Before there was the Taj Mahal in India or the Great Wall of China, the world had another set of wonders – the seven wonders of the ancient world.
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The original list of seven ancient wonders comes from a work by Philo of Byzantium, written in 225BC, called On the Seven Wonders. Although every one of the ancient wonders were spectacular feats of human ingenuity and ambition, none of the landmarks survived into the modern age, except one. Here, we highlight four of the seven ancient wonders:
1. Hanging Gardens of Babylon
According to ancient Greek poets, the Hanging Gardens were built near the Euphrates River in modern-day Iraq, by the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II in around 600BC. The gardens were planted as high as 75 feet in the air, on a massive square brick terrace, laid out in steps. The whole visual was like a theatre, built by the king for his love Amytis, who was homesick for the natural beauty of her home in Media. But modern scholars still debate over whether the Hanging Gardens truly existed. With no first-hand mention of the gardens anywhere in Babylonian cuneiform inscriptions, many believe it is a fictional tale.
2. Statue of Zeus
The famed statue of the Greek deity was crafted by Athenian sculptor Phidias and placed in the temple of Zeus at Olympia, the site of the ancient Olympics, around the 5th century BC. The statue depicted Zeus seated bare-chested on a wooden throne, with two carved sphinxes holding up the throne’s armrests. The statue was adorned with gold and ivory and was about 40 feet tall. The statue remained in Olympia for more than eight centuries before it was moved to Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul, Turkey), where it was destroyed by a fire in 462.
3. Colossus of Rhodes
Rhodians built an enormous bronze sculpture of the sun deity Helios for over 12 years in the third century BC. The city of Rhodes in Greece was under a Macedonian siege in early fourth century BC, and legend has it that the Rhodians sold the tools and equipment left behind by the Macedonians to play for the Colossus. Designed by the sculptor Chares, the statue was 100 feet tall – the tallest of the ancient world. It was completed around 280 BC and stood for 60 years until it was toppled by and earthquake. It was never rebuilt.
4. Lighthouse of Alexandria
On a small island called Pharos, near Alexandria, Egypt, Greek architect Sostratos designed a lighthouse that was completed around 270BC. During the reign of Ptolemy II, the lighthouse guided ships in and out of the city’s harbour, from the Nile River. Archaeologists have found ancient coins that depicted the lighthouse, and know that the structure had three tiers and a 16-foot statue above its highest level. The statue was most likely of Ptolemy II or Alexander the Great, after whom the city was named. The lighthouse was destroyed during a series of earthquakes and some of its remains have been found in the Nile.
The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, the Temple of Artemis at Epheseus and the Pyramids of Giza in Egypt complete the list of the seven ancient wonders of the world.
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