The Book of Rites Tan Gong records that "the highest place is called the grave". That is, the mound above the ground is called a grave, and later it also refers to the place where the dead are buried.
Corresponding to it is the "tomb". From the glyph, the word "tomb" means "Mo" on the top and "Earth" on the bottom. "Mo" here means dusk and sunset. Therefore, the combination of the two is: buried at dusk, disappeared with the sun, so the tomb does not build a grave bag, which is the so-called "tomb instead of grave."
So there is a good difference between "grave" and "tomb". The former has a mound above the ground. The latter, on the other hand, has no top soil and is flat. Of course, there was another saying in ancient times that the owner of the tomb had a towering earthen bag, indicating that the deceased had grievances. For example, after Zhou Wuwang conquered Shang Dynasty, he ordered to raise the height of Bigan's grave to show that Bigan had died unjustly. As for the tomb, it means that the deceased died of natural causes and there was no injustice.
But with the change of history, grave and tomb are used together, which means the place where the dead are buried! Now there is basically no big difference!
The so-called "tomb" originally meant "a tall and big grave". According to Sima Qian's Historical Records of the Emperor Gaozu, "Xiang Yu burned Qin Gong and dug the tomb of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty".
It can be seen that ordinary folk tombs can't be called "tombs", but refer to the tombs of ancient nobles, princes and other people with status, such as Cao Cao's "seventy-two suspected tombs", the most typical one (many archaeologists have confirmed that Cao Cao's suspected tombs are actually large tombs in the Northern Dynasties, and pointed out that the exact number is not 72, but 134. In the eyes of the ancients, seventy-two is only a rough number, not a real number. Therefore, the "seventy-two suspected graves" only shows that there are many suspected graves of Cao Cao, but Cao Cao's tomb is really not in this "seventy-two suspected graves". There are also some "cenotaph" of nobles and princes, and so on.
As for the "mausoleum", it is easier to understand. It refers to the tombs of emperors and princes. For example, we are familiar with the Ming Tombs, Qing Tombs and Qing Tombs.
As long as it is a "tomb", it is quite special. First of all, it has a large area, followed by complete laws and regulations and luxurious buildings. For example, the Qing Dongling is one of the typical representatives!