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17-595: The Wainwright Tomb is a mausoleum located in Bellefontaine Cemetery in St. Louis , Missouri . Originally constructed for Charlotte Dickson Wainwright in 1892, the tomb also contains the remains of her husband, Ellis Wainwright . The mausoleum was designed by noted Chicago school architect Louis Sullivan , who also designed the Wainwright Building for Ellis Wainwright. Shortly before

34-399: A St. Louis Landmark in 1971. The tomb is a domed cubic building with walls of concrete covered in limestone on the exterior. On the northeast (front) side of the tomb is the entrance with a double-leafed bronze grill and double-doors. The sides of the tomb each have windows, also covered in bronze grills. The limestone walls are carved with floral patterns that do not repeat. The interior of

51-461: A burial vault below the superstructure. This contains the body or bodies, probably within sarcophagi or interment niches. Modern mausolea may also act as columbaria (a type of mausoleum for cremated remains) with additional cinerary urn niches. Mausolea may be located in a cemetery , a churchyard or on private land. In the United States , the term may be used for a burial vault below

68-486: A 'family crypt' or 'vault,' in which all members of the family are interred. Many royal families , for example, have vast crypts containing the bodies of dozens of former royalty. In some localities, an above ground crypt is more commonly called a mausoleum , which also refers to any elaborate building intended as a burial place, for any number of people . There was a trend in the 19th century of building crypts on medium to large size family estates, usually subtly placed on

85-476: A crypt is most often a stone chambered burial vault used to store the deceased. Placing a corpse into a crypt can be called immurement , and is a method of final disposition , as an alternative to, for example, cremation . Crypts are usually found in cemeteries and under public religious buildings, such as churches or cathedrals , but are also occasionally found beneath mausolea or chapels on personal estates. Wealthy or prestigious families will often have

102-614: A larger facility, such as a church. The Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles, California, for example, has 6,000 sepulchral and cinerary urn spaces for interments in the lower level of the building. It is known as the "crypt mausoleum". In Europe, these underground vaults are sometimes called crypts or catacombs . A chapel mausoleum or mausoleum chapel in a cemetery can be used for funeral services. Crypt A crypt (from Greek κρύπτη (kryptē) crypta " vault ")

119-645: A tomb for his wife and himself, which was completed in 1892. In 1901, Wainwright fled the United States after being indicted for bribery , but he later returned and died in St. Louis in 1924, then was entombed with his wife. After his death, an endowment was established that provided for the reconstruction or renovation of the tomb in case of earthquake or vandalism. The tomb was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on June 15, 1970 and became

136-457: Is a stone chamber beneath the floor of a church or other building. It typically contains coffins , sarcophagi , or religious relics . Originally, crypts were typically found below the main apse of a church, such as at the Abbey of Saint-Germain en Auxerre , but were later located beneath chancel , naves and transepts as well. Occasionally churches were raised high to accommodate a crypt at

153-646: Is in the Ancient Greek κρύπτω , the first person singular indicative of the verb "to conceal, to hide". First known in the early Christian period, in particular North Africa at Chlef and Djemila in Algeria , and Byzantium at Saint John Studio in Constantinople where Christian churches have been built over mithraea , the mithraeum has often been adapted to serve as a crypt. The famous crypt at Old St. Peter's Basilica , Rome, developed about

170-456: The via Appia Antica retains the ruins of many private mausolea for kilometres outside Rome . When Christianity became dominant, mausolea were out of use. Later, mausolea became particularly popular in Europe and its colonies during the early modern and modern periods . A single mausoleum may be permanently sealed. A mausoleum encloses a burial chamber either wholly above ground or within

187-538: The construction of the Wainwright Building in Downtown St. Louis (itself now a National Historic Landmark ), the "young and beautiful" wife of wealthy St. Louis brewery owner Ellis Wainwright died. Only 34 years old when she died of peritonitis on April 15, 1891, Charlotte Augusta Dickson Wainwright was said to be the most beautiful woman in St. Louis. Wainwright commissioned Louis Sullivan to design

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204-509: The early medieval West, for example in Burgundy at Dijon and Tournus . After the 10th century, the early medieval requirements of a crypt faded, as church officials permitted relics to be held in the main level of the church. By the Gothic period crypts were rarely built, however burial vaults continued to be constructed beneath churches and referred to as crypts. In more modern terms,

221-684: The grave of King Mausolus , the Persian satrap of Caria , whose large tomb was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World . Mausolea were historically, and still may be, large and impressive constructions for a deceased leader or other person of importance. However, smaller mausolea soon became popular with the gentry and nobility in many countries. In the Roman Empire , these were often in necropoles or along roadsides:

238-555: The ground level, such as St Michael's Church in Hildesheim , Germany . The word "crypt" developed as an alternative form of the Latin "vault" as it was carried over into Late Latin , and came to refer to the ritual rooms found underneath church buildings. It also served as a vault for storing important and/or sacred items. The word "crypta", however, is also the female form of crypto "hidden". The earliest known origin of both

255-539: The tomb has two burial slabs and a mosaic floor and ceiling. The Wainwright Tomb has significance as a work of Louis Sullivan, and it has been described as "the most sensitive and the most graceful of Sullivan's tombs" and as "one of Sullivan's masterpieces." Mausoleum The word mausoleum (from the Ancient Greek : μαυσωλεῖον ) derives from the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus (near modern-day Bodrum in Turkey),

272-657: The year 600, as a means of affording pilgrims a view of Saint Peter 's tomb, which lay according to the Roman fashion, directly below the high altar . The tomb was made accessible through an underground passageway beneath the sanctuary from where pilgrims could enter at one stair, pass by the tomb and exit without interrupting the clerical community's service at the altar directly above. The Visigothic crypt (the Crypt of San Antolín) in Palencia Cathedral (Spain),

289-579: Was built during the reign of Wamba to preserve the remains of the martyr Saint Antoninus of Pamiers , a Visigothic-Gallic nobleman brought from Narbonne to Visigothic Hispania in 672 or 673 by Wamba himself. These are the only remains of the Visigothic cathedral of Palencia. Crypts were introduced into Frankish church building in the mid-8th century, as a feature of its Romanization. Their popularity then spread more widely in western Europe under Charlemagne . Examples from this period are most common in

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