Halicarnassus Mausoleum Terrace — Bodrum Hill Top Platform
Halikarnassos Mozolesi terası · Mausoleum of Halicarnassus Terrace · Bodrum Mousoleion
Classical (Hekatomnid Carian)·Carian-Hellenic dynastic·🇹🇷 Muğla Province, Bodrum, Turgutreis hill centre, Turkey
About
About Halicarnassus Mausoleum Terrace — Bodrum Hill Top Platform
Upper terrace of the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus (Wonder of Ancient World, c.353 BCE) on Bodrum's central hill, 45 m podium (63×32 m) with 36 Ionic columns, pyramid roof and quadriga built by Artemisia II for satrap Mausolus and finished by Idrieus. One of Seven Wonders, designed by Satyros and Pytheos with Scopas, Bryaxis, Timotheus friezes, destroyed 1304 crusader earthquake and reused in Bodrum Castle. Terrace preserves podium vaults, drains and altar where Newton 1856–58 recovered 12.5-m friezes now British Museum. Unlike Belevi mausoleum (second largest), Halicarnassus is prototype. UNESCO Tentative 2012. Body and Johnston tier reconstruction still debated.
Why it mattersAncient Wonder prototype copied for Belevi, Pergamon altar and Roman mausoleums, synthesis of Lycia-Persia-Greece.
Open questions
Mysteries & theories
Mysteries
- 01Quadriga reconstruction height
- 02Artemisia II interment evidence
Theories
- 01Hekatomnid Carian identity via Greek wonder
- 02Earthquake vs human spoliation sequence
Theories are interpretations, not findings. The seal above tells you how much scholarly weight the place carries.
History
How it came to be
- Built
- c.353–350 BCE (Late Classical Hekatomnid)
- Period
- Classical (Hekatomnid Carian)
- Culture
- Carian-Hellenic dynastic
- Builders
- Artemisia II, Satyros and Pytheos architects
- Purpose
- Dynastic wonder-tomb legitimizing Hekatomnid Carian thalassocracy between Persia and Greece
- Abandoned
- 1304 earthquake
- Rediscovered
- 1856 Newton; 1966 Jeppesen excavations
- Excavation
- Excavated
353 BCE
Mausolus death, Artemisia starts
350 BCE
Pytheos pyramid completion
1856
Newton recovery British Museum
On the ground
Structures & features
37.0380° N · 27.4210° E · 35 m · 2 mapped features
Mausoleum — Podium Vault and Drain Terrace
podium vault45-m Mausolus podium substructures with vaulted drains and sacrificial altar terrace
37.0390° N · 27.4220° EMausoleum — Scopas Frieze Foundation Trench
frieze trenchEastern foundation trench where Amazonomachy frieze by Scopas collapsed, British Museum panels provenance
37.0370° N · 27.4200° E