L-601) Sevens Wonders of the Ancient World
1- Great Pyramid of Giza, Egypt
2- Hanging Gardens of Babylon
3- Statue of Zeus at Olympia
4- Temple of Artemis at Ephesus
5- Mausoleum at Halicarnassus
6- Colossus of Rhodes
7- Lighthouse of Alexandria
2- Hanging Gardens of Babylon
3- Statue of Zeus at Olympia
4- Temple of Artemis at Ephesus
5- Mausoleum at Halicarnassus
6- Colossus of Rhodes
7- Lighthouse of Alexandria
1- Great Pyramid of Giza, Egypt
2- Hanging Gardens of Babylon
3- Statue of Zeus at Olympia
4- Temple of Artemis at Ephesus
5- Mausoleum at Halicarnassus
6- Colossus of Rhodes
7- Lighthouse of Alexandria
L-601) Sevens Wonders of the Ancient World
1- Great Pyramid of Giza, Egypt
2- Hanging Gardens of Babylon
3- Statue of Zeus at Olympia
4- Temple of Artemis at Ephesus
5- Mausoleum at Halicarnassus
6- Colossus of Rhodes
7- Lighthouse of Alexandria
The amazing works of art and
architecture known as the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World serve as a
testament to the ingenuity, imagination and sheer hard work of which human
beings are capable. They are also, however, reminders of the human capacity for
disagreement, destruction and, possibly, embellishment. As soon as ancient
writers compiled a list of “seven wonders,” it became fodder for debate over
which achievements deserved inclusion. The original list comes from a work by
Philo of Byzantium written in 225 B.C. called On The Seven Wonders. Ultimately,
human hands joined with natural forces to destroy all but one of the wonders.
Furthermore, it is possible that at least one of the wonders might not have
existed at all. Still, all seven continue to inspire and be celebrated as the
remarkable products of the creativity and skill of Earth’s early civilizations.
1- Great Pyramid of Giza, Egypt
The Great Pyramid, located at Giza on
the west bank of the Nile River north of Cairo in Egypt, is the only wonder of
the ancient world that has survived to the present day. It is part of a group
of three pyramids–Khufu (Cheops), Khafra (Chephren) and Menkaura
(Mycerimus)–that were built between 2700 B.C. and 2500 B.C. as royal tombs. The
largest and most impressive is Khufu, known as “The Great Pyramid,” which
covers 13 acres and is believed to contain more than 2 million stone blocks
that weigh from two to 30 tons each. For more than 4,000 years, Khufu reigned
as the tallest building in the world. In fact, it took modern man until the
19th century to build a taller structure. Amazingly, the nearly symmetrical Egyptian
pyramids were built without the aid of modern tools or surveying equipment. So,
how did Egyptians build the pyramids? Scientists believe that the Egyptians
used log rollers and sledges to move the stones into place. The sloped walls,
which were intended to mimic the rays of Ra, the sun god, were originally built
as steps, and then filled in with limestone. The interior of the pyramids
included narrow corridors and hidden chambers in an unsuccessful attempt to
foil grave robbers. Although modern archeologists have found some great
treasures among the ruins, they believe most of what the pyramids once
contained was looted within 250 years of their completion.
2- Hanging Gardens of Babylon
According to ancient Greek poets, the
Hanging Gardens of Babylon were built near the Euphrates River in modern-day
Iraq by the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II around 600 B.C. The gardens were
said to have been planted as high as 75 feet in the air on a huge square brick
terrace that was laid out in steps like a theater. The king allegedly built the
towering gardens to ease his lover Amytis’ homesickness for the natural beauty
of her home in Media (the northwestern part of modern-day Iran). Later writers
described how people could walk underneath the beautiful gardens, which rested
on tall stone columns. Modern scientists have deduced that for the gardens to
survive they would have had to be irrigated using a system consisting of a
pump, waterwheel and cisterns to carry water from the Euphrates many feet into
the air. Though there are multiple accounts of the gardens in both Greek and
Roman literature, none of them are firsthand, and no mention of the gardens has
been found in Babylonian cuneiform inscriptions. As a result, most modern
scholars believe that the existence of the gardens was part of an inspired and
widely believed but still fictional tale.
3- Statue of Zeus at Olympia
The famed statue of Zeus, the king of
the gods in Greek Mythology, was crafted by the Athenian sculptor Phidias and
completed and placed in the temple of Zeus at Olympia, site of the ancient
Olympics, around the mid-fifth century B.C. The statue depicted the god of
thunder seated bare-chested at a wooden throne. Holding up the thrones’
armrests were two carved sphinxes, mythical creatures with the head and chest
of a woman, the body of lion and the wings of a bird. The statue of Zeus was
richly decorated with gold and ivory. At 40 feet, it was so tall that its head
nearly touched the top of the temple. According to legend, the sculptor Phidias
asked Zeus for a sign of his approval after finishing the statue; soon after,
the temple was struck by lightning. The Zeus statue graced the temple at
Olympia for more than eight centuries before Christian priests persuaded the
Roman emperor to close the temple in the fourth century A.D. At that time, the
statue was moved to a temple in Constantinople, where it is believed to have
been destroyed in a fire in the year 462.
4- Temple of Artemis at Ephesus
There was actually more than one
Temple of Artemis: A series of several altars and temples was destroyed and
then restored on the same site in Ephesus, a Greek port city on the west coast
of modern-day Turkey. The most fabulous of these structures were two marble
temples built around 550 B.C. and 350 B.C., respectively. “Apart from Olympus,
the Sun never looked on anything so grand,” the writer Antipater of Sidon wrote
of the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus.
The original Temple of Artemis was
designed by the Cretan architect Chersiphron and his son Metagenes and decorated
by some of the most celebrated artists of the ancient world. The building
burned on July 21, 356 B.C., according to legend the same night that Alexander
the Great was born. It was torched by a Greek citizen named Herostratus, who
claimed he burned the marvel so that his name would be known to history. He was
put to death and the government declared it illegal to utter his name.
About six years later, the building
of the new Temple of Artemis was begun. The new building was surrounded by
marble steps that led to a more than 400-foot-long terrace. Inside stood 127
60-foot marble columns and a statue of Artemis, the Greek Goddess of the hunt.
Archeologists disagree as to whether the building had an open-air ceiling or
was topped with wood tiles. The temple was largely destroyed by Ostrogoths in
A.D. 262, and it was not until the 1860s that archeologists dug up the first of
the ruins of the temple’s columns at the bottom of the Cayster River.
5- Mausoleum at Halicarnassus
Located in what is now southeastern
Turkey, the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus was a tomb built by Artemisia for her
husband, Mausolus, the king of Carnia in Asia Minor, after his death in 353
B.C. Mausolus was also Artemisia’s brother, and, according to legend, she was
so grief-stricken at his passing that she mixed his ashes with water and drank
them in addition to ordering the mausoleum’s construction. The massive
mausoleum was made entirely of white marble and is thought to have been about
135 feet high. The building’s complicated design, consisting of three
rectangular layers, may have been an attempt to reconcile Lycian, Greek and
Egyptian architectural styles. The first layer was a 60-foot base of steps,
followed by a middle layer of 36 Ionic columns and a stepped, pyramid-shaped
roof. At the very top of the roof lay the tomb, decorated by the work of four
sculptors, and a 20-foot marble rendition of a four-horse chariot. The
mausoleum was largely destroyed in an earthquake in the 13th century and its remains
were later used in the fortification of a castle. In 1846, pieces of one of the
mausoleum’s friezes were extracted from the castle and now reside, along with
other relics from the Halicarnassus site, in London’s British Museum.
6- Colossus of Rhodes
The Colossus of Rhodes was an
enormous bronze sculpture of the sun god Helios built by the Rhodians over 12
years in the third century B.C. The city was the target of a Macedonian siege
early in the fourth century B.C. and, according to legend, the Rhodians sold
the tools and equipment left behind by the Macedonians to pay for the Colossus.
Designed by the sculptor Chares, the statue was, at 100 feet, the tallest of
the ancient world. It was completed around 280 B.C. and stood for sixty years
until it was toppled in an earthquake. It was never rebuilt. Hundreds of years
later, Arabs invaded Rhodes and sold the remains of the statue as scrap metal.
Because of this, archeologists do not know much about the exact location of the
statue or what it looked like. Most believe that it depicted the sun god
standing naked while he lifted a torch with one hand and held a spear in the
other. It was once believed that the statue stood with one leg on each side of
a harbor, but most scholars now agree that the statue’s legs were most likely
built close together to support its immense weight.
7- Lighthouse of Alexandria
The Lighthouse of Alexandria was
located on a small island called Pharos near the city of Alexandria. Designed
by the Greek architect Sostratos and completed around 270 B.C. during the reign
of Ptolemy II, the lighthouse helped to guide Nile River ships in and out of
the city’s busy harbor. Archeologists have found ancient coins on which the
lighthouse was depicted, and from them deduced that the structure had three
tiers: a square level at the bottom, an octagonal level in the middle and a
cylindrical top. Above that stood a 16-foot statue, most likely of Ptolemy II
or Alexander the Great, for whom the city was named. Although estimates of the
lighthouse’s height have ranged from 200 to 600 feet, most modern scholars
believe it was about 380 feet tall. The lighthouse was gradually destroyed
during a series of earthquakes from 956 to 1323. Some of its remains have since
been discovered at the bottom of the Nile.
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In 2007, the New 7 Wonders Foundation
held a contest to name the “New 7 Wonders of the World.” Tens of millions of
people voted for the UNESCO World Heritage Sites that made the list. They span
four continents and attract thousands of tourists each year. They are:
1- The Great Wall of China (Built 220
BC to 1644 AD)
2- The Taj Mahal, India (Built
1632-1648 AD)
3- Petra, Jordan (Built 4 Century
BC-2 Century AD)
4- The Colosseum in Rome, Italy
(Built AD 72-82)
5- Christ the Redeemer statue, Rio de
Janeiro, Brazil (Built 1926-1931)
6- Chichen Itza, Mexico (Built 5-13
century AD)
7- Machu Picchu, Peru (Build mid-15
century AD)