Funerary Architecture
Introduction
Funerary monument is the monument that is dedicated to funeral commemoration"). Depending on their dimensions and whether or not they contain an internal space, they can be considered funerary architecture. The most ostentatious are called mausoleums (after the tomb of Mausolus, one of the seven wonders of the world).
It can be a tomb or grave, if the monument contains the presence of a corpse (its complete remains, especially if it coincides with the place of burial, partial, if a transfer has occurred") or some intermediate treatment - such as mummification -, or reduced to ashes if the previous technique has not been inhumation but cremation).
Monuments that contain several tombs are called pantheon "Pantheon (architecture)"), while the name "collective tomb") or collective burial") is reserved for another type of burial, either non-monumental or from another historical-cultural context, such as megalithic ones (typologies of menhirs, dolmens, corridor tombs, cromlechs, talayots, navetas, Stonehenge sites, Carnac Alignments, Los Millares, El Argar, Tomb of the Giants, etc.).
It can be a cenotaph, if the monument does not contain the corpse, but simulates a tomb. If it is only a place of remembrance, without sepulchral reference, it is usually called a memorial (an expression not recommended by the RAE, which prefers "commemorative monument"). The so-called "monument to the unknown soldier" are very common, which sometimes do include the remains of one of them (properly called the "tomb of the unknown soldier").
There is a specific type of monument that only contains minimal remains of a corpse or several corpses: reliquaries, which contain relics. Reliquaries are usually movable art, but there are also large ones, incorporated into the decoration of churches.
Ancient Age: Imperial Tombs
The first urban civilizations (royal tombs of Ur or Qatna) and the great empires of the Ancient Age were characterized by the obsession with afterlife, which had its highest degree in the funerary architecture of Ancient Egypt (mastabas, pyramids and hypogeums -Valley of the Kings-). The tomb of the first Chinese emperor (Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang, of which the terracotta warriors are only one part, and not the most ostentatious) was comparable in excess of ambition. The enigmatic Tomb of Alexander the Great has not been found. The Romans had more modest customs, although the columns of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius are also notable monuments.