ANCIENT SEVEN WONDERS

Great Pyramid of Giza

The Great Pyramid of Giza is the oldest and largest of the three pyramids in the Giza Necropolis bordering what is now Cairo, Egypt in Africa, and is the only remaining member of the Seven Wonders of the World. It is believed to have been built as a tomb for Fourth dynasty Egyptian pharaoh Khufu (hellenized as Χεωψ, Cheops) and constructed over a 20 year period concluding around 2560 BC.^[1] . The tallest man-made structure in the world for over 3,800 years, it is sometimes called Khufu's Pyramid or the Pyramid of Khufu

Hanging Gardens of Babylon

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon (also known as Hanging Gardens of Semiramis) (near present-day Al Hillah in Iraq) are considered one of the original Seven Wonders of the World. They were built by Nebuchadnezzar II around 600 BCE. He is reported to have constructed the gardens to please his wife, Amytis of Media, who longed for the trees and fragrant plants of her homeland.^[1] The gardens were destroyed in an earthquake after the 1st century BCE.

The lush Hanging Gardens are extensively documented by Greek historians such as Strabo and Diodorus Siculus. Through the ages, the location may have been confused with gardens that existed at Nineveh, whose king at the time was Nimrod, since tablets from there clearly show gardens. Writings on these tablets describe the possible use of something similar to an Archimedes' screw as a process of raising the water to the required height.

Statue of Zeus at Olympia

The Statue of Zeus at Olympia was one of the classical Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. It was made by the famed classical sculptor Phidias (5th century BC) circa 432 BC in Olympia, Greece.^[1]The seated statue, some 40 feet (12 meters) tall, occupied the whole width of the aisle of the temple built to house it. "It seems that if Zeus were to stand up," the geographer Strabo noted early in the 1st century BC, "he would unroof the temple."^[2] Zeus was a chryselephantine sculpture, made of ivory and accented with gold plating. In the sculpture, he was seated on a magnificent throne of cedarwood, inlaid with ivory, gold, ebony, and precious stones. In Zeus' right hand there was a small statue of Nike, the goddess of victory, and in his left hand, a shining sceptre on which an eagle perched.^[3] Plutarch, in his Life of the Roman general Aemilius Paulus, records that the victor over Macedon “was moved to his soul, as if he had beheld the god in person,” while the Greek orator Dio Chrysostom wrote that a single glimpse of the statue would make a man forget his earthly troubles.The circumstances of its eventual destruction are a source of debate: some scholars argue that it perished with the temple in the 5th century AD, others argue that it was carried off to Constantinople, where it was destroyed in the great fire of the Lauseion (Schobel 1965). According to Lucian of Samosata in the later second century, "they have laid hands on your person at Olympia, my lord High-Thunderer, and you had not the energy to wake the dogs or call in the neighbours; surely they might have come to the rescue and caught the fellows before they had finished packing up the swag."^[4]Perhaps the greatest discovery in terms of finding out about this wonder came in 1954-1958 with the excavation of the workshop at Olympia where Phidias created the statue. Tools, terracotta molds and a cup inscribed "I belong to Pheidias" were found here, where the traveller Pausanius said the Zeus was constructed.^[5][6][7] This has enabled archaeologists to re-create the techniques used to make the great work.

Temple of Artemis

The Temple of Artemis (Greek: Ἀρτεμίσιον Artemision, Latin: Artemisium), also known less precisely as Temple of Diana, was a temple dedicated to Artemis completely, in its most famous phase, around 550 BC at Ephesus (in present-day Turkey) under the Achaemenid dynasty of the Persian Empire. Nothing remains of the temple—not the first on its site and with evidence dating as early as the Bronze Age—which was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient WorldThe temple was a 120-year project started by Croesus of Lydia. It was described by Antipater of Sidon, who compiled a list of the Seven Wonders:I have set eyes on the wall of lofty Babylon on which is a road for chariots, and the statue of Zeus by the Alpheus, and the hanging gardens, and the colossus of the Sun, and the huge labour of the high pyramids, and the vast tomb of Mausolus; but when I saw the house of Artemis that mounted to the clouds, those other marvels lost their brilliancy, and I said, "Lo, apart from Olympus, the Sun never looked on aught (anything) so grand". (Antipater, Greek Anthology [IX.58])

Mausoleum of Maussollos

The Tomb of Maussollos, Mausoleum of Maussollos or Mausoleum of Halicarnassus (in Greek, Μαυσωλεῖον Ἁλικαρνασσεύς, Μαυσωλεῖον τοῦ Ἁλικαρνασσοῦ (Ἀλικαρνασσοῦ)) was a tomb built between 353 and 350 BC at Halicarnassus (present Bodrum, Turkey) for Mausolus — a satrap in the Persian Empire — and Artemisia II of Caria, his wife and sister. The structure was designed by the Greek architects Satyrus and Pythius.^[1][2] It stood approximately 45 meters (135 feet) in height, and each of the four sides was adorned with sculptural reliefs created by each one of four Greek sculptors — Leochares, Bryaxis, Scopas of Paros and Timotheus.^[3] The finished structure was considered to be such an aesthetic triumph that Antipater of Sidon identified it as one of his Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The word mausoleum has since come to be used generically for any grand tomb, though "Mausol – eion" originally meant "[building] dedicated to Mausolus".

Colossus of Rhodes

The Colossus of Rhodes was a huge statue of the Greek god Helios, erected on the Greek island of Rhodes by Chares of Lindos between 292 and 280 BC. It was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Before its destruction, the Colossus of Rhodes stood over 30 meters (100 ft) high, making it the tallest statue of the ancient world.^[1]

Lighthouse of Alexandria

The lighthouse of Alexandria (or The Pharos of Alexandria, Greek: ὁ Φάρος τῆς Ἀλεξανδρείας) was a tower built in the 3rd century BC (between 285 and 247 BC) on the island of Pharos in Alexandria, Egypt to serve as that port's landmark, and later, its lighthouse.With a height variously estimated at between 115 ~ 150 meters (377 ~ 492 ft) it was among the tallest man-made structures on Earth for many centuries, and was identified as one of the Seven Wonders of the World by Antipater of Sidon. It was the third tallest building after the two Great Pyramids (of Khufu and Khafra) for its entire life. Some scholars estimate a much taller height exceeding 180 meters that would make the tower the tallest building up to the 14th century.