The Mausoleum of Mausollos (Civ3)/Civilopedia

The tomb of King Mausollos of Caria (from whose name the generic term "mausoleum" derives), a local Persian ruler, was not especially remarkable in its construction or size. Its status as one of the Ancient Wonders of the World comes from the dozens of painstakingly carved statues and sculptures that surrounded it. They depicted legendary and real people, and the noble animals of mythology and history. Inside the mausoleum was a great frieze, or wall-carving, depicting an epic battle between the Greeks and the Amazons, and topping the mausoleum's dome was a huge statue of a four-horse chariot. The Mausoleum and its statues survived until after the Crusades, when Christian knights founded a new crusader kingdom in Asia Minor, and used the already-carved stones of the Mausoleum to build castles. The statues, in turn, spread around the world, until British archaeologists began to collect and recover them. Some can be seen today in museums, but most have been lost or destroyed.