Divine kingship at the city centre

Anne-Marie Carstens (1)

1 SDU - University of Southern Denmark

When the Persian dynast and Karian King Maussollos died in 352/351 BC he was interred in the most incredible dynastic monument the world had ever seen, the eponymous ruler's tomb to be, the Maussolleion at Halikarnassos. The Maussolleion was placed in the city centre of the newly planned residential city and capital of Hekatomnid Karia, and it was staged as the biggest of the sanctuaries of Halikarnassos. Surely, neither discretion nor modesty was involved in this endeavour. It was soon counted as one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and already in the 18th century it was included as one of the canonical yet quite mysterious monuments of Classical Antiquity. This contribution focuses on the Maussolleion as both a dynastic tomband as a sanctuary celebrating the Hekatomnid dynasty in an Ancient Near Eastern tradition of Divine Kingship. It explores local, regional and supra-regional contexts of similar phenomena in Antiquity. Furthermore, it also focuses on the Maussolleion as a building type, forming a vital part of aristocratic culture by offering a phenomenological view of rulers' tombs and their role in urban planning.

Mots clés: Maussolleion at Halikarnassos; Carian civilisation; Turkey; funeral architecture

Domaines: Archéologie et Préhistoire

Anne-Marie Carstens. Divine kingship at the city centre. 2èmes Rencontres d'archéologie de l'IFEA : Le Mort dans la ville Pratiques, contextes et impacts des inhumations intra-muros en Anatolie, du début de l'Age du Bronze à l'époque romaine., Nov 2011, Istanbul, Turkey. pp.175-182. ⟨halshs-00808265⟩