Before going on, we should clarify a couple of terms. A mausoleum is an above-ground monument that houses the dead that it honors, as Matthew Funeral Home and Cremation Services says. On one hand, it memorializes them. On the other hand, it's basically a jumbo-sized, walk-in headstone. Mausoleums can be as modest as the small, cubical ones like those at the well-known St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 in New Orleans. Or, mausoleums can be as gobsmackingly grandiose as the Taj Mahal in Uttar Pradesh, India — it all depends on money, status, morals, beliefs regarding the afterlife, and so forth. But if there's no corpse inside, it's not a mausoleum. And if the body is below ground level, it's not a mausoleum — that would be a crypt. However, mausoleums above ground can connect to crypts below ground.
While it makes sense for humans to bury their dead, interring the dead above-ground seemingly came much later. The first record we have of an ornate, giant mausoleum is the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus in modern-day Turkey. As Mausoleums.com says, it was built in the mid-4th century B.C.E. to house and honor the Persian ruler after whom every such monument was named: Mausolus. Regardless of ancient ventilation and sealing techniques, old mausoleums wouldn't smell bad because the person inside died so long ago. Modern mausoleums need some technological assistance to stay stench-free.
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