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| Hanging gardens of Babylon | Artemide Temple in Ephesos | Zeus statue in Olympia |
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7 Wonders of the Ancient World as seen on Hungarian poststamps (L.Dudas, Magyar Posta 1980) |
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| Mausoleum in Halikarnassos | © Janas, 18.09.2001 | Colossus of Rhodes |
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Data on 7 Wonders Golden Number |
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| Lighthouse of Alexandria | Great Pyramid of Giza |
As far as we know,
the idea to have a list of the most excited buildings appeared in the History by Herodot of Halicarnassos (appr.485-425 BC),
considered the father of histography.
It was propagated by Climaco de Cirene (305-240 BC).
He was the chef-librarian in Alexandria Library, he wrote about a collection of wonders of the world,
but his work is burnt in the fire destroying the Library.
The list of wonders got its today form in the Medieval Era. Their oldest images were engraved by the Dutch artist Maerten van Heemskerck (1498-1574) and were described in History of Achitecture. Its author, Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach (1656-1723) was an Austrian architect, sculptor, and architectural historian, his masterworks are Kollegienkirche in Salzburg (completed in 1696) and Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna (built in 1706-11).
7 Wonders of Antiquity (listed chronologically as constructed)
Great Pyramid of Giza
is the oldest and the only one surviving of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. It was built, probably under supervision of the architect Chemiun, from 2.3 million limestone blocks in c.2580-2560 BC for the pharaoh Khufu (Cheops) to serve him as a tomb (stored in the King's Chamber). Each side of this pyramid (then called Cheops' Horizon) is oriented to four basic directions: north, east, south and west. It is based on a square with the side length 230.3 m. It is 146.6 m high, the sloping angle of its sides is 51°51'. It makes that in the triangle built of the arms of this angle and by the heights one can find the Golden Number. So-called Ahmed Papyrus (written about 1650 BC) mentions that this number, then named the sacred ratio, was used in construction of the Great Pyramid. In 1859 English mathematician John Taylor first discovered that the relation of the perimeter of the Great Pyramid to its doubled height is 921.46/(2ˇ146.73) = 3.139985.. equal to the Pithagorian number pi.
The Hanging Gardens of Babylon
are situated on the east bank of the Euphrates River, about 50 km south of Bagdad, Iraq. They probably were started by King Nebuchadnezzar the Second (604-562 BC) to please Seramide - his wife or concubine. Some recent archeological works date its construction back by 100 years - to King Senaherib. Greek historicians (Berossus, Diodorus Siculus) described them, Alexander the Great was impressed by the gardens full of trees, animals and occasional temples.
The statue of Zeus at Olympia
(in Peloponesus Peninsula, about 150 km south-west of Athens), where Olympiad games took place (since 776 BC till 319 AD when the emperor Theodosius the First banned them). This majestic statue, 13 m high, was sculpted and carved (in parts, and then assembled) by Phidias (490-430 BC) some month before he dies. Even today Phidias is honoured as the greatest sculptor of the Greek classical period. He lived in the Golden Era when the town-state Athens were ruled, since 444 BC, by Pericles (c.500-429 BC). Phidias was the artistic director of the construction of Athenian Acropolis in 447-432, authored statues of Athena Parthenon (Athena the Virgin, 438 BC, 12 m high), Athena Promachos (Athena the Defender, 456 BC, 9 m high) and Athena Lemnia (Athena of the Lemnos Isle). It is believed that Phidias consciously applied the Golden Number when working on in its work. It was placed within the temple (designed by Libon and built around 450 BC). The emperor Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, known as Caligula, reigning Rome in 37-41 AD attempted to transport the statue to Rome. In the fifth century AD the statue had been transported to Constantinopole and here, in 462 AD, it was destroyed by a severe fire.
Artemidion, The Temple at Ephesus
(about 50 km south of Izmir, Turkey) was built to honour Artemis, the Greek godness of hunting, wild nature and fertility, in the seventh century BC. Its wonderful form in marble (with 127 columns of 20 m high) took around 550 BC by Lydian king Croesus' order, after Greek architect Chersiphron's design. In 356 BC this great structure (Ion dipteros, i.e. the temple with the main cult room having on its sides two rows of tall canalled columns, built on the rectangle plan 51 m wide and 111 m long) was burned to ground by a shoemaker Herostratus who started the fire only because he wanted to memorises his name. Alexander the Great (born on the same night July 21,356 BC, the Artemis Temple burnt) helped to rebuilt it. The next rebuilding took place after the destruction suffered from Goths in 262 AD. In 401 AD, when most Ephesians already converted to Christianity, was torn down by St.John Chrysostom (334-407), in 398-404 the Patriarch of Constantinopole.
Maussolleion, The Mausoleum at Halicarnassos
(today called Bodrum, Turkey) was the largest and most spectacular tomb ever built in Hellenistic times. Its name is derived from the name of King Mausollos. In 377-353 BC he was the Persian satrap of Caria, the mountainous area in south-west coast of Asia Minor. He projected to erect this monumental tomb-building, after his death his sister and wife in one, Artemisia, engaged the best architects of these times, Piteos and Satiros, and his idea has became true. For 16 centuries this huge object (about.40 m long, 30 m wide, 45 m high) remained in good condition until an earthquake caused some damage to the roof and colonnade. Till 1522 it has been disassembled by the Knights Hospitaller of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem (originated in eleventh century, in 1520 relocated to Malta and for this reason called also Maltese Order), they used the stones of Maussolleion to built its fortified crusader castle (which is still standing). Fortunately, some relieves and sculptures (craved by Bryaxis, Leochardes, Scopas and Timotheus) were left and waited under the soil and dust till 19th century when the excavations showed the remains of the temple. Some of them may be admired at the British Museum in London.
The Colossus of Rhodes Island
was 33 m tall statue of the Helios, the God of the Sun, standing over (or rather close to) the entrance to the Mandraki harbour. Its construction, after the project by Rhodesian sculptor Chares of Lindos, took 12 years and was completed in 282 BC. Only 56 years later, in 226 BC, it felt down because of the earthquake. The Egyptian monarch Ptolemy III Eurgetes declared to cover all the costs to restore the statue, but Rhodesians forbade the re-erection in effect of Gods' advises. For almost a millennium, the statue laid broken in ruins. In AD 654, the Arabs invaded Rhodes, disassembled the remains and sold them to a Jew from Syria.
The lighthouse of Alexandria
stood on the Pharos Island, now a promontory within the city of Alexandria founded by Ptolemy the First also named Soter (i.e. the Saviour). He assumed power in Egypt in 305 BC, shortly after the death of Alexander the Great, and turned Alexandria to be the capital of Egypt. Here he built famous Mouseion (a research centre, a kind of resident academy of arts and sciences or institute of advanced study, where poets, musicians, historians and scientists worked in various literary, philosophical and scientific disciplines), one its party was the splendid library named Bibliotheca Alexandrina (destroyed during Aurelian invasion in 273 AD). Ptolemy also initiated the erection of a lighthouse, which was finished under his son Ptolemy the Second also named Philadelphus. The architectonical project was made by Sostratos of Knidos, a contemporary of Euclid, detailed calculations were carried out at the Mouseion.
Till 19th century the lighthouse was the highest building of the world, it was about 117 m high (or maybe even 13 meters more). A statue of Poseidon, the God of Seas, adorned its summit. At its top stage the mirror reflected sunlight during the day, and the fire in the night. Its light could be seen more than 50 km off-shore. Although the mirror was brought down mistakenly, Arabs (who conquered Egypt in 641 AD) let the lighthouse be in service. In 1166 an Arab traveller, Abou-Haggag Al-Andaloussi visited the Lighthouse and left a wealth description of the structure. The earthquakes in 1302 affected the structure, the next one in 1323 felt it down. Stones and marbles of the lighthouse were used to built, at the place where the lighthouse stood, in 1480 an medieval fort and mosque, as ordered by Qaitbay, the Egyptian Mamelouk Sultan. by Adam Marlewski, 2001.09.17
The Pyramid is accompanied by several smaller ones. Two greatest of them were also erected by pharaohs of the Fourth Dynasty, namely by Khufu's son Chefren (Chafre), and grandson Mycerinnus. Chefren Pyramid is slightly smaller than Cheops Pyramid and lays between two other ones. All three great pyramids are situated as three brightest stars in the constellation of Orion (and this feeds the speculations on an extraterrestrial origin of the life on Earth).
Probably the statue of mysterious Sphinx (a laying lion with a human head) carved in a monolithic rock was also built under Chefren. This pharaoh's face served as a model to Sphinx's head.
In (at least) all European languages a monumental tomb in the form of a building, usually rich in decorations, is named by the word 'the mausoleum'. It is originated by the name of the king Mausollos.
Echoes of Rhodes Colossus may be found in the Statue of Liberty (46 m high) in New York designed by the French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi (1834-1904) and offered by French nation to Americans in 1886 for the first Centennial of Independence.
By a legend, the name Pharos is derived from its full name: Pharaoh's Isle. For centuries the lighthouse in Pharos was the model to numerous lighthouses on Mediterranean, the name Pharos survived in Romanian languages where the lighthouse is phare (in French) and faro (in Italian, Spanish and Portuguese).