The phantom Mausoleum: Contemporary local heritages of a wonder of the ancient world in Bodrum, Turkey

Abstract

The Mausoleum of Halikarnassos (modern Bodrum, Turkey) is one of the wonders of the ancient world, although little remains above ground to give visitors a sense of its original grandeur. While previous scholarship has studied the Mausoleum’s place within the canon of classical Greek art, this paper identifies specifically local perceptions of the monument through interviews with residents of Bodrum, exploring how different images, values and futures are projected onto the archaeological site, in conversation with both national and local discourses of the past. The responses of local inhabitants, living in an Aegean town dramatically transformed by mass tourism, urbanisation and migration, encompass being underwhelmed, pragmatically interested in the monument’s economic potential, or proud of its status, fuelled by the local discourses of “Blue Anatolianism” and “Karianism”. We argue that these influential discourses allow different heritage actors to turn the Mausoleum into a specific kind of locally rooted “heritage capital” and to negotiate a distinctive identity for the monument’s otherwise ambiguous position within the landscape of Turkish national heritage.