1. A stately or magnificent tomb
2. A burial place for the bodies or remains of many individuals, often of a single family, usually in the form of a small building
3. A large, gloomy, depressing building, room, or the like
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| The first Mausoleum (source) |
This word dates to 1546 from Latin mausoleum ("magnificent tomb") from Greek Mausoleion, which was a massive marble tomb at Halicarnassus. It was built in 353BC for a Persian satrap* named Mausolos, who made himself king of Caria. It was built by his wife/sister Artemisia and is considered one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world.
Mausoleion was destroyed by an earthquake in the Middle Ages, but the site and some remains can still be seen in Bodrum, a town in Turkey.
*Satrap was the Persian term for the governor of a province in the ancient Median and Persian Empires. It was also adopted by the Sassanid Empire, the Hellenistic empires, and maybe others. Satrap is still used to a limited extent today, mainly in literature.
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