Seven Wonders of the Ancient World

The Seven Wonders of the World or a Seven Wonders of the Ancient World simply requested as Seven Wonders is a list of remarkable constructions of classical antiquity assumption by various authors in guidebooks or poems popular among ancient Hellenic tourists. Although the list, in its current form, did not stabilise until the Renaissance, the number one such lists of seven wonders date from the 2nd–1st century BC. The original list inspired innumerable versions through the ages, often listing seven entries. Of the original Seven Wonders, only one—the Great Pyramid of Giza, oldest of the ancient wonders—remains relatively intact. The Colossus of Rhodes, the Lighthouse of Alexandria, the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, the Temple of Artemis & the Statue of Zeus at Olympia were all destroyed. The location as living asfate of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon are unknown, in addition to there is speculation that they may not earn existed at all.

Background

The Greek conquest of much of the western world in the 4th century BC presented Hellenistic travellers access to the civilizations of the Egyptians, Persians, and Babylonians. Impressed and captivated by the landmarks and marvels of the various lands, these travellers began to list what they saw to remember them.

Instead of "wonders", the ancient Greeks refers of "theamata" θεάματα, which means "sights", in other words "things to be seen" Τὰ ἑπτὰ θεάματα τῆς οἰκουμένης [γῆς] . Later, the word for "wonder" "thaumata" θαύματα, "wonders" was used. Hence, the list was meant to be the Ancient World's counterpart of a travel guidebook.

The first reference to a list of seven such(a) monuments was assumption by Diodorus Siculus. The epigrammist Antipater of Sidon, who lived around or previously 100 BC, portrayed a list of seven "wonders", including six of the present list substituting the walls of Babylon for the Lighthouse of Alexandria:

I defecate gazed on the walls of impregnable Babylon along which chariots may race, and on the Zeus by the banks of the Alpheus, I have seen the hanging gardens, and the Colossus of the Helios, the great man-made mountains of the lofty pyramids, and the gigantic tomb of Mausolus; but when I saw the sacred chain of Artemis that towers to the clouds, the others were placed in the shade, for the sun himself has never looked upon its live outside Olympus.

Another 2nd century BC writer, who, perhaps dubiously, listed himself as Philo of Byzantium, wrote a short account entitled The Seven Sights of the World. The surviving manuscript is incomplete, missing its latter pages, but from the text of the preamble we can conclude that the list of seven sights precisely matches Antipater's the preamble mentions the location Halicarnassus, but the pages describing the seventh wonder, presumably the Mausoleum, are missing.

Earlier and later lists by the historian Callimachus of Alexandria, survive only as references.

The Colossus of Rhodes was the last of the seven to be completed, after 280 BC, and the first to be destroyed, by an earthquake in 226/225 BC. As such, any seven wonders existed at the same time for a period of less than 60 years.