The Seven
Wonders of the Ancient World
See the famous Seven Wonders of the Ancient World: Walk
through the lush Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Climb the great Lighthouse at
Alexandria. Stand before the immense statue of Zeus at Olympia. Marvel at the
beauty of the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus...
The ancient Greeks loved to compile lists of the marvelous
structures in their world. Though we think of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient
World as a single list today, there were actually a number of lists compiled by
different Greek writers. Antipater of Sidon, and Philon of Byzantium, drew up
two of the most well-known lists.
Many of the lists agreed on six of the seven items. The final
place on some lists was awarded to the Walls of the City of Babylon. On
others, the Palace of Cyrus, king of Persia took the seventh position.
Finally, toward the 6th century A.D., the final item became the Lighthouse at
Alexandria.
Since the it was Greeks who made the lists it is not unusal that
many of the items on them were examples of Greek culture. The writers might have
listed the Great Wall of China if then had known about it, or
Stonehenge if they'd seen it, but these places were beyond the limits of
their world.
It is a surprise to most people to learn that not all the Seven
Wonders existed at the same time. Even if you lived in ancient times you would
have still needed a time machine to see all seven. While the Great Pyramid of
Egypt was built centuries before the rest and is still around today (it is
the only "wonder" still intact) most of the others only survived a few hundred
years or less. The Colossus of Rhodes stood only a little more than half
a century before an earthquake toppled it.
 The Great Pyramid and its surrounding complex soon after its completion (Copyright Lee Krystek, 2010) |
It's 756 feet long on each side, 450 feet high and is composed of
2,300,000 blocks of stone, each averaging 2 1/2 tons in weight. Despite the
makers' limited surveying tools, no side is more than 8 inches different in
length than another, and the whole structure is perfectly oriented to the points
of the compass. Even in the 19th century, it was the tallest building in the
world and, at the age of 4,500 years, it is the only one of the famous "Seven Wonders of the Ancient World" that still stands.
Even today it remains the most massive building on Earth. It is the Great
Pyramid of Khufu, at Giza, Egypt.
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Seven
Quick Facts
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| Location: Giza, Egypt |
| Built: Around 2560 BC |
| Function: Tomb of Pharoah Khufu |
| Destroyed: Still stands today. |
| Size: Height 480 ft. (146m) |
| Made of: Mostly limestone |
| Other: Tallest building in the world till 1311 AD and again from 1647 to 1874. |
Some of the earliest history of the Pyramid comes from a Greek the
historian and traveler Herodotus of Halicanassus. He visited Egypt around 450 BC
and included a description of the Great Pyramid in a history book he wrote.
Herodotus was told by his Egyptian guides that it took twenty years for a force
of 100,000 oppressed slaves to build the pyramid (with another 10 years to build
a stone causeway that connected it to a temple in the valley below). Stones were
lifted into position by the use of immense machines. The purpose of the
structure, according to Herodotus's sources, was as a tomb for the Pharaoh Khufu
(whom the Greeks referred to as Cheops).
Herodotus, a Greek from the democratic city of Athens, probably
found the idea of a single man employing such staggering wealth and effort on
his tomb an incredible act of egotism. He reported that even thousands of years
later the Egyptians still hated Khufu for the burden he had placed on the people
and could hardly bring themselves to speak his name.
The
three large pyramids at Giza: From left to right, Menkaure, Khafre, Khufu. The
far pyramid is the "Great Pyramid" and the largest structure on the site. The
middle one may look larger, but only because it is built on higher ground.
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However, Khufu's contemporary Egyptian subjects may have seen the
great pyramid in a different light. To them the pharaoh was not just a king, but
a living god who linked their lives with those of the immortals. The pyramid, as
an eternal tomb for the pharaoh's body, may have offered the people reassurance
of his continuing influence with the gods. The pyramid wasn't just a symbol of
regal power, but a visible link between earth and heaven.
Indeed, many of the stories Herodotus relates to us are probably
false. Engineers calculate that fewer men and less years were needed than
Herodotus suggests to build the structure. It also seems unlikely that slaves or
complicated machines were needed for the pyramid's
construction. It isn't surprising that the Greek historian got it wrong,
however. By the time he visited the site, the structure was already 20 centuries
old, and much of the truth about it was shrouded in the mists of history.
Certainly the idea that it was a tomb for a Pharaoh, though, seems
in line with Egyptian practices. For many centuries before and after the
construction of the Great Pyramid, the Egyptians had interned their dead
Pharaoh-Kings, whom they believed to be living Gods, in intricate tombs. Some
were above-ground structures, like the pyramid, others were cut in the rock
underground. All the dead leaders were outfitted with the many things it was
believed they would need in the afterlife to come. Many were buried with untold
treasures.
The Pyramid Complex
The Giza complex as it
looked in 1904 from Eduard Spelterini's
balloon.
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If we were to visit the location of the great pyramid when it was
just finished, it would look very different than we see it today. Originally,
the pyramid itself was encased in highly polished white limestone with a smooth
surface which is now gone. At the very top of the structure would have been a
capstone, which is also now missing. Some sources suggest that the capstone
might have been sheathed in gold. Between the white limestone and the golden cap
the pyramid would have made an impressive sight shining in the bright Egyptian
sun.
Around the base of the great pyramid were four smaller pyramids,
three of which still stand today. On the east side of the pyramid stood a now
missing Funerary temple. Running down the hill into the valley was a stone
causeway, which linked the Funerary temple with a temple in the valley. Around
the pyramid were six boat shaped pits that may have contained the hulls of
vessels that belonged to the pharaoh. Parts of one of these have been found and
reconstructed into a 147 foot long boat that today is enclosed next to the
pyramid in its own museum.
The other two large pyramids at Giza, the Pyramid of Khafre
(Khufu's son) and the Pyramid of Menkaure had not yet been built, so the Khufu's
pyramid and its associated structures stood alone, though surrounded by the
dwelling places and the graves of many of those that helped construct it.
   A cross-section of the Great Pyramid showing
the passageways.
(Copyright Lee Krystek
1997) |
Opening the Pyramid
Even in ancient times, thieves breaking into the sacred burial
places were a major problem and Egyptian architects became adept at designing
solutions to this problem. They built passageways that could be plugged with
impassable granite blocks; created secret, hidden rooms and made decoy chambers.
No matter how clever the designers became, however, robbers seemed to be even
smarter and with almost no exceptions, each of the great tombs of the Egyptian
Kings was plundered.
In 820 A.D. the Arab Caliph Abdullah Al Manum decided to make his
own search for the treasure of Khufu. He gathered a gang of workmen and, unable
to find the location of a reputed secret door, started burrowing into the side
of the monument. After a hundred feet of hard going they were about to give up
when they heard a heavy thud echo through the interior of the pyramid. Digging
in the direction of the sound, they soon came upon a passageway that descended
into the heart of the structure. On the floor lay a large block that had fallen
from the ceiling, apparently causing the noise they had heard. Back at the
beginning of the corridor they found the secret hinged door to the outside they
had missed.
Working their way down the passage they soon found themselves deep
in the natural stone below the pyramid. The corridor stopped descending and went
horizontal for about 50 feet, then ended in a blank wall. A pit extended
downward from there for about 30 feet, but it was empty. When the workmen
examined the fallen block they noticed a large granite plug above it. Cutting
through the softer stone around it they found another passageway that extended
up into the heart of the pyramid. As they followed this corridor upward, they
found several more granite blocks closing off the tunnel. In each case they cut
around them by burrowing through the softer limestone of the walls. Finally,
they found themselves in a low, horizontal passage that led to a small, square,
empty room. This became known as the "Queen's Chamber," though it seems unlikely
that it ever served that function.
The secret entrance
missed by the Caliph's men when searching for treasure. (Courtesy Olaf Tausch and Wikipedia Creative
Commons).
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Back at the junction of the ascending and descending passageways,
the workers noticed an open space in the ceiling. Climbing up they found
themselves in a high-roofed, ascending passageway. This became known as the
"Grand Gallery." At the top of the gallery was a low, horizontal passage that
led to a large room, some 34 feet long, 17 feet wide, and 19 feet high. It
became known as the "King's Chamber." In the center was a huge granite
sarcophagus without a lid. Otherwise the room was completely empty.
The Missing Treasure
The Arabs, as if in revenge for the missing treasure, stripped the
pyramid of its fine white limestone casing and used it for building in Cairo.
They even attempted to disassemble the great pyramid itself, but after removing
the top 30 feet of stone, they gave up on this impossible task.
So what happened to the treasure of King Khufu? Conventional
wisdom says that, like so many other royal tombs, the pyramid was the victim of
robbers in ancient times. If we believe the accounts of Manum's men, though, the
granite plugs that blocked the passageways were still in place when they entered
the tomb. How did the thieves get in and out?
In 1638 an English mathematician, John Greaves, visited the
pyramid. He discovered a narrow shaft, hidden in the wall that connected the
Grand Gallery with the descending passage. Both ends were tightly sealed and the
bottom was blocked with debris. Some archaeologists have suggested this route
was used by the last of the Pharaoh's men to exit the tomb after the granite
plugs had been put in place and by the thieves to get inside. Given the small
size of the passageway and the amount of debris it seems unlikely that the
massive amount of treasure, including the huge missing sarcophagus lid, could
have been removed this way, however.
Construction
Scientists have long argued about how this massive structure was
built, but the most likely theory seems to be that the Egyptians built a huge
ramp that allowed them to drag the blocks into position. Because a single
straight ramp (as seen in the recent movie 10,000B.C.) would have to be
over a half mile long to reach the top and would need to contain as much
material as the pyramid itself, engineers have suggested that the ramp was in
the shape of a spiral running around the outside of the pyramid. Alternately the
Egyptians may have combined a straight ramp that ran part way up the pyramid
with a spiral ramp to the very top levels. Blocks were probably dragged up the
ramp by a team of men and put into their final position through the use of
levers (For more information on the construction of the Great Pyramid, see our
page How to Build a Pyramid).
French architect Jean-Pierre Houdin advanced the theory that a
spiral ramp was used on the inside of the pyramid to move the stone blocks.
According to Houdin a straight external ramp was used to get materials to the
140 foot level. From there workers dragged the stones through a set of gently
rising tunnels just inside the outer walls. The last tunnel would exit on the
monument's top. A 1986 microgravity survey of the pyramid discovered a peculiar
anomaly: a less-dense structure in the form of a spiral within the pyramid that
may turn out to be what is left of Houdin's tunnels.
A project management group that studied the problem of building
the Great Pyramid estimated that the project, using material and methods
available at the time, might have required less than ten years to complete: Two
or three years site preparation, five years of actual construction and two years
to remove the ramps and put on the finishing touches. This could have been done
with an average work force of less than 14,000 laborers and a peak force of
40,000. By examining the ruins of dwellings and workshops in the area,
archeologists have estimated between 4,000 and 5,000 of these men were full-time
workers committed to the project through most of the construction.
Workers complete one
of the smaller pyramids on the eastern side of the Great Pyramid (Copyright Lee Krystek,
1999).
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Egyptian records indicate that the laborers, while being drafted
against their will, were actually well cared for by ancient standards.
Regulations have been found covering the maximum amount of work allowed per day,
the wages received and holidays each worker was entitled to. Also, by scheduling
most of the work to be done during annual flood periods, the Pharaoh could get a
lot done without impacting the normal Egyptian economy.
Was the Pyramid a
Tomb?
Some have suggested that the pyramid was never meant as a tomb,
but as an astronomical observatory. The Roman author Proclus, in fact, states
that before the pyramid was completed it did serve in this function. We can't
put too much weight on Proclus words, though, remembering that when he advanced
his theory the pyramid was already over 2000 years old.
Richard Proctor, an astronomer, did observe that the descending
passage could have been used to observe the transits of certain stars. He also
suggested that the grand gallery, when open at the top during construction,
could have been used for mapping the sky.
Many strange (and some silly) theories have arisen over the years
to explain the pyramid and its passageways. Most archaeologists, however, accept
the theory that the great pyramid was just the largest of a tradition of tombs
used for the Pharaohs of Egypt.
Khufu's pyramid as it
appeared in 2005. (Courtesy Nina Aldin Thune and Creative
Commons)
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So what happened to Khufu's mummy and treasure? Nobody knows.
Extensive explorations have found no other chambers or passageways. Still one
must wonder if, perhaps in this one case, the King and his architects outsmarted
both the ancient thieves and modern archaeologists and that somewhere in, or
below, the last wonder of the ancient world, rests Khufu and his sacred
gold.
The Hanging Gardens of Babylon
Some stories indicate
the Hanging Gardens towered hundreds of feet into the air, but archaeological
explorations indicate a more modest, but still impressive, height.
(Copyright Lee Krystek,
1998)
The city of Babylon, under King Nebuchadnezzar II, must have been
a wonder to the ancient traveler's eyes. "In addition to its size," wrote
Herodotus, a Greek historian in 450 BC, "Babylon surpasses in splendor any city
in the known world."
Herodotus claimed the outer walls were 56 miles in length, 80 feet
thick and 320 feet high. Wide enough, he said, to allow two four-horse chariots
to pass each other. The city also had inner walls which were "not so thick as
the first, but hardly less strong." Inside these double walls were fortresses
and temples containing immense statues of solid gold. Rising above the city was
the famous Tower of Babel, a temple to the god Marduk, that seemed to reach to
the heavens.
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Seven
Quick Facts
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| Location: City State of Babylon (Modern Iraq) |
| Built: Around 600 BC |
| Function: Royal Gardens |
| Destroyed: Earthquake, 2nd Century BC |
| Size: Height probably 80 ft. (24m) |
| Made of: Mud brick waterproofed with lead. |
| Other: Only wonder whose archaeological remains cannot be verified. |
While archaeological excavations have disputed some of Herodotus's
claims (the outer walls seem to be only 10 miles long and not nearly as high)
his narrative does give us a sense of how awesome the features of the city
appeared to those ancients that visited it. Strangely, however, one of the
city's most spectacular sites is not even mentioned by Herodotus: The Hanging
Gardens of Babylon, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
Gift for A Homesick
Wife
Accounts indicate that the garden was built by King
Nebuchadnezzar, who ruled the city for 43 years starting in 605 BC (There is an
alternative story that the gardens were built by the Assyrian Queen Semiramis
during her five year reign starting in 810 BC). This was the height of the
city's power and influence and King Nebuchadnezzar is known to have constructed
an astonishing array of temples, streets, palaces and walls.
According to accounts, the gardens were built to cheer up
Nebuchadnezzar's homesick wife, Amyitis. Amyitis, daughter of the king of the
Medes, was married to Nebuchadnezzar to create an alliance between the two
nations. The land she came from, though, was green, rugged and mountainous, and
she found the flat, sun-baked terrain of Mesopotamia depressing. The king
decided to relieve her depression by recreating her homeland through the
building of an artificial mountain with rooftop gardens.
The Hanging Gardens
were said to have been built to please King Nebuchadnezzar's wife, Amyitis.
(Copyright Lee Krystek, 2010)
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The Hanging Gardens probably did not really "hang" in the sense of
being suspended from cables or ropes. The name comes from an inexact translation
of the Greek word kremastos, or the Latin word pensilis, which
means not just "hanging", but "overhanging" as in the case of a terrace or
balcony.
The Greek geographer Strabo, who described the gardens in first
century BC, wrote, "It 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."
"The ascent to the highest story is by stairs, and at their side
are water engines, by means of which persons, appointed expressly for the
purpose, are continually employed in raising water from the Euphrates into the
garden."
The Water Problem
Strabo touches on what, to the ancients, was probably the most
amazing part of the garden. Babylon rarely received rain and for the garden to
survive, it would have had to been irrigated by using water from the nearby
Euphrates River. That meant lifting the water far into the air so it could flow
down through the terraces, watering the plants at each level. This was an
immense task given the lack of modern engines and pressure pumps in the fifth
century B.C.. One of the solutions the designers of the garden may have used to
move the water, however, was a "chain pump."
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VIDEO: A Gift Fit for
A Queen: The Hanging Gardens
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A chain pump is two large wheels, one above the other, connected
by a chain. On the chain are hung buckets. Below the bottom wheel is a pool with
the water source. As the wheel is turned, the buckets dip into the pool and pick
up water. The chain then lifts them to the upper wheel, where the buckets are
tipped and dumped into an upper pool. The chain then carries the empty buckets
back down to be refilled.
The pool at the top of the gardens could then be released by gates
into channels which acted as artificial streams to water the gardens. The pump
wheel below was attached to a shaft and a handle. By turning the handle, slaves
provided the power to run the contraption.
An alternate method of getting the water to the top of the gardens
might have been a screw pump. This device looks like a trough with one end in
the lower pool from which the water is taken with the other end overhanging an
upper pool to which the water is being lifted. Fitting tightly into the trough
is a long screw. As the screw is turned, water is caught between the blades of
the screw and forced upwards. When it reaches the top, it falls into the upper
pool.
Turning the screw can be done by a hand crank. A different design
of screw pump mounts the screw inside a tube, which takes the place of the
trough. In this case the tube and screw turn together to carry the water upward.
Screw pumps are very efficient ways of moving water and a number
of engineers have speculated that they were used in the Hanging Gardens. Strabo
even makes a reference in his narrative of the garden that might be taken as a
description of such a pump. One problem with this theory, however, is that there
seems to be little evidence that the screw pump was around before the Greek
engineer Archimedes of Syracuse supposedly invented it around 250 B.C., more
than 300 years later.
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VIDEO:
Screw pump vs. chain pump. Copyright Lee Krystek, 2011.
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Garden Construction
Construction of the garden wasn't only complicated by getting the
water up to the top, but also by having to avoid having the liquid ruining the
foundations once it was released. Since stone was difficult to get on the
Mesopotamian plain, most of the architecture in Babel utilized brick. The bricks
were composed of clay mixed with chopped straw and baked in the sun. These were
then joined with bitumen, a slimy substance, which acted as a mortar.
Unfortunately, because of the materials they were made of, the bricks quickly
dissolved when soaked with water. For most buildings in Babel this wasn't a
problem because rain was so rare. However, the gardens were continually exposed
to irrigation and the foundation had to be protected.
Diodorus Siculus, a Greek historian, stated that the platforms on
which the garden stood consisted of huge slabs of stone (otherwise unheard of in
Babel), covered with layers of reed, asphalt and tiles. Over this was put "a
covering with sheets of lead, that the wet which drenched through the earth
might not rot the foundation. Upon all these was laid earth of a convenient
depth, sufficient for the growth of the greatest trees. When the soil was laid
even and smooth, it was planted with all sorts of trees, which both for
greatness and beauty might delight the spectators."
How big were the gardens? Diodorus tells us they were about 400
feet wide by 400 feet long and more than 80 feet high. Other accounts indicate
the height was equal to the outer city walls, walls that Herodotus said were 320
feet high.
An
interpretation of the gardens by the 16th century Dutch artist Martin
Heemskerck.
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In any case the gardens were an amazing sight: A green, leafy,
artificial mountain rising off the plain. But did it actually exist? Some
historians argue that the gardens were only a fictional creation because they do
not appear in a list of Babylonian monuments composed during the period. Either
that or they were mixed up with another set of gardens built by King Sennacherib
in the city of Nineveh around 700 B.C.. Is it possible that Greek scholars who
wrote the accounts about the Babylon site several centuries later confused these
two different locations? If the gardens really were in Babylon, can the remains
be found to prove their existance?
Archaeological Search
These were probably some of the questions that occurred to German
archaeologist Robert Koldewey in 1899. For centuries the ancient city of Babel
had been nothing but a mound of muddy debris never explored by scientists.
Though unlike many ancient locations, the city's position was well-known,
nothing visible remained of its architecture. Koldewey dug on the Babel site for
some fourteen years and unearthed many of its features including the outer
walls, inner walls, foundation of the Tower of Babel, Nebuchadnezzar's palaces
and the wide processional roadway which passed through the heart of the city.
While excavating the Southern Citadel, Koldewey discovered a
basement with fourteen large rooms with stone arch ceilings. Ancient records
indicated that only two locations in the city had made use of stone, the north
wall of the Northern Citadel, and the Hanging Gardens. The north wall of the
Northern Citadel had already been found and had, indeed, contained stone. This
made Koldewey think that he had found the cellar of the gardens.
He continued exploring the area and discovered many of the
features reported by Diodorus. Finally, a room was unearthed with three large,
strange holes in the floor. Koldewey concluded this had been the location of the
chain pumps that raised the water to the garden's roof.
The foundations that Koldewey discovered measured some 100 by 150
feet. This was smaller than the measurements described by ancient historians,
but still impressive.
While Koldewey was convinced he'd found the gardens, some modern
archaeologists call his discovery into question, arguing that this location is
too far from the river to have been irrigated with the amount of water that
would have been required. Also, tablets recently found at the site suggest that
the location was used for administrative and storage purposes, not as a pleasure
garden.
The
ruins of the city of Babylon in 1932.
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If they did exist, what happened to the gardens? There is a report
that they were destroyed by an earthquake in the second century B.C.. If so, the
jumbled remains, mostly made of mud-brick, probably slowly eroded away with the
infrequent rains.
Whatever the fate of the gardens were, we can only wonder if Queen
Amyitis was happy with her fantastic present, or if she continued to pine for
the green mountains of her distant homeland.
The Statue of Zeus at Olympia
The statue of Zeus in
the temple at Olympia stood more than 40 feet high
  (Copyright Lee
Krystek, 2011) |
In ancient times one of the Greeks most mportant festivals, the
Olympic Games, was held every four years in honor of the King of their gods,
Zeus. Like our modern Olympics, athletes traveled from distant lands, including
Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt and Sicily, to compete. The Olympics were first started
in 776 B.C. and held at a shrine to Zeus located on the western coast of Greece
in a region called Peloponnesus. The games helped to unify the Greek city-states
and a sacred truce was declared. Safe passage was given to all traveling to the
site, called Olympia, for the season of the games.
The Temple at Olympia
The site consisted of a stadium - where the competitions were
actually done - and a sacred grove, or Altis, where a number of temples were
located. The shrine to Zeus here was simple in the early years, but as time went
by and the games increased in importance, it became obvious that a new, larger
temple, one worthy of the King of the gods, was needed. Between 470 and 460
B.C., construction on a new temple was started. The designer was Libon of Elis
and his masterpiece, The Temple of Zeus, was completed in 456 B.C..
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Seven Quick
Facts
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| Location: Peloponnesus (Modern Greece) |
| Built: Around 432 BC |
| Function: Shine to Greek God Zeus |
| Destroyed: Fire 5th Century A.D. |
| Size: Height around 40 ft. (12m) |
| Made of: Ivory and gold-plated plates on wooden frame. |
| Other: Remains of the workshop where it was built was found during an excavation in the 1950's |
This temple followed a design used on many large Grecian temples.
It was similar to the Parthenon in Athens and the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus.
The temple was built on a raised, rectangular platform. Thirteen large columns
supported the roof along the sides and six supported it on each end. A
gently-peaked roof topped the building. The triangles, or "pediments," created
by the sloped roof at the ends of the building were filled with sculpture. Under
the pediments, just above the columns, was more sculpture depicting the twelve
labors of Heracles, six on each end of the temple.
Though the temple was considered one of the best examples of the
Doric design because of its style and the quality of the workmanship, it was
decided the temple alone was too simple to be worthy of the King of the gods. To
remedy this, a statue was commissioned for the interior. It would be a
magnificent statue of Zeus that would become one of the Seven Wonders of the
Ancient World.
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Another artist
interpretation of the Statue of Zeus.
 
(Copyright Lee Krystek,
1998) |
A Statue Worthy of
the King of the Gods
The sculptor chosen for this great task was a man named Phidias.
He had already rendered a forty-foot high statue of the goddess Athena for the
Parthenon in Athens and had also done much of the sculpture on the exterior of
that temple. After his work in Athens was done, Phidias traveled to Olympia
around 432 B.C. to start on what was to be considered his best work, the statue
of Zeus. On arriving he set up a workshop to the west of the temple. He would
take the next 12 years to complete the project.
According to accounts, the statue when finished was located at the
western end of the temple. It was 22 feet wide and more than 40 feet tall. The
figure of Zeus was seated on an elaborate throne. His head nearly grazed the
roof. The historian Strabo wrote, "...although the temple itself is very large,
the sculptor is criticized for not having appreciated the correct proportions.
He has depicted Zeus seated, but with the head almost touching the ceiling, so
that we have the impression that if Zeus moved to stand up he would unroof the
temple..."
The Lincoln Memorial
with its single large statue and columns probably is very much like the temple
of Zeus except the statue of the King of the Gods was more than double the
height of Lincoln.
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Others who viewed that temple disagreed with Strabo and found the
proportions very effective in conveying the god's size and power. By filling
nearly all the available space, the statue was made to seem even larger than it
really was.
Philo of Byzantium, who wrote about all of the wonders, was
certainly impressed. "Whereas we just wonder at the other six wonders, we kneel
in front of this one in reverence, because the execution of the skill is as
incredible as the image of Zeus is holy…"
In 97 A.D. another visitor Dio Crysostomos declared the image was
so powerful that, "If a man, with a heavy heart from grief and sorrow in life,
will stand in front of the statue, he will forget all these."
In his right hand the statue held the figure of Nike (the goddess
of victory) and in its left was a scepter "inlaid with every kind of metal..."
which was topped with an eagle. Perhaps even more impressive than the statue
itself was the throne made out of gold, ebony, ivory and inlaid with precious
stones. Carved into the chair were figures of Greek gods and mystical animals,
including the half man/half lion sphinx.
Construction of the
Statue
An engraving made by
Philippe Galle in 1572 was his interpretation of the statue and its associated
temple.
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The figure's skin was composed of ivory and the beard, hair and
robe of gold. Construction was by a technique known as chryselephantine where
gold-plated bronze and ivory sections were attached to a wooden frame. Because
the weather in Olympia was so damp, the statue required care so that the
humidity would not crack the ivory. It is said that for centuries the decedents
of Phidias held the responsibility for this maintenance. To keep it in good
shape the statue was constantly treated with olive oil kept in a special
reservoir in the floor of the temple that also served as a reflecting pool.
Light reflected off the pool from the doorway may also have had the effect of
illuminating the statue.
The Greek traveler Pausanias recorded that when the statue was
finally completed, Pheidias asked Zeus for a sign that the work was to his
liking. The god replied by touching the temple with a thunderbolt that did no
damage. According to the account a bronze hydria (water vessel) was placed at
the spot where the thunderbolt hit the structure.
Besides the statue, there was little inside the temple. The Greeks
preferred the interior of their shrines to be simple. The feeling it gave was
probably very much like the Lincoln Memorial or Jefferson Memorial with their
lofty marble columns and single, large statues. However with a height greater
than 40 feet, the statue of Zesus was more than twice as tall as Lincoln's
likeness at his memorial on the mall in Washington D.C..
Copies of the statue were made, but none survive, though pictures
found on coins give researchers clues about its appearance.
A 1908 artist's
conception of the temple at Olympia in Greece.
|
Despite his magnificent work at Olympia, Phidias ran into trouble
when he returned home. He was a close friend with Pericles, who ruled the
Athens. Enemies of Pericles, unable to strike at the ruler directly, attacked
his friends instead. Phidias was accused of stealing gold meant for the statue
of Athena. When that charge failed to stick, they claimed he had carved his
image, and that of Pericles into the sculpture found on the Parthenon. This
would have been improper in the Greeks' eyes and Phidias was thrown into jail
where he died awaiting trial.
His masterpiece lived on, however. It was damaged in an earthquake
in 170 B.C. and repaired. However, much of its grandeur was probably lost after
Emperor Constantine decreed that gold be stripped from all pagan shrines after
he converted to Christianity in the early fourth century A.D.. Then in 392 A.D.
the Olympics were abolished by Emperor Theodosius I of Rome, a Christian who saw
the games as a pagan rite. After that according to the Byzantine historian
Georgios Kedrenos, the statue was moved by a wealthy Greek named Lausus to the
city of Constantinople where it became part of his private collection of
classical art. It is believed that the remains of the statue were destroyed by a
fire that swept the city in 475 A.D.. However, other sources say the statue was
still at the Olympic Temple when it burned down in 425 A.D..
Modern
Excavations
The first archaeological work on the Olympia site was done by a
group of French scientists in 1829. They were able to locate the outlines of the
temple and found fragments of the sculpture showing the labors of Heracles.
These pieces were shipped to Paris where they are still on display today at the
Louvre.
The next expedition came from Germany in 1875 worked at Olympia
for five summers. Over that period they were able to map out most of the
buildings there, discovered more fragments of the temple's sculpture, and
located the remains of the pool in the floor that contained the oil for the
statue.
In the 1950's an excavation uncovered the workshop of Phidias
which was discovered beneath an early Christian Church. Archaeologists found
sculptor's tools, a pit for casting bronze, clay molds, modeling plaster and
even a portion of one of the elephant's tusks which had supplied the ivory for
the statue. Many of the clay molds, which had been used to shape the gold
plates, bore serial numbers which must have been used to show the place of the
plates in the design.
A 19th century
expedition poses on the jumbled ruins of the Temple of
Zeus.
|
Today the stadium at the site has been restored. Little is left of
the temple, though, except a few jumbled columns on the ground. Of the statue,
which was perhaps the most wonderful work at Olympia, all is now completely
gone.
The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus
 "I have seen the walls and Hanging Gardens of ancient Babylon, the statue of Olympian Zeus, the Colossus of Rhodes, the mighty work of the high Pyramids and the tomb of Mausolus. But when I saw the temple at Ephesus rising to the clouds, all these other wonders were put in the shade"- Philon of Byzantium (Copyright Lee Krystek, 2010)
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|
Seven
Quick Facts
|
| Location: Ephesus (Present day Turkey) |
| Built: Around 323 BC |
| Function: Temple to Goddess Artemis |
| Destroyed: 262 AD by Goths |
| Size: Length 425 ft. (129m) |
| Made of: Mostly marble |
| Other: Largest in a series of temples to Artemis on this site. |
"It was called that once. Now it is named Ayasalouk."
"Well, where is your bay? Where are the trading ships? And where is the magnificent Greek temple that we have heard about?"
Now it is the man's turn to be confused. "Temple? What temple, Sir? We have no temple here..."
And so 800 years after its destruction, the magnificent Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, had been completely forgotten by the people of the town that had once held it in such pride.
And there is no doubt that the temple was indeed magnificent. "I have seen the walls and Hanging Gardens of ancient Babylon," wrote Philon of Byzantium, "the statue of Olympian Zeus, the Colossus of Rhodes, the mighty work of the high Pyramids and the tomb of Mausolus. But when I saw the temple at Ephesus rising to the clouds, all these other wonders were put in the shade."
An 18th century
engraving of the goddess Artemis of
Ephesus.
|
The Shrine to the Goddess Artemis
The first shrine to the Goddess Artemis was probably built around 800 B.C. on a marshy strip near the river at Ephesus. The Ephesus goddess Artemis, sometimes called Diana, is not quite the same figure as was worshiped in Greece. The Greek Artemis was the goddess of the hunt. The Ephesus Artemis was a goddess of fertility and was often pictured as draped with eggs or multiple breasts, symbols of fertility, from her waist to her shoulders.
That earliest temple contained a sacred stone, probably a meteorite, that had "fallen from Jupiter." The shrine was destroyed and rebuilt several times over the next few hundred years. By 600 B.C., the city of Ephesus had become a major port of trade and an architect named Chersiphron was engaged to build a new, larger temple. He designed it with high stone columns. Concerned that carts carrying the columns might get mired in the swampy ground around the site, Chersiphron laid the columns on their sides and had them rolled to where they would be erected.
This temple didn't last long. According to one story in 550 B.C., King Croesus of Lydia conquered Ephesus and the other Greek cities of Asia Minor and during the fighting, the temple was destroyed. An archeological examination of the site, however, suggests that a major flood hit the temple site at about the same time and may have been the actual cause of the destruction. In either case, the victorious Croesus proved himself a gracious new ruler by contributing generously to the building of a replacement temple.
This next temple dwarfed those that had come before it. The architect is thought to be a man named Theodorus. Theodorus's temple was 300 feet in length and 150 feet wide with an area four times the size of the previous temple. More than one hundred stone columns supported a massive roof. One unusual feature of the temple was that a number of columns had bases that were carved with figures in relief.
One of the column
bases with carved figures preserved at the British
Museum.
|
One of the legends that grew up about the great fire was that the night that the temple burned was the very same night that Alexander the Great was born. According to the story, the goddess Artemis was so preoccupied with Alexander's safe birth she was unable to save her own temple from its fiery destruction.
Construction of the Great Temple
Shortly after the fire, a new temple was commissioned. The architect was Scopas of Paros, one of the most famous sculptors of his day. By this point Ephesus was one of the greatest cities in Asia Minor and no expense was spared in the reconstruction. According to Pliny the Elder, a Roman historian, the new temple was a "wonderful monument of Grecian magnificence, and one that merits our genuine admiration."
The temple was built in the same wet location as before. To prepare the ground, Pliny recorded that "layers of trodden charcoal were placed beneath, with fleeces covered with wool upon the top of them." Pliny also noted that one of the reasons the builders kept the temple on its original marshy location was that they reasoned it would help protect the structure from the earthquakes which plagued the region.
   Another artist's conception of the temple
(Copyright Lee Krystek
1998) |
Pliny recorded the length of this new temple at 425 feet and the width at 225 feet. Some 127 columns, 60 feet in height, supported the roof. In comparison the Parthenon, the remains of which still stand on the Acropolis in Athens today, was only 230 feet long, 100 feet wide and had 58 columns.
According to Pliny, construction took 120 years, though some experts suspect it may have only taken half that time. We do know that when Alexander the Great came to Ephesus in 333 B.C., the temple was still under construction. He offered to finance the completion of the temple if the city would credit him as the builder. The city fathers didn't want Alexander's name carved on the temple, but didn't want to tell him that. They finally gave the tactful response: "It is not fitting that one god should build a temple for another god" and Alexander didn't press the matter.
Pliny reported that earthen ramps were employed to get the heavy stone beams perched on top of the columns. This method seemed to work well until one of the largest beams was put into position above the door. It went down crookedly and the architect could find no way to get it to lie flat. He was beside himself with worry about this until he had a dream one night in which the Goddess herself appeared to him saying that he should not be concerned. She herself had moved the stone into the proper position. The next morning the architect found that the dream was true. During the night the beam had settled into its proper place.
Christianity Brings an End to Artemis Worship
The theater at Ephesus
where a riot nearly started in 57 A.D. over St. Paul's evangelism in the city.
(Licensed through Wikipedia Commons courtesy Norman
Herr)
|
St. Paul came to the city to win converts to the then new religion of Christianity. He was so successful that Demetrius feared the people would turn away from Artemis and he would lose his livelihood. He called others of his trade together with him and gave a rousing speech ending with "Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!" They then seized two of Paul's companions and a near riot followed during a meeting at the city theater. Eventually, however, the city was quieted, the men released and Paul left for Macedonia.
It was Paul's Christianity that won out in the end, though. By the time the great Temple of Artemis was destroyed during a raid by the Goths in 268 A.D., both the city and the religion of Artemis were in decline. The temple was rebuilt again, but in 391 it was closed by the Roman Emperor Theodosius the Great after he made Christianity the state religion. The temple itself was destroyed by a Christian mob in 401 and the stoned was recycled into other buildings. When the Roman Emperor Constantine rebuilt much of Ephesus a century later, he declined to restore the temple. He too had become a Christian and had little interest in pagan religions.
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Video: The Holocaust
at the Temple at Ephesus
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Excavations to Find the Remains
In 1863 the British Museum sent John Turtle Wood, an architect, to search for the temple. Wood met with many obstacles. The region was infested with bandits. Workers were hard to find. His budget was too small. Perhaps the biggest difficulty was that he had no idea where the temple was located. He searched for the temple for six years. Each year the British Museum threatened to cut off his funding unless he found something significant, and each year he convinced them to fund him for just one more season.
Wood kept returning to the site each year many despite hardships. During his first season he was thrown from a horse, breaking his collar bone. Two years later he was stabbed within an inch of his heart during an assassination attempt upon the British Consul in Smyrna.
Finally in 1869, at the bottom of a muddy twenty-foot deep test pit, his crew struck the base of the great temple. Wood then excavated the whole foundation removing 132,000 cubic yards of the swamp to leave a hole some 300 feet wide and 500 feet long. The remains of some of the sculptured portions of the temple were found and shipped to the British Museum where they can be viewed today.
The site of the temple
today (Licensed through Wikipedia Commons courtesy Adam
Carr)
|
Today the site of the temple near the modern town of Selçuk is only a marshy field. A single column has been erected to remind visitors that once there stood in this place one of the wonders of the ancient world
The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus
 The Mausoleum at the ancient city of
Halicarnassus was the tomb of the king, Mausolus. (Copyright Lee
Krystek, 2011) |
In 377 B.C., the city of Halicarnassus was the capitol of a small
kingdom along the Mediterranean coast of Asia Minor. It was in that year the
ruler of this land, Hecatomnus of Mylasa, died and left control of the kingdom
to his son, Mausolus. Hecatomnus, a local satrap to the Persians, had been
ambitious and had taken control of several of the neighboring cities and
districts. Then Mausolus during his reign extended the territory even further so
that it eventually included most of southwestern Asia Minor.
Mausolus, with his queen Artemisia, ruled over Halicarnassus and
the surrounding territory for 24 years. Though he was descended from the local
people, Mausolus spoke Greek and admired the Greek way of life and government.
He founded many cities of Greek design along the coast and encouraged Greek
democratic traditions.
Mausolus's Death
|
Seven Quick
Facts
|
| Location: Halicarnassus (Modern Bodrum, Turkey) |
| Built: Around 350 B.C. |
| Function: Tomb for the City King, Mausolus |
| Destroyed: Damaged by earthquakes in 13th century A.D. . Final destruction by Crusaders in 1522 A.D. |
| Size: 140 feet (43m) high. |
| Made of: White Marble |
| Other: Built in a mixture of Egyptian, Greek and Lycian styles |
Then in 353 B.C. Mausolus died, leaving his queen Artemisia, who
was also his sister, broken-hearted (It was the custom in Caria for rulers to
marry their own sisters). As a tribute to him, she decided to build him the most
splendid tomb in the known world. It became a structure so famous that
Mausolus's name is now associated with all stately tombs throughout the world
through the word mausoleum. The building, rich with statuary and carvings
in relief, was so beautiful and unique it became one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
Artemisia decided that no expense was to be spared in the building
of the tomb. She sent messengers to Greece to find the most talented artists of
the time. These included architects Satyros and Pytheos who designed the overall
shape of the tomb. Other famous sculptors invited to contribute to the project
were Bryaxis, Leochares, Timotheus and Scopas of Paros (who was responsible for
rebuilding the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, another of the wonders). According
to the historian Pliny Bryaxis, Leochares, Timotheus and Scopas each took one
side of the tomb to decorate. Joining these sculptors were also hundreds of
other workmen and craftsmen. Together they finished the building in the styles
of three different cultures: Egyptian, Greek and Lycian.
The tomb was erected on a hill overlooking the city. The whole
structure sat in the center of an enclosed courtyard on a stone platform. A
staircase, flanked by stone lions, led to the top of this platform. Along the
outer wall of the courtyard were many statues depicting gods and goddesses. At
each corner stone warriors, mounted on horseback, guarded the tomb.
A map of the city of
Halicarnassus drawn by the archeologist J D Barbié du Bocage in 1802 showing the
tomb in the middle of the city.
|
At the center of the platform was the tomb itself. Made mostly of
marble, the structure rose as a square, tapering block to about one-third of the
Mausoleum's 140 foot height. This section was covered with relief sculpture
showing action scenes from Greek myth/history. One part showed the battle of the
Centaurs with the Lapiths. Another depicted Greeks in combat with the Amazons, a
race of warrior women. On top of this section of the tomb thirty-six slim
columns rose for another third of the height. Standing in between each column
was another statue. Behind the columns was a solid block that carried the weight
of the tomb's massive roof.
The roof, which comprised most of the final third of the height,
was in the form of a stepped pyramid with 24 levels. Perched on top was the
tomb's penultimate work of sculpture craved by Pytheos: Four massive horses
pulling a chariot in which images of Mausolus and Artemisia rode.
The City in Crisis
Soon after construction of the tomb started Artemisia found
herself in a crisis. Rhodes, an island in the Aegean Sea between Greece and Asia
Minor, had been conquered by Mausolus. When the Rhodians heard of his death,
they rebelled and sent a fleet of ships to capture the city of Halicarnassus.
Knowing that the Rhodian fleet was on the way, Artemisa hid her own ships at a
secret location at the east end of the city's harbor. After troops from the
Rhodian fleet disembarked to attack, Artemisia's fleet made a surprise raid,
captured the Rhodian fleet, and towed it out to sea.
|
Video: In Honor of
the King: The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus
|
Artemisa put her own soldiers on the invading ships and sailed
them back to Rhodes. Fooled into thinking that the returning ships were their
own victorious navy, the Rhodians failed to put up a defense and the city was
easily captured, quelling the rebellion.
Artemisa lived for only two years after the death of her husband.
Both would be buried in the yet unfinished tomb. According to Pliny, the
craftsmen decided to stay and finish the work after their patron died
"considering that it was at once a memorial of their own fame and of the
sculptor's art."
The Mausoleum overlooked the city of Halicarnassus for many
centuries. It was untouched when the city fell to Alexander the Great in 334
B.C. and was still undamaged after attacks by pirates in 62 and 58 B.C.. It
stood above the city ruins for some 17 centuries. Then a series of earthquakes
in the 13th century shattered the columns and sent the stone chariot crashing to
the ground. By 1404 A.D. only the very base of the Mausoleum was still
recognizable.
Destruction by the
Crusaders
Crusaders, who had little respect for ancient culture, occupied
the city from the thirteen century onward and recycled much of the building
stone into their own structures. In 1522 rumors of a Turkish invasion caused
Crusaders to strengthen the castle at Halicarnassus (which was by then known as
Bodrum) and some of the remaining portions of the tomb were broken up and used
within the castle walls. Indeed, sections of polished marble from the tomb can
still be seen there today.
   Another interpretation of the
Mausoleum.
Copyright Lee Krystek,
1998 |
At this time a party of knights entered the base of the monument
and discovered the room containing a great coffin. Deciding it was too late to
open it that day, the party returned the next morning to find the tomb, and any
treasure it may have contained, plundered. The bodies of Mausolus and Artemisia
were missing, too. The Knights claimed that Moslem villagers were responsible
for the theft, but it is more likely that some of the Crusaders themselves
plundered the graves.
Before grounding much of the remaining sculpture of the Mausoleum
into lime for plaster, the Knights removed several of the best works and mounted
them in the Bodrum castle. There they stayed for three centuries. At that time
the British ambassador obtained several of the statutes from the castle, which
now reside in the British Museum.
Remains Located by
Charles Newton
In 1846 the Museum sent the archaeologist Charles Thomas Newton to
search for more remains of the Mausoleum. He had a difficult job. He didn't know
the exact location of the tomb, and the cost of buying up all the small parcels
of land in the area to look for it would have been astronomical. Instead, Newton
studied the accounts of ancient writers like Pliny to obtain the approximate
size and location of the memorial, then bought a plot of land in the most likely
location. Digging down, Newton explored the surrounding area through tunnels he
dug under the surrounding plots. He was able to locate some walls, a staircase,
and finally three of the corners of the foundation. With this knowledge, Newton
was able to figure out which additional plots of land he needed to buy.
Marble from the tomb
can still be seen in Bodrum Castle even today. (Released into
public domain by Horvat)
|
Newton then excavated the site and found sections of the reliefs
that decorated the wall of the building and portions of the stepped roof. Also,
a broken stone chariot wheel from the sculpture on the roof, some seven feet in
diameter, was discovered. Finally, he found two statues which he believed were
the ones of Mausolus and Artemisia which had stood at the pinnacle of the
building. Ironically, the earthquake the toppled them to the ground saved them.
They were hidden under sediment and thus avoided the fate of being pulverized
into mortar for the Crusaders castle.
Today these works of art stand in the Mausoleum Room at the
British Museum. There the images of Mausolus and his queen forever watch over
the few broken remains of the beautiful tomb she built for him.
   Historians believe the Colossus of Rhodes stood
at the harbor entrance of the ancient port city. (Copyright
LeeKrystek, 2011) |
Travelers to the New York City harbor see a marvelous sight.
Standing on a small island in the harbor is an immense statue of a robed woman,
holding a book and lifting a torch to the sky. The statue measures almost
one-hundred and twenty feet from foot to crown. It is sometimes referred to as
the "Modern Colossus," but more often called the Statue of Liberty.
This awe-inspiring statue was a gift from France to America and is
easily recognized by people around the world. What many visitors to this shrine
to freedom don't know is that the statue, the "Modern Colossus," is the echo of
another statue, the original colossus, that stood over two thousand years ago at
the entrance to another busy harbor on the Island of Rhodes. Like the Statue of
Liberty, this colossus was also built as a celebration of freedom. This amazing
statue, standing the same height from toe to head as the modern colossus, was
one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
The Island of Rhodes
The island of Rhodes was an important economic center in the
ancient world. It is located off the southwestern tip of Asia Minor where the
Aegean Sea meets the Mediterranean. The capitol city, also named Rhodes, was
built in 408 B.C. and was designed to take advantage of the island's best
natural harbor on the northern coast.
|
Seven
Quick Facts
|
| Location: Island of Rhodes (Modern Greece) |
| Built: Between 292 - 280 BC |
| Function: Commemorate War Victory |
| Destroyed: 226 BC by an earthquake |
| Size: Height without 50 foot pedestal was 110 ft. (30m) |
| Made of: Bronze plates attached to iron framework |
| Other: Made in the shape of the island's patron god Helios |
In 357 B.C. the island was conquered by Mausolus of Halicarnassus
(whose tomb is one of the other Seven Wonders of the Ancient World) but fell
into Persian hands in 340 BC and was finally captured by Alexander the Great in
332 BC. When Alexander died of a fever at an early age, his generals fought
bitterly among themselves for control of Alexander's vast kingdom. Three of
them, Ptolemy, Seleucus, and Antigous, succeeded in dividing the kingdom among
themselves. The Rhodians supported Ptolemy (who wound up ruling Egypt) in this
struggle. This angered Antigous who in 305 BC sent his son Demetrius to capture
and punish the city of Rhodes.
The War with
Demetrius
The war was long and painful. Demetrius brought an army of 40,000
men. This was more than the entire population of Rhodes. He also augmented his
force by using Aegean pirates.
An engraving by Martin
Heemskerck in 16th-century helped to establish the inaccurate harbor spanning
pose in people's minds.
|
The city was protected by a strong, tall wall and the attackers
were forced to use siege towers to try and climb over it. Siege towers were
wooden structures that could be moved up to a defender's walls to allow the
attackers to climb over them. While some were designed to be rolled up on land,
Demetrius used a giant tower mounted on top of six ships lashed together to make
his attack. This tower, though, was turned over and smashed when a storm
suddenly approached, causing the battle to be won by the Rhodians.
Demetrius had a second super tower built and called it the
Helepolis which translates to "Taker of Cities." This massive structure
stood almost 150 feet high and some 75 feet square at the base and weight 160
tons. It was equipped with many catapults and skinned with wood and leather to
protect the troops inside from archers. It even carried water tanks that could
be used to fight fires started by flaming arrows. This tower was mounted on iron
wheels and it could be rolled up to the walls under the power of 200 soldiers
turning a large capstan.
When Demetrius attacked the city, the defenders stopped the war
machine by flooding a ditch outside the walls and miring the heavy monster in
the mud. By then almost a year had gone by and a fleet of ships from Egypt
arrived to assist Rhodes. Demetrius withdrew quickly, leaving the great siege
tower where it was. He signed a peace treaty and called his siege a victory as
Rhodes agreed to remain neutral in his war against Ptolemy.
Statue Commemorates
Victory
  Another artist's conception of the statue
with a slightly different pose (Copyright Lee Krystek,
1998) |
The people of Rhodes saw the end of conflict differently, however.
To celebrate their victory and freedom, the people of Rhodes decided to build a
giant statue of their patron god Helios. They melted down bronze from the many
war machines Demetrius left behind for the exterior of the figure and the super
siege tower became the scaffolding for the project. Although some reportedly
place the start of construction as early as 304 BC it is more likely the work
started in 292 BC. According to Pliny, a historian who lived several centuries
after the Colossus was built, construction took 12 years.
The statue was one hundred and ten feet high and stood upon a
fifty-foot pedestal near the harbor entrance perhaps on a breakwater. Although
the statue has sometimes been popularly depicted with its legs spanning the
harbor entrance so that ships could pass beneath, it was actually posed in a
more traditional Greek manner. Historians believe the figure was nude or
semi-nude with a cloak over its left arm or shoulder. Some think it was wearing
a spiked crown, shading its eyes from the rising sun with its right hand, or
possibly using that hand to hold a torch aloft in a pose similar to one later
given to the Statue of Liberty.
No ancient account mentions the harbor-spanning pose and it seems
unlikely the Greeks would have depicted one of their gods in such an awkward
manner. In addition, such a pose would mean shutting down the harbor during the
construction, something not economically feasible.
When the statue was finished it was dedicated with a poem: To
you, o Sun, the people of Dorian Rhodes set up this bronze statue reaching to
Olympus, when they had pacified the waves of war and crowned their city with the
spoils taken from the enemy. Not only over the seas but also on land did they
kindle the lovely torch of freedom and independence. For to the descendants of
Herakles belongs dominion over sea and land.
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Colossus To Be
Rebuilt?
Plans to rebuild the
Colossus of Rhodes has been discussed a number of times in the last fifty years.
The most recent proposal came in 2008. East German artist Gert Hof hopes to
construct a new version of the statue to Helios. However, he does not wish to
make it an exact replica. Instead it will stand up to three times as tall as the
original and allow people to enter it. At night it will tell "stories" using an
innovative light show.
|
Engineering the
Statue
The statue was constructed of bronze plates over an iron framework
(very similar to the Statue of Liberty which is copper over a steel frame).
According to the book of Pilon of Byzantium, 15 tons of bronze were used and 9
tons of iron, though these numbers seem low to modern architects. The Statue of
Liberty, roughly of the same size, weighs 225 tons. The Colossus, which relied
on weaker materials, must have weighed at least as much and probably more.
Ancient accounts tell us that inside the statue were several stone
columns which acted as the main support. Iron beams were driven into the stone
and connected with the bronze outer skin. Each bronze plate had to be carefully
cast then hammered into the right shape for its location in the figure, then
hoisted into position and riveted to the surrounding plates and the iron frame.
Some stories say that a massive earthen ramp was used to access
the statue during construction. Modern engineers, however, calculate that such a
ramp running all the way to the top of the statue would have been too massive to
be practical. This lends credence to stories that the wood from the
Helepolis seige engine was reused to build a scaffolding around the
statue while it was being assembled.
The architect of this great construction was Chares of Lindos, a
Rhodian sculptor who was a patriot and fought in defense of the city. Chares had
been involved with large scale statues before. His teacher, Lysippus, had
constructed a 60-foot high likeness of Zeus. Chares probably started by making
smaller versions of the statue, maybe three feet high, then used these as a
guide to shaping each of the bronze plates of the skin.
It is believed Chares did not live to see his project finished.
There are several legends that he committed suicide. In one tale he has almost
finished the statue when someone points out a small flaw in the construction.
The sculptor is so ashamed of it he kills himself.
Comparing the
Statue of Liberty with the Colossus: Though the bodies are the same size,
Liberty stands higher because of the taller
pedestal.
|
In another version the city fathers decide to double the height of
the statue. Chares only doubles his fee, forgetting that doubling the height
will mean an eightfold increase in the amount of materials needed. This drives
him into bankruptcy and suicide.
There is no evidence that either of these tales is true, however.
Collapse of the
Colossus
The Colossus stood proudly at the harbor entrance for some
fifty-six years. Each morning the sun must have caught its polished bronze
surface and made the god's figure shine. Then an earthquake hit Rhodes in 226 BC
and the statue collapsed. Huge pieces of the figure lay along the harbor for
centuries.
A computer simulation suggests that the shaking of the earthquake
made the rivets holding the bronze plates together break. At first only a few
weak ones gave way, but when they failed the remaining stress was transferred to
the surviving rivets, which then also failed in with a cascading effect. Though
some accounts related that the statue fell over and broke apart when it hit the
ground, it is more likely pieces, starting with the arms, dropped away. The legs
and ankles might have even remained in position following the quake.
"Even as it lies," wrote Pliny, "it excites our wonder and
admiration. Few men can clasp the thumb in their arms, and its fingers are
larger than most statues. Where the limbs are broken asunder, vast caverns are
seen yawning in the interior. Within it, too, are to be seen large masses of
rock, by the weight of which the artist steadied it while erecting it."
It is said that the Egyptian king, Ptolemy III, offered to pay for
its reconstruction, but the people of Rhodes refused his help. They had
consulted the oracle of Delphi and feared that somehow the statue had offended
the god Helios, who used the earthquake to throw it down.
In the seventh century A.D., the Arabs conquered Rhodes and broke
the remains of the Colossus up into smaller pieces and sold it as scrap metal.
Legend says it took 900 camels to carry away the pieces. A sad end for what must
have been a majestic work of art.
|
Video: The
Destruction of the Great Colossus
|
The
great lighthouse at Alexandria, Egypt, stood on the island of Pharos.
(Copyright Lee Krystek,
2011) |
In the fall of 1994 a team of archaeological divers donned scuba
equipment and entered the waters off of Alexandria, Egypt. Working beneath the
surface, they searched the bottom of the sea for artifacts. Large underwater
blocks of stone and remnants of sculpture were marked with floating masts so
that an electronic distance measurement station on shore could obtain their
exact positions. Global positioning satellites were then used to further fix the
locations. The information was then fed into computers to create a detailed
database of the sea floor.
Ironically, these scientists were using some of the most high-tech
devices available at the end of the 20th century to try and sort out the ruins
of one of the most advanced technological achievements of the 3rd century, B.C..
It was the Pharos, the great lighthouse of Alexandria, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
|
Seven
Quick Facts
|
| Location: Alexandria, Egypt. |
| Built: Around 290 - 270 BC |
| Function: Guide Ships to Alexandria's Harbor. |
| Destroyed: 1303 AD by earthquake. |
| Size: Height 450 ft. (140m) |
| Made of: Stone faced with white marble blocks with lead mortar. |
| Other: Said to be the only ancient wonder with a practical application. |
Alexander the Great
The story of the Pharos starts with the founding of the city of
Alexandria by the Macedonian conqueror Alexander the Great in 332 B.C..
Alexander started at least 17 cities named Alexandria at different locations in
his vast domain. Most of them disappeared, but Alexandria in Egypt thrived for
many centuries and is prosperous even today.
Alexander the Great chose the location of his new city carefully.
Instead of building it on the Nile delta, he selected a site some twenty miles
to the west, so that the silt and mud carried by the river would not block the
city harbor. South of the city was the marshy Lake Mareotis. After a canal was
constructed between the lake and the Nile, the city had two harbors: one for
Nile River traffic, and the other for Mediterranean Sea trade. Both harbors
would remain deep and clear and the activity they allowed made the city very
wealthy.
A modern
lighthouse often is designed as just a single, slim column, unlike the
Pharos.
|
Alexander died in 323 B.C. and the city was completed by Ptolemy
Soter, the new ruler of Egypt. Under Ptolemy the city became rich and
prosperous. However, it needed both a symbol and a mechanism to guide the many
trade ships into its busy harbor. Ptolemy authorized the building of the Pharos
in 290 B.C., and when it was completed some twenty years later, it was the first
lighthouse in the world and the tallest building in existence, with the
exception of the Great Pyramid. The construction cost was said to have been 800
talents, an amount equal today to about three million dollars.
Construction of the
Lighthouse
The lighthouse's designer is believed to be Sostratus of Knidos
(or Cnidus), though some sources argue he only provided the financing for the
project. Proud of his work, Sostratus desired to have his name carved into the
foundation. Ptolemy II, the son who ruled Egypt after his father, refused this
request, wanting only his own name to be on the building. A clever man,
Sostratus supposedly had the inscription:
SOSTRATUS SON OF DEXIPHANES OF KNIDOS ON BEHALF OF ALL MARINERS
TO THE SAVIOR GODS
chiseled into the foundation, then covered it with plaster. Into
the plaster was carved Ptolemy's name. As the years went by (and after both the
death of Sostratus and Ptolemy) the plaster aged and chipped away, revealing
Sostratus' dedication.
The lighthouse was built on the island of Pharos and soon the
building itself acquired that name. The connection of the name with the function
became so strong that the word "Pharos" became the root of the word "lighthouse"
in the French, Italian, Spanish and Romanian languages.
|
Video:
A Climb Up the Pharos Lighthouse
|
There are two detailed descriptions made of the lighthouse in the
10th century A.D. by Moorish travelers Idrisi and Yusuf Ibn al-Shaikh. According
to their accounts, the building was 300 cubits high. Because the cubit
measurement varied from place to place, however, this could mean that the Pharos
stood anywhere from 450 (140m) to 600 (183m) feet in height, although the lower
figure is much more likely.
The design was unlike the slim single column of most modern
lighthouses, but more like the structure of an early twentieth century
skyscraper. There were three stages, each built on top of one other. The
building material was stone faced with white marble blocks cemented together
with lead mortar. The lowest level of the building, which sat on a 20 foot (6m)
high stone platform, was probably about 240 feet (73m) in height and 100 feet
(30m) square at the base, shaped like a massive box. The door to this section of
the building wasn't at the bottom of the structure, but part way up and reached
by a 600 foot (183m) long ramp supported by massive arches. Inside this portion
of the structure was a large spiral ramp that allowed materials to be pulled to
the top in animal-drawn carts.
On top of that first section was an eight-sided tower which was
probably about 115 feet (35m) in height. On top of the tower was a cylinder that
extended up another 60 feet (18m) to an open cupola where the fire that provided
the light burned. On the roof of the cupola was a large statue, probably of the
god of the sea, Poseidon.
The
Mirror
A
depiction of the lighthouse by the 16th-century Dutch artist Maarten van
Heemskerck
|
The interior of the upper two sections had a shaft with a
dumbwaiter that was used to transport fuel up to the fire. Staircases allowed
visitors and the keepers to climb to the beacon chamber. There, according to
reports, a large curved mirror, perhaps made of polished bronze, was used to
project the fire's light into a beam. It was said ships could detect the light
from the tower at night or the smoke from the fire during the day up to
one-hundred miles away.
There are stories that this mirror could be used as a weapon to
concentrate the sun and set enemy ships ablaze as they approached. Another tale
says that it was possible to use the mirror to magnify the image of the city of
Constantinople, which was located far across the sea, and observe what was going
on there. Both of these stories seem implausible, however.
The structure was said to be liberally decorated with statuary
including four likenesses of the god Triton on each of the four corners of the
roof of the lowest level. Materials recently salvaged from the sea by
archeologists, including the stone torso of a woman, seem to support these
stories.
The lighthouse was apparently a tourist attraction. Food was sold
to visitors at the observation platform at the top of the first level. A smaller
balcony provided an outlook from the top of the eight-sided tower for those that
wanted to make the additional climb. The view from there must have been
impressive as it was probably 300 feet above the sea. There were few places in
the ancient world where a person could ascend a man-made tower to get such a
perspective.
An
ancient coin with the likeness of the Pharos on
it.
|
Destruction
How then did the world's first lighthouse wind up on the floor of
the Mediterranean Sea? Most accounts indicate that it, like many other ancient
buildings, was the victim of earthquakes. It stood for over 1,500 years,
apparently surviving a tsunami that hit eastern Mediterranean in 365 AD with
minor damage. After that, however, tremors might have been responsible for
cracks that appeared in the structure at the end of the10th century and required
a restoration that lowered the height of the building by about 70 feet. Then in
1303 A.D., a major earthquake shook the region that put the Pharos permanently
out of business. Egyptian records indicate the final collapse occurred in 1375,
though ruins remained on the site for some time until 1480 when much of the
building's stone was used to construct a fortress on the island that still
stands today.
There is also an unlikely tale that part of the lighthouse was
demolished through trickery. In 850 A.D. it is said that the Emperor of
Constantinople, a rival port, devised a clever plot to get rid of the Pharos. He
spread rumors that there was a fabulous teasure buried under the lighthouse.
When the Caliph at Cairo, who controlled Alexandria at this time heard these
rumors, he ordered that the tower be pulled down to get at the treasure. It was
only after the great mirror had been destroyed and the top two portions of the
tower removed that the Caliph realized he'd been deceived. He tried to rebuild
the tower, but couldn't, so he turned it into a mosque instead.
As colorful as this story is there does not seem to be much truth
in it. Visitors in 1115 A.D. reported the Pharos intact and still operating as a
lighthouse.
   The Pharos at night. Copyright Lee Krystek,
1998. |
Did the divers actually find the remains of Pharos in the bottom
of the harbor? Some of the larger blocks of stone found certainly seem to have
come from a huge building. Statues were located that may have stood at the base
of the Pharos. Interestingly enough, much of the material found seems to be from
earlier eras than the lighthouse. Scientists speculate that these may have been
recycled in the construction of the Pharos from an even older building.
The area is now an underwater archaeological park. Tourists with
diving gear can swim about the remains of the great Pharos lighthouse while they
wonder what it would have been like to climb to its ancient heights a thousand
years ago.
http://www.unmuseum.org/wonders.htm
I think that the Great Pyramid ws built to be a water pump! I think that The Great Pyramid was built using water locks and barges. There is a good video series showing how this was done at: www.thepump.org
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