Seven wonders of the ancient world

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Seven wonders of the ancient world Why seven? The Greeks thought that the number had mystical significance. Perhaps because it was the total of the known planets (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn) along with the Sun and Moon.

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Great pyramid of Gisa

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Between 2630 and 1640 , the Egyptian pharaohs erected tombs for themselves that were shaped like artificial mountains. The oldest pyramids were built by the rulers of the third dynasty; king Djoser was the first to pile several square tombs of decreasing size on top of each other, and created the first step pyramid. The true pyramid, which is a real triangle, was developed during the reign of Snofru , a king of the fourth dynasty. The famous pyramids of Cheops, Chefren , and Mycerinus at Gizeh were erected by Snofru's successors. Later generations built smaller monuments, but the large monuments of the fourth dynasty continued to impress the people. The pyramids are the only one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World that survives more or less intact.

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Hanging gardens of Babylon

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The Hanging Gardens were a distinctive feature of ancient Babylon. They were a great source of pride to the people. Possibly built by King Nebuchadnezzar II in 600 BC, the gardens are believed to have been a remarkable feat of engineering. The gardens were said to have looked like a large green mountain constructed of mud bricks. Traditionally they were said to have been built in the ancient city of Babylon, near present-day Hillah,Babil province, in Iraq. The Babylonian priest Berossus , writing in about 290 BC and quoted later by Josephus , attributed the gardens to the Neo-Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II, who ruled between 605 and 562 BC. There are no extant Babylonian texts which mention the gardens, and no definitive archaeological evidence has been found in Babylon . According to one legend, Nebuchadnezzar II built the Hanging Gardens for his Median wife, Queen Amytis , because she missed the green hills and valleys of her homeland. He also built a grand palace that came to be known as "The Marvel of the Mankind". Because of the lack of evidence it has been suggested that the Hanging Gardens are purely mythical, and the descriptions found in ancient Greek and Roman writers represent a romantic ideal of an eastern garden . If it did indeed exist, it was destroyed sometime after the first century AD .

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Temple of Artemis at Ephesus

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The Temple of Artemis or Artemision also known less precisely as the Temple of Diana, was a Greek temple dedicated to the goddess Artemis. It was located inEphesus (near the modern town of Selçuk in present-day Turkey). One of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, it was completely rebuilt three times before its eventual destruction in 401 AD . Only foundations and sculptural fragments of the latest of the temples at the site remain . The temple of Artemis in Ephesus was a very ancient sanctuary for a mother goddess who protected pregnant women. Many architectural pieces can now be seen in the British Museum; in Ephesus itself, of the 127 columns that once supported the roof of this wonderful building, only one remains.

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Statue of Zeus at Olympia

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The Statue of Zeus at Olympia was a giant seated figure, about 13 m tall, made by the Greek sculptor Phidias around 435 BC at the sanctuary of Olympia, Greece, and erected in the Temple of Zeus there. A sculpture of ivory plates and gold panels over a wooden framework, it represented the god Zeus sitting on an elaborate cedar wood throne ornamented with ebony, ivory, gold and precious stones. One of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World it was lost and destroyed during the 5th century AD with no copy ever being found, and details of its form are known only from ancient Greek descriptions and representations on coins.

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Mausoleum at Halicarnassus

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The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus or Tomb of Mausolus was a tomb built between 353 and 350 BC at Halicarnassus (present Bodrum , Turkey) for Mausolus , a satrap in the Persian Empire, and his sister-wife Artemisia II of Caria. The structure was designed by the Greek architects Satyros and Pythius of Priene . The Mausoleum was approximately 45 m in height, and the four sides were adorned with sculptural reliefs, each created by one of four Greek sculptors— Leochares , Bryaxis , Scopas of Paros and Timotheus . The finished structure of the mausoleum was considered to be such an aesthetic triumph that Antipater of Sidon identified it as one of his Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. It was destroyed by successive earthquakes from the 12th to the 15th century , the last surviving of the six destroyed wonders.

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Colossus of Rhodes

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The Colossus of Rhodes was a statue of the Greek titan-god of the sun Helios, erected in the city of Rhodes, on the Greek island of the same name, by Chares of Lindos in 280 BC. One of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, it was constructed to celebrate Rhodes' victory over the ruler of Cyprus, Antigonus I Monophthalmus , whose son unsuccessfully besieged Rhodes in 305 BC. Before its destruction in the earthquake of 226 BC, the Colossus of Rhodes stood over 30 metres high , making it one of the tallest statues of the ancient world .

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Lighthouse of Alexandria

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The Lighthouse of Alexandria, sometimes called the Pharos of Alexandria, was a lighthouse built by the Ptolemaic Kingdom between 280 and 247 BC which was between 393 and 450 ft (120 and 137 m) tall . One of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, it was one of the tallest man-made structures in the world for many centuries. Badly damaged by three earthquakes between AD 956 and 1323, it then became an abandoned ruin. It was the third longest surviving ancient wonder (after the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus and the extant Great Pyramid of Giza) until 1480, when the last of its remnant stones were used to build the Citadel of Qaitbay on the site. In 1994, French archaeologists discovered some remains of the lighthouse on the floor of Alexandria's Eastern Harbour . The Ministry of State of Antiquities in Egypt has planned, as of late 2015, to turn submerged ruins of ancient Alexandria, including those of the Pharos, into an underwater museum .