Tomb

Tomb, chamber built above or below ground to hold the remains of the dead, or a shrine above a grave. Tombs are among the oldest and most universal structures. They were traditionally believed to be the houses of the dead and were frequently richly adorned and stocked with personal or household articles for use in the afterlife. Tombs have inspired great architecture and provided much information about the past.

The prehistoric practice of burying the deceased under their houses probably led to one of the earliest forms of tomb, the chamber covered by a mound of earth. Such mounds are found the world over—the barrows of northern Europe, the beehive tombs of Mycenae, the stupas of India, and the mounds left by the Mound Builders in the Ohio and Mississippi valleys of the United States. Another form of tomb was a chamber cut out of living rock, as, for example, in the Valley of the Kings, near Thebes, Egypt; in Petra (now in Jordan); and in Etruria (now in Italy). Early Christian tombs were subterranean galleries known as catacombs.

As civilizations developed, tombs became more elaborate. The body was often enclosed in a sarcophagus, or coffin, within the tomb chamber, which could be painted, and the basic tomb mound became an architectural monument to royalty or a religious leader, often becoming a place of worship as well. The Egyptian pyramids, built for the pharaohs before 2000 bc, were considered one of the Seven Wonders of the World. Another was the magnificent sculptured tomb (c. 350 bc) of King Mausolus at Halicarnassus (now Bodrum), from which the term mausoleum is derived. St Peter’s Basilica in Rome (17th century), built over the supposed grave of the first pope, and El Escorial in Spain (16th century), made for the coffins of Spanish kings, are two of many Christian churches built as tombs. The Great Stupa at Sanchi, India (3rd century bc-1st century ad), exemplifies the development of stupas built over Buddhist relics. Two magnificent Muslim tombs are the domed, tiled tomb of the Mongol conqueror Tamerlane (1405) in Samarqand (now in Uzbekistan) and the white marble Taj Mahal (17th century), built for a Mughal queen in Agra, India.

Notable among modern tombs are that of Napoleon in the Hôtel des Invalides in Paris, of the US president Ulysses S. Grant (a Neo-Classical edifice) in New York, and of Lenin in Red Square, Moscow.