The Nereid Tomb – British Museum, Bloomsbury, London, England

The Nereid Monument is a sculptured tomb from Xanthos in classical period Lycia, close to present-day Fethiye in Mugla Province, Turkey. It took the form of a Greek temple on top of a base decorated with sculpted friezes, and is thought to have been built in the early fourth century BCE as a tomb for Arbinas (Lycian: Erbbina, or Erbinna), the Xanthian dynast who ruled western Lycia.

Although Arbinas ruled Lycia as part of the Persian Empire, the monument is built in a Greek style, influenced by the Ionic temples of the Athenian Acropolis.[5] The rich narrative sculptures on the monument portray Arbinas in various ways, combining Greek and Persian aspects.

The monument is thought to have stood until the Byzantine era, and then to have been destroyed by local Christians for its stones and metals. The ruins and sculptures were rediscovered in the early 1840s by an expedition led by the British archaeologist, Charles Fellows, and also including George Scharf. Fellows’ immediate conclusion was that the monument was to Harpagus, who is the main figure in Lycian history recorded by Herodotus, placing it in the 6th century BCE. Although it was soon realised that the style of the architecture and sculpture meant that it must date from at least a century later, it was only in the late 20th century that a consensus was reached that the tomb must date from around 390 to 380 BCE, and was probably the tomb of Arbinas. Fellows arranged for the shipping of the remains to the British Museum. Without detailed records of where each item was found, the Museum had to rely on expedition drawings, marks on the stones, and the composition and style of the sculpture to estimate how the blocks and sculptures fit together. The current reconstruction of the East façade in the museum dates from 1969. It is in room 17 of the Museum, which also houses many other parts of the monument.