During a conversation recently, it came up that I’d been to the Great Wall of China. Someone said, “gee, that’s one of the 7 wonders of the world.” Well, that’s kind of correct and kind of not correct.
The original Seven Wonders of the World (now referred to as the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World) were remarkable, humanly-constructed “landmarks” from ancient civilizations and didn’t include the Great Wall of China.
Back in, I think, about 2000 a campaign was started to decide on seven new “Wonders of the World.” Over 100 million people cast their votes to trim the list (of over 200 places) down to seven.
The “modern” list of the Seven Wonders of the World (that does list the Great Wall) consists of:
1. The Great Wall of China
2. The Taj Mahal, in India
3. Petra, Jordan (an ancient city carved into rock)
4. The Colosseum, Italy
5. Christ the Redeemer, Brazil (statue at the summit of Corcovado Mt. in Rio)
6 Chichén Itzá in Mexico (a city built by The Maya people over 1,500 years ago)
7. Machu Picchu, Peru (the ruins of a city from the Incan empire — in the Andes Mountains)
All interesting — and — wonderful, but maybe not as much as the ancient wonders….
Here the ancient wonders:
1. The great Pyramid at Giza — located in the greater metropolitan area of Cairo, Egypt. Pharaoh Kufu built it for his tomb around 2500 B.C.
This is the oldest of the seven ancient wonders and the only one still standing. Each of the pyramid’s four sides is perfectly oriented to north, south, east and west. The base covers 13 acres. The Great Pyramid was the tallest structure on earth for more than 4,000 years. It was topped by the Cologne Cathedral in 1880, and later the Washington Monument and Eiffel Tower.
The pyramid was originally 481 feet high, but time and weather have worn the pyramid down to about 450 feet. Today, it’s one of the most popular tourist attractions in the world.
2. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon — located in ancient Babylon, near present-day Baghdad in Iraq.
Babylon was very flat, so King Nebuchadnezzar built it for his wife, Amities, who was homesick for the mountains of her native land — about 600 B.C.
The gardens were like a terraced garden, built on higher and higher levels, covered with trees, flowers, fountains, and waterfalls. Some estimates say it probably covered and area about 100 by 150 feet. The whole thing was supported by columns 75 feet high. It’s thought that slaves worked around the clock to irrigate the garden with water from the nearby Euphrates River.
There is no concrete proof that the gardens were real, but if they were, time has eroded them. There is virtually nothing left of the gardens, but archaeologists are still digging in the area.
3. The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus — located in the ancient city of Ephesus, near modern Selcuk in Turkey. King Croesus, the the guy from who we get the term “rich as Croesus,” was the heaviest contributor to the shrine to Artemis, the Greek goddess of the hunt and wild nature that was built about 550 B.C.
Except for the roof, the temple was made entirely of marble. it was considered the most beautiful structure on earth, with pillars of gold, magnificent frescoes on the walls, and its most famous feature — four bronze statues of Amazons, the women warriors who were Artemis’s most faithful followers. The temple was a tourist center, where everyone was expected to leave gifts for the goddess. Outside the temple, souvenir stands sold little statutes of her. In one of her forms, Artemis was the goddess of the moon.
A fire set by a pre-Christian publicity seeker destroyed the temple in 356 B.C. It was rebuilt, then burned down by invading Goths. Early Christians demolished what remained.
Excavations have uncovered the foundation and some columns. Some of the columns that were excavated can be seen at the British Museum in London.
4. The Statue of Zeus — located in Olympia, Greece — the site of the ancient Olympic Games. The Greeks wanted visitors to the ancient Olympics to be impressed, so what was originally a simple temple to Zeus was turned into the home of an enormous statue of Greece’s most powerful god.
The 40-foot high statue of Zeus sitting on a throne made the temple look like a playhouse. Zeus’s head was just below the ceiling, giving the impression that if he stood up, he’d go right through the roof. His body was made of ivory, and his beard, robe, and sandals were made of gold. His throne, also made of gold, was encrusted with precious stones.
The structure was destroyed by a fire in A.D. 426 — nothing is left of the statue. The temple is one of those picturesque ruins you can visit on vacation.
5. The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus — located in Southwester Turkey, Queen Artemisia built it as a tribute to her husband, King Mausolus in about 353 B.C.
Except for the fact that Artemisia was King Mausolus’s sister as well as his wife, the only interesting thing about him was his death. The word for a large above-ground tomb, “mausoleum,” comes from his name.
Some of the original foundation remains visible and some statues from the tomb can be seen at the British Museum in London.
6. The Colossus of Rhodes — overlooks the harbor of Rhodes, a Greek island in the Aegean Sea. The people of Rhodes built it in honor of Helios, the sun god, to celebrate a military victory, around 282 B.C.
The Colossus was a colossal statue of Artemis’s brother, Helios. No-one knows exactly what it looked like, but most artists’ renditions show him naked, or at least scantily clad, which must have been quite a sight at 120 feet high from his toes to his sunburst-shaped crown. It’s interesting that Frenchman Fréderic Bartholdi used the statue for inspiration when he designed the “New Colossus” — America’s Statue of Liberty — who wears the same pointy headdress.
An earthquake hit around 226 B.C. and the statue broke off at its weakest point — the knee. There is nothing left of the statue today.
7. The Lighthouse of Alexandria — located on the ancient island of Pharos, in Alexandria harbor in Egypt — built in about 270 B.C.
This was a wonder that actually served a purpose. Designed to guide ships into the harbor, it was completed during the reign of King Ptolemy II. It wasn’t just any puny little lighthouse. It was covered in marble and close to 400 feet high — the height of a 40-story skyscraper. The lighthouse was famous enough to be pictured on Roman coins minted in Alexandria in the second century A.D. During the day, an enormous mirror reflected the sun — at night, a fire at the top did the job. It was apparently also a tourist attraction — food was sold on the first floor, and there was a balcony above for climbers who wanted the scenic view. After 1,500 years as a working lighthouse, it became the last of the 7 Wonder of the World to disappear — destroyed by another earthquake, this one in the 14th century A.D.
Deep-sea divers may have found the ruins in 1996… there are plans to turn it into a tourist attraction again, although most of the best stuff will be underwater.
So there have been, and are, many wonders in the world built by man, and many more thanks to the work of Mother Nature, but I think someone had it right, when they said that the world’s seven wonders taht stand the test of time are — truth, love, joy, faith, peace, virtue, and wisdom.
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