Mausoleum

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The Paramore family mausoleum in the Bellefontaine Cemetery, St. Louis, Missouri

A mausoleum (plural: mausolea) is an external free-standing building constructed as a monument enclosing the interment space or burial chamber of a deceased person or persons. A mausoleum may be considered a type of tomb or the tomb may be considered to be within the mausoleum. A Christian mausoleum sometimes includes a chapel.

The word derives from the Mausoleum of Maussollos (near modern-day Bodrum in Turkey), the grave of King Mausollos, the Persian satrap of Caria, whose large tomb was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

Historically, mausolea were, and still may be, large and impressive constructions for a deceased leader or other person of importance. However, smaller mausolea soon became popular with the gentry and nobility in many countries, particularly in Europe and her colonies during the early modern and modern periods. These are usually small buildings with walls, a roof and sometimes a door for additional interments or visitor access. Single mausolea may be permanently sealed. A mausoleum encloses a burial chamber either wholly above ground or within a burial vault below the superstructure. This contains the body or bodies, probably within sarcophagi or interment niches. Modern mausolea may also act as columbaria (a type of mausoleum for cremated remains) with additional cinerary urn niches. Mausolea may be located in a cemetery, a churchyard or on private land.

In the United States, the term may be used for a burial vault below a larger facility, such as a church. The Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles, California, for example, has 6,000 sepulchral and cinerary urn spaces for interments in the lower level of the building. It is known as the 'crypt mausoleum'.

St. Joseph's Chapel Mausoleum at Mount Olivet Cemetery in Key West (rural Dubuque), Iowa. This mausoleum has traditional mausoleum burial vault as well as columbarium style niches for cremated remains.

Main article: List of mausolea.

Grant's Tomb in New York City is a reduced-scale version of Mausollos' original mausoleum. Other notable mausolea include the Taj Mahal at Agra in India, the Royal Mausoleum and the Duchess of Kent's Mausoleum at Frogmore in England, the Hamilton Mausoleum at Hamilton in Scotland, Abraham Lincoln's tomb at Springfield in the United States and Lenin's Mausoleum at Moscow in Russia. Mastaba and the pyramids of ancient Egypt, Nubia and China are also types of mausolea.