The seven wonders of the world are one of the most well known achievements of mankind. What we say the seven wonders of the world refer to some great sculptural, architectural, and landscaping achievements of the ancient world. These wonders were mentioned in many guidebooks of the 1^st and 2^nd century BC, and they referred just to the fantastic monuments around the Mediterranean basin. Recently, there have been made similar charts for the medieval and modern eras. Also, it is worth mentioning that the only wonder of the ancient world that is still relatively intact in our times is the Great Pyramid of Giza. So let’s see the whole list of all the monuments that were the original Seven Wonders of the Ancient world:

1.      The Pyramid Of Giza. It is the oldest of all the ancient wonders of the world, being built around 2560 BC. It also measured a staggeringly high 147 meters, which meant that this was the tallest man made structure in the world for the better part of 38 centuries. It also known to be the only pyramid that has both descending and ascending passages.

2.      The Hanging Gardens Of Babylon. This is an amazing achievement considering the time when it was built, around 600 BC.  This was said to be a complex of terraced gardens, which sat on huge vaults, built up in a shape of a theater. The total height of this complex was 30 meters. This is one of the least documented of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and it is one of the first to be destroyed, due to a series of earthquakes in the 2^nd century BC.

3.      Temple of Artemis. The story of the temple is unique within The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, because it seemed to be the one wonder that impressed Antipater of Sidon, the one who wrote the original guide of the Seven Wonders, the most. The temple was built and destroyed three times. The first reconstruction famously taking 120 years.

4.      The Statue Of Zeus. This was a statue that was made entirely of ivory and gold plated bronze. It was 12 meters high and it depicted Zeus standing on a throne made out of cedar wood, inlaid with precious stones, ivory, ebony and gold.  Zeus was holding in his right hand the statue of the goddess of victory Nike, and in his left a gold scepter on which an eagle is perched. The workshop where the statue was built was discovered after some archeological digs in Olympia in 1956. The workshop of Phidias has been a great opportunity to understand the tools and techniques used in making the sculpture.  

5.      Mausoleum of Halicarnassus. This temple was built for one of the great Persian rulers, Mausolus, and it was so spectacular that his name became synonymous with all stately tombs, mausoleums. Mausolus was a great admirer of Greek government and culture, and with the expansion of his kingdom in Asia Minor, he founded Greek like cities along the coast. To show of his power and wealth, him and his wife, who were siblings, this kind of incestuous behavior being tolerated and encouraged, to keep the wealth in the family, he used money gathered from high taxes inside his kingdom, to build the great city of Halicarnassus. The crowning achievement of this city was the great temple where the urns of its leaders where placed.

6.      Colossus of Rhodes. This monument was one of the biggest statues of the ancient world, measuring 30 meters. It was a statue dedicated to the Greek god Helios, and it was built in the harbor of the city of Rhodes, to celebrate the victory over the ruler of Cyprus. Some accounts place the statue on two different banks at the entrance of the harbor, as a sort of a gate, which would also show visitors the power of Rhodes. It was one of the most spectacular of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, but it lasted for less than a century, being destroyed by an earthquake.

7.      Lighthouse of Alexandria. This was one of the tallest structures of the ancient world, measuring 130 meters in height. It was built on the island of Pharos and linked to the port of Alexandria by a man-made structure. Some ancient accounts say that sailors could see the light from the lighthouse form 50 km away.

The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World are practically a celebration of the accomplishments of man kind. These structures defied belief, because of the humongous effort that was required to build them, and only in our modern era we can make assumptions about the kind of techniques and tools necessary for such a job. Even by today’s standards, the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World are still baffling.

Incoming search terms:

• seven wonders of ancient world
• seven ancient wonders of the world
• seven wonders of the ancient world unique stories
• techniques- seven ancient wonders
• who was the rulers while the seven wonders of the ancient world were being built

No related posts.