Charles Robert Cockerell

T he Mausoleum at Halicarnassus has been an enthralling monument since its creation, yet its reception and afterlife have witnessed a large degree of variation over time. 1 The most comprehensive explorations of its historiography have defined the monument’s excavation as a pivotal moment, when the most dramatic changes took place in the perception and reconstruction of the Mausoleum. 2 British architect Charles Robert Cockerell (1788–1863) was listed by these authors as one of the before-excavation group, whose primary aim was to revise the existing historical record and present a visual interpretation of the Mausoleum. Yet, unlike his predecessors who could work only with textual sources from Antiquity, he had access to fragments of the monument that were uncovered and brought to London in 1846. While his attempts were thus among the very last reconstructions that could not make use of the measurements of the Mausoleum’s foundations established by Charles Newton in 1856–1857, they were simultaneously among the first that could rely on the study of some fragmentary remains of the building. Cockerell made several attempts at reconstruction drawings of the monument, both in sketches and watercolours. 3 He created a defining image of the Mausoleum (Fig. 14.1), and gave an account, in the Classical Museum (1848), of his interpretation of the newly identified fragments of bas-reliefs and carvings from Halicarnassus, which he connected to Pliny the Elder’s written record (Appendix i.iv ). 4

Exposition (narrative) · Feature (linguistics) · George (robot) · Work (physics) · Historical and Architectural Studies · Historical and Literary Studies · Paleopathology and ancient diseases