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Copyright the Trustees of the British Museum

One of the seven wonders of the ancient world, the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus was built to memorialize Maussollos, ruler of the Persian province of Caria (377–353 B.C.), now southern Turkey. The monument set a precedent for grand display tombs, later imitated by the Maccabean tomb in Modi’in, Judea. This, in turn, inaugurated a short period of Jewish display tombs, representing a significant departure from the relatively modest outward appearance of Jewish tombs.