The 7 wonders of the world

The seven wonders is the first known list of the most remarkable creations of classical antiquity. The list of seven wonders was made by  the historian Herodotus, and the scholar Callimachus of Cyrene at the Museum of Alexandria. The seven wonders of the ancient world includes Great Pyramid of Giza. It is the oldest and largest of the pyramids of Giza, Egypt. It is also the only one to remain largely intact. The next comes the hanging gardens of Babylon. It evoke a romantic picture of lush greenery and colorful flowers cascading from the sky.                                                          

 

 

 Statue of Zeus at Olympia comes next with a giant seated figure, about 13 m tall, made by the Greek sculptor Phidias.

 

 

 The Temple of Artemis or Artemision, also known less precisely as the Temple of Diana, was a Greek temple dedicated to the goddess Artemis which was included in the seven wonders.                                                                    

 

 

Another wonder is the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, a tomb built between 353 and 350 BC at Halicarnassus for Mausolus, a satrap in the Persian Empire, and his sister-wife Artemisia II of Caria. The sixth wonder is the Colossus of Rhodes which 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.  

 

 

The list ends with 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 120 and 137 m tall.                                                                                                              

 

 

The list of the seven wonders was revised during 2000-2007, which was an initiative started in 2000 to choose the wonders of the world from the existing monuments. The first that comes in the list is the Great Wall of China, a series of fortifications made of stone, brick, tamped earth, wood, and other materials, generally built along an east-to-west line across the historical northern borders.

 

 

Then comes Petra of Jordan, a famous archaeological site in Jordan’s southwestern desert. Dating to around 300 B.C., it was the capital of the Nabatean Kingdom.                                         

 

 

Third is The Colosseum which is also known as the Flavian Amphitheatre, an oval amphitheatre in the center of the city of Rome, Italy. Built of concrete and sand, it is the largest amphitheatre ever built. Chichen Itza which was a large pre-Columbian city built by the Maya people of the Terminal Classic period comes next in the list. The archaeological site is located in Tinúm Municipality.                                                                                                                       

Built in the 15th century and later abandoned, Machu Picchu is renowned for its sophisticated dry-stone walls that fuse huge blocks without the use of mortar, intriguing buildings that play on astronomical alignments and panoramic views. India’s Taj Mehal comes in the list due to its beauty of the ivory-white marble mausoleum. It was commissioned in 1632 by the Mughal emperor, Shah Jahan, to house the tomb of his favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal.

 

 

Ending with Christ the Redeemer which was created by French sculptor Paul Landowski and built by the Brazilian engineer Heitor da Silva Costa, in collaboration with the French engineer Albert Caquot.