Seven+Wonders+of+the+ancient+word

The [|seven wonders of the ancient word] are:

**Pyramids of Giza**

This is one of the largest pyramids in the world and considered to be one of the great among the seven wonders of the world. There are actually 3 Pyramids located in this place along with a Sphinx. The biggest of all is The Great Pyramid of Khufu and this is the only one among the seven wonders of world. These architectural marvels are found in Giza City which is located at the northern edge of the Giza Plateau, about 10 miles west of present day Cairo.

This was supposed to be one of the most beautiful structures on the Earth. No wonder it got recognized as one of the seven wonders of the world. This is located on the west coast of modern Turkey, south of Selcuk county about 50 km south of Smyrna. This place was called as Ephesus during ancient times.  This temple was destroyed and rebuilt over several hundred years. This was first built during 800 BC near the river at Ephesus. The God Artemis in Ephesus is a goddess of fertility. In some instances Artemis is linked closely to the Roman and Italian goddess, Diana. She also is goddess of night, fruitfulness, childbirth, beasts, bull and is an eternal virgin. This earliest temple supposedly contained a sacred stone, probably fallen from Jupiter. 
 * Temple of Artemis**

This statue was located in the Harbor of the Mediterranean island Rhodes in Greece. The Island of Rhodes is located at the Southwestern tip of the Asia Minor, where the Aegean sea meets the Mediterranean. This is a statue of the Sun god, Helios. On the Island of Rhodes 3 cities Ialysos, Kamiros and Lindos formed a unified city with their capital as Rhodes. During the period around 408 BC they had strong economic and commercial alliance with Ptolemy I Soter of Egypt. In 357 B.C. this island was captured by Mausolus of Halicarnassus. It was then captured by Persians in 340 B.C. Then it fell into the hands of Alexander the Great in 332 B.C. After Alexander's death, 3 of his generals succeeded in dividing the kingdom for themselves. They are Ptolemy, Seleucus and Antigous. After this Rhodians supported Ptolemy which angered Antigous. Antagonids in 305 BC, wanted to break their alliance and tried invading Rhodes and found this city to be impenetrable. Antagonids were fighting for almost one full year. By this time the support for Rhodes have started coming in from Egypt. So Antagonids started withdrawing their forces and fled, leaving behind lots of their arms and ammunitions, which lead to the construction of one of the seven wonders of world. Rhodians sold some of those equipments and to celebrate their victory, erected a statue for their Sun God, Helios. Lot of the metals used in this construction came from the left off belongings of Antagonids. This is the Colossus of Rhodes, one of the seven wonders of world. The construction took 12 years and the stature was erected in 282 BC. During the earthquake at about 226 BC, this Colossus of Rhodes (statue) was damaged and fell down. When they planned to rebuild it, the idea was dropped because some Oracle said the city will face misfortune if this statue is rebuilt. That was the final chapter to the story of this wonder of the world.
 * Colossus of Rhodes** [[image:rhodes.jpg width="187" height="281" align="left"]]

 **Mausoleum at Halicarnassus** This Wonder of the World, wass located in the city of Bodrum, on the Aegan sea, in south-west Turkey. This is actually closer to the ancient Temple of Artemis. This Mausoleum was built in memory and as a burial tomb for the King Mausolus. King Mausolus was married to his sister Artemisia in his family. In those times, Caria rulers had a custom to marry their own sisters. When the king died, Artemisia decided to build this monument in his memory, which later found a place among the seven wonders of the world.

 **Statue of Zeus** Was located at Olympia the ancient Greek city.  In ancient times the Greek city states used to play games every 4 years. This is what is now called as Olympic games. During those times truce is declared and wars are stopped. Players and athletes from all over the places traveled to a place in Greece called Peloponnesus. These Olympic games were started during 776 BC. Incidentally this is the period when Green calendar starts. These Olympic games were held in honour of their King of gods, Zeus. He is also known as God of Jupiter. During the 5th century, they decided to have a temple for their king of gods and Libon was assigned the task of completing the work. Libon designed the temple and Pheidias was asked to build a big statue for Zeus. Pheidias had good techniques with him to build big statues. He used wooden frame to make the outer casings for the statues in gold. His workshop still remains and incidentally its size can accommodate building of such big statues. He built a statue of approximately 40 ft height. The statue was so high that, even while sitting the head of the god Zeus was near the roof of the temple. This is what amazed the historians and poets of those times. This simply illustrates that the god Zeus is so big that even if he stands, the whole roof would come off its place. Zeus was seated on a throne, draped in gold robe. Zeus had a wreath around his head and held a figure of his messenger in his right hand. The statue, one among the seven wonders of world was occasionally presented with gifts from rulers. The most notable one was the woolen curtain dedicated by the Syrian king. In the I century AD, Roman emperor Caligula tried to take the statue to Rome but failed. But before 5th century AD, wealthy Greeks have moved it to Constantinople which saved the statue for some more years. After that a severe fire has destroyed the statue. Even before this the temple site was ravaged by floods, landslides and earthquakes to the extent that the structure was badly damaged. Now the remnants of this statue, one among the seven wonders of world have gone without even a small trace except for the reproduction in some of the medieval coins.

**Hanging gardens of Babylon ** <span style="font-family: arial,helvetica;">This wonder of the world was located in the east bank of Euphrates, South of Baghdad in Iraq. <span style="font-family: arial,helvetica;"> <span style="font-family: arial,helvetica;">The King Hammurabi is the most famous king of the Babylonian kingdom. The whole kingdom flourished under his rule. His son Nebuchadnezzar is the one who built the Hanging gardens of Babylon, one of the Seven wonders of world. Nebuchadnezzar ruled the country for 43 years from 605 BC. He constructed impressive array of temples, palaces and streets. It is being told that he built this garden to please his wife, Amyitis. Amyitis, daughter of the king Medes seems to have had a passion for mountainous surroundings. There are some other accounts which say that this wonder of the world was actually built by the Assyrian Queen Semiramis. The ancient accounts of this hanging gardens (one of the seven wonders of the world) describes the structure to be a stairs like one. The Greek geographer Strabo, describes it as, "the garden consists of vaulted terraces raised one above another, and resting upon cube-shaped pillars. These are hollow and filled with earth to allow trees of the largest size to be planted. The pillars, the vaults, and terraces are constructed of baked brick and asphalt."

<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica;">**The lighthouse of Alexandria ** This was one of the useful wonders among all the seven wonders of the world (for the sailors to return to the Great Harbor). This is a small point that differentiates it from the rest of the wonders of the world. The mirror which was mounted on this lighthouse could reflect the light more than 35 miles off-shore. Of the 6 ancient destroyed wonders, this was the last to be destroyed around 1480 AD.<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica;"> Was located at one the ancient island of Pharos, now a promontory on the harbor of the city of Alexandria in Egypt. <span style="font-family: arial,helvetica;">This lighthouse was built around 280 BC and was around 134 m in height. This was built in the city of Alexandria.