TRANSACTIONS OF THE GLASGOW ARCHEOLOGICAL SOCIETY.

No. XVIII.

THE MAUSOLEUM AT HALICARNASSOS.

ADDRESS

BY

A. S. MURRAY, LL.D., F.S.A.,

KEEPER OF Greek and roman antiquities, british museum.

[Delivered at a Meeting of the Society held on 18th January, 1894.]

IN one of his Dialogues, Lucian imagines an interview in the Shades between Diogenes (the Cynic) and Mausolos, in which Diogenes asks the Carian prince why he looked down so much on the rest of them. Mausolos gave various reasons for his pride, but chiefly the fact that he had a tomb at Halicarnassos of greater size and beauty than any other mortal possessed, it being sculptured, he said, with horses and men in the exactest similitude and in the finest marble. It is this tomb, or Mausoleum, as it was called, that we are now to consider.

Let us take first its history in comparatively modern times. In 1402, when the Knights of St. John were driven from Jerusalem, they obtained leave from the Sultan of Turkey to build a fortress on the site of the ancient Halicarnassos, then, as now, called Budrum. They appear to have helped themselves freely to the finely worked blocks of marble among the Greek ruins, including those of the Mausoleum. At all events, we know that when rather more than a century later, in 1552, the knights were obliged to strengthen the fortress, they certainly made use of that building. A French chronicler of the period tells us how the knights "then found no more "suitable material to make lime of, or more easily got, than certain steps "of white marble, raised in the form of a terrace, in the middle of a level “field near the port. After four or five days, having laid bare a great "space, one afternoon they saw an opening as into a cellar. Taking a

"candle, they let themselves down through the opening, and found that it led "into a fine large square apartment, ornamented all round with columns of "marble, with their bases, capitals, architrave, frieze, and cornice engraved "and sculptured in high relief." Penetrating further, they came upon the sepulchre proper of Mausolos, and then the chronicler concludes: "It was "thus," he says, "that this magnificent tomb, which ranked among the seven "wonders of the world, after having escaped the fury of the barbarians "and remained standing for the space of 2,247 years, was discovered and "destroyed to repair the castle of St. Peter by the Knights of Rhodes, who "immediately after this were driven completely out of Asia by the Turks.

Two centuries later an English artist, Dalton, visited Budrum and was admitted into the fortress, where he saw let into the walls thirteen sculptured marble slabs. These he made drawings of and published. That was in 1751-1781. Nothing more was done till 1846, when Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, then ambassador at Constantinople, persuaded the Sultan to allow him to remove the thirteen slabs and present them to the British Museum. Their arrival attracted a good deal of attention, and had among other things the effect of exciting in Mr. (now Sir) Charles Newton a strong desire to go to Halicarnassos and explore fully the site of the Mausoleum, which he did with the assistance of the Government in the years 1856-7. The destruction, he found, had been very thorough, first apparently through an earthquake and afterwards by the knights of St. John, as we have seen. But there still remained a rich harvest of sculptured and architectural members for him to bring home to the British Museum. A number of years elapsed before they could be fully and adequately exhibited. Indeed, the arrangement of the great room, where they are now placed, has only been completed within the last few weeks, and that is one of the reasons why I thought that the Mausoleum would be a not inappropriate subject for to-night.

But the brief outline I have just given of the modern history of that building would not be complete without a notice of the fact, that the references to the Mausoleum in ancient literature, especially the description of it given by Pliny, had tempted some of the greatest of English architects to sketch a restoration of it. Even Sir Christopher Wren, amid all his activity, found time to do this. You will find his sketch published in his "Parentalia." Later on,

Hawksmoor, under the influence of his master, Wren, boldly introduced some of the features of the Mausoleum into his church of St. George, Bloomsbury, (1720-30), which, as some of you may remember, has a high pyramidal roof surmounted by a colossal statue. Curiously enough, as I have heard it remarked, St. George's, Bloomsbury, is within a stone's throw of the British Museum where, so long after, the actual remains of the Mausoleum came to be deposited. The next attempt at a restoration was by Prof. Cockerell, who, from his early travels and discoveries in Greece, together with his fine. artistic nature, knew the spirit of Greek architecture better than anyone. When he made his first sketch, nothing was known of the actual remains, except the sculptured slabs which had been obtained for the Museum from the Sultan. Subsequently, when some of the sculptures discovered by Sir Charles Newton had reached the Museum, he made certain slight modifications, and produced, with the help of his son, the lovely water-colour drawing, of which you have here a photograph. (Plate I.) I need not mention the restorations of Newton and Pullan, nor of Fergusson and others, though these gentlemen had the advantage of seeing the actual remains. Their restorations have not the least artistic merit. What puzzled them, as it puzzled Wren and Cockerell, was the ancient description of the Mausoleum which we find in Pliny, and, in particular, the dimensions of height which he assigns to it. Here is Newton's translation: "In the same period Scopas had as rivals Bryaxis, Timotheos, and Leochares, "whom I would mention together as they were associated in the work of "decorating the Mausoleum with sculpture. On the south and north the "Mausoleum extends 63 feet, being shorter in the fronts. Its entire "circumference is 411 feet. It is raised in height (25 cubits) 371⁄2 feet; "round it are 36 columns; the part surrounding the tomb was called the "pteron; the sculpture on the east side was by Scopas, on the north by "Bryaxis, on the south by Timotheos, on the west by Leochares. Before "these artists had terminated their labours, Queen Artemisia died, but they "did not cease from their work till it was completely finished, regarding it as "a monument of their own fame and art. To this day it is a matter of 'dispute which of those masterpieces is the finest. With these sculptors a "fifth artist was associated. For above the pteron a pyramid equalled the