp. 273–362Google Scholar. The disposition of the sculpture is discussed by him, id. lv, pp. 343–90.

13 Das Mausoleum zu Halikarnass (Berlin, 1900)Google Scholar.

14 JHS xxv (1905), 1Google Scholar.

15 AJA xii (1908), pp. 3 ff., 141 ff.

16 Bonner Jahrbücher 128 (1923), p. 1Google Scholar.

17 Id. 127 (1921), p. 84.

18 Hist. Disc., pp. 163 ff.; BM Sculpture II, p. 86Google Scholar; Lethaby, op. cit., p. 45.

19 Two are described in BM Sculpture (Nos. 987, 988).

20 It has also been considered to represent a goddess, acting as charioteer.

21 Other fragments were found on the southern part of the site.

22 Hist. Disc., p. 107.

23 Op. cit., p. 45.

24 Hist. Disc., p. 115.

25 Dial. Mort. xxiv.

26 A new model of which is in the British Museum. (See BMQ (1929), p. 95, and for the other two monuments BM Sculpture Nos. 1350, 950).

27 Öjh xxix, Beiblatt, pp. 105 ff. See also id. xxviii, Beiblatt, pp. 27 ff. and xxx, Beiblatt, pp. 175 ff. and Fyfe, , Hellenistic Architecture, pp. 50 ffGoogle Scholar.

28 656.

29 ii, 8, 10. Mausoleum ita egregiius opibus est factum ut in septem spectaculis nominetur. See also id. vii, Praefatio 13.

30 xviii, 4. Sepulchrum illud memoratissimum dignatumque numerari inter septem omnium terrarum spectacula.

31 viii, 16, 4. .

32 Dial. Mort. xxiv. .

33 Reproduced in the model of the Mausoleum constructed in the British Museum in 1926 (see BMQ, I, p. 87). Prof. Robertson, D. S. (Greek and Roman Architecture, p. 157)Google Scholar, considers the pointed arch shown in the base of this model to be ‘quite incredible’; and no less so, to me, is the placing on a great work of Art of two lines of frieze, one immediately above the other, as in Krischen's restoration.

34 Cockerell and Stevenson, like the authors of the ‘large plan’ restorations, included one pyramid only in their schemes. Prof. Krüger places a lower pyramid, extending to the ground level, below a podium equal in height to the pteron. The chief defects of his restoration are, to me, the ungainliness inseparable from the high podium (on which two friezes are placed), and the absence of a base.

35 Hist. Disc., pp. 191–2.

36 In English measure (see p. 94, and note 7, above).

37 It is uncertain whether ‘Pythis’ is identical with Pydios or Phyteus, who is said by Vitruvius, , (vii, Praefatio 12)Google Scholar, to have composed, with Satyrus, a treatise upon the Mausoleum; and whether Pliny derived his knowledge of the building from this work (now lost) or from information supplied by his own contemporary C. Licinius Mucianus. (See Jex-Blake, and Sellers, , The Elder Pliny's Chapters on the History of Art, pp. lxxxv ff.Google Scholar)

38 BM Sculpture, II, p. 72Google Scholar.

39 Id. p. 94.

40 JHS xiii, p. 188Google Scholar; Sculptured Tombs of Hellas, p. 240.

41 Stevenson, who in his restoration much increased the weight upon the columns by placing the two colossal figures in the chariot and including large steps in the pyramid, calculated the total weight to be borne at 800 tons, and considered each column to be capable of supporting a weight of 180 tons, or 20 tons per square foot ‘which is not very different from the present practice.’ (Op. cit. pp. 28–9.)

42 The significance of Pliny's comparison of the upper pyramid to a ‘meta’ has been much, but inconclusively, discussed. Newton, (Hist. Disc., p. 195)Google Scholar pointed out that ‘meta’ is used by Latin authors with reference to a variety of objects the forms of which have in common only a base much wider than the apex.

43 In English measure (see p. 94 above).

44 See Lethaby, op. cit., p. 60.

45 Op. cit., p. 288. I am not sure that much turns on the retention or omission of ‘circumitum’ here.

46 Id., pp. 278–9.

47 Lib. Spect., i, 5Google Scholar. It may be that in certain lights, or from certain points of view, the eye did not distinguish the columns, so that the entablature, upper pyramid and chariot appeared to be hanging in air.

48 Op. cit., p. 56.

49 Hellenistic Architecture, p. 54.

50 Meldrum, D. S., Rembrandt's Paintings, p. 98Google Scholar.

51 See Lethaby, op. cit., p. 43.

52 The diameter of the upper part of a column appears to be about 3 ft. and that of the lower part about 3 ft. 6 ins. (See id., pp. 41–2, 60).

53 See Cook, A. B., Zeus, II, p. 593Google Scholar, where the panel is reproduced. In Mr. Fyfe's design (Pl. IX) the pedestal is assumed to be 8 ft. in length by 6 ft. 6 ins. in width and 7 ft. in height, and the statue to be 15 ft. in height.

54 BM Sculpture, Nos. 1038–42.

55 In English measure (see p. 94 above).

56 Twelve were recovered in 1846 from the Castle of St. Peter at Halicarnassus (Budrum), which was built by the Knights of St. John largely from the stones of the Mausoleum (cf. note 10 above).

57 See Hist. Disc., pp. 185, 232, 238, and Lethaby, op. cit. pp. 67–8.

58 In the reconstitution of the Order made in 1927 (see BMQ II, p. 60), no frieze is placed above the architrave.

59 See p. 94 above.

60 Hist. Disc., p. 135.

61 See n. 9 above.

62 BM Sculpture No. 1045.

63 See Collignon, , Hist, de la Sculpture Grecque, II, pp. 195–8Google Scholar; Lawrence, A. W., Classical Sculpture, p. 264Google Scholar. The torso was found in the central part of the site, not beyond the wall of the peribolos (Hist. Disc., Pl. IV).

64 By Prof. Six, (JHS, xlii, 31)Google Scholar.

65 Prof.Gardner, Percy stated (New Chapters in Greek Sculpture, p. 103) onGoogle Scholar the authority of Mr. A. H. Smith, that the marble used for some of the sculptures, including a head which is probably of Apollo, is neither Pentelic nor Parian, but ‘a crystalline micaceous stone, not used for the masonry.’ Parian, however, was used for the statues of Mausolus and Artemisia (Watson, J., Marbles (1916), p. 158)Google Scholar, and Pentelic, Newton thought, for the lions (Hist. Disc., p. 232). In the building itself white Proconnesian marble may have been used, as it was by Mausolus in his palace at Halicarnassus (Plin., N.H. xxxvi, 6)Google Scholar. See J. Watson, op. cit., p. 244, and Hasluck, F. W. in JHS, xxix, pp. 1, 12Google Scholar.

66 By Prof.Gardner, E. A. (Handbook of Greek Sculpture, p. 393)Google Scholar.

67 The figure was found on the western side of the site (Hist. Disc., p. 99).

68 It is tempting to place in Artemisia's hand the statuette of Victory of which the torso (BM Sculpture no. 1101) survives; but though it was obtained from Halicarnassus (Budrum), its connexion with the Mausoleum appears not to be established.

69 Of the chariot frieze nearly 100 fragments remain, enough to make up in part about 20 chariot groups (BM Sculpture II, p. 120Google Scholar). Each group appears to have been about 6 ft. in length, and the frieze cannot therefore have been placed on one side only of the base. From the fact that the joint between the slabs has not the final polish, and other indications, it has been argued that the frieze cannot have been intended to be exposed to the weather (id., p. 119). But a frieze which contained some of the finest and most highly wrought work in the building must surely have been placed where it could well be seen, not in the interior, or even in so dark a position as on the wall of the cella (if that existed). As regards exposure, not only could the frieze have been protected in some such way as above suggested, but it has a flat ogee moulding at the foot, which Newton said was ‘clearly intended to be seen from below’ (Hist. Disc., p. 246). He considered the climate of Halicarnassus to be ‘perhaps the most genial in the Levant’ (Travels and Discoveries, Vol. II, p. 140Google Scholar); and some of the marble lions, which must have had exposed positions, had resisted decay so well that much of their surface was ‘as fresh as when it left the chisel’ (Hist. Disc., p. 232). Some portions of the lions were removed by Newton, under a firman from the Porte, from the Castle of Budrum, in which many architectural and sculptural remains are still embedded; the Castle, as above mentioned, having been built in great measure out of the ruins of the Mausoleum. Prof. A. B. Cook informs me that on a visit to Budrum he saw lions' heads projecting from the walls.

70 On the western side of the quadrangle Newton excavated a staircase cut in the rock, which he supposed to have been made in order to convey the body of Mausolus to the tomb, and to have been covered with soil when it had served its purpose (Hist. Disc., pp. 138 ff.). Oldfield and others have discussed the probable internal structure of the building, but there is in fact no evidence as to the way in which the superincumbent weight was supported (cf. Hist. Disc., p. 96).

71 In the Temple of Zeus at Olympia there was constructed (Pausanias V, 10, 10). From the remains there appear to have been two staircases (Frazer, , Pausanias, Vol. III, p. 501)Google Scholar.

72 I am supposing the lower pyramid, at its base, to have been 15 ft. above the ground (see p. 100 above); and the north wall of the peribolos when discovered was rather over 6 ft. in height, and probably had not been carried more than one or two courses higher (Hist. Disc., p. 108).

73 Hist. Disc., p. 136.

74 xii.