The Seven Wonders of the World

The Seven Wonders of the World comprise the greatest feats of ancient technology, architecture, and art as seen by Greek and Roman authors. The list has changed only slightly since it first appeared (c.130 ©) in a poem by Antipater of Sidon in the Greek Anthology. He praises the pyramids of Egypt, the Walls and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, the Statue of Zeus at Olympia, the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, and the Colossus of Rhodes.

The engineer Philo of Byzantium (fl. 146 BC) is said to have written the work entitled Peri ton hepta theamiton (Concerning the Seven Wonders of the World), although it may actually date from the Roman Empire. In his enumeration of the monuments the Pharos of Alexandria replaces the Walls of Babylon, which various later writers have listed together with the Hanging Gardens. Among other authors who described the seven wonders were Herodotus (5th century BC), Diodorus (1st century BC), and Strabo and Pliny the Elder (both 1st century AD.). The Pergamum Altar has also been included as one of the wonders. All those cited were visited during the Hellenistic Age (323-149 BC) and remained the most famous attractions of the Roman world. They can be reconstructed from archaeological evidence.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon

Greek legends tell two stories of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. One holds that they were built by the Assyrian Queen Semiramis (Sammuramat, 810-805 BC). The other, that Nebuchadnezzar II (r. 605-562 BC) built the gardens to remind his wife, a Mede, of her mountainous homeland, is perhaps more likely. The excavator, Robert Koldewey, identified the arched substructure of what may have been a terraced garden. Set in a corner of the palace fortifications and towering over the famous Ishtar Gate (decorated with blue-enameled reliefs of bulls and dragons)was a 7-m-high (23-ft) wall on which trees had presumably been planted, creating what would have been a majestic view visible to anyone entering on the Processional Way.

The Seven Wonders of the World

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Wednesday, March 12, 2008

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon

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