The Seven Wonders Of The Ancient World free essay sample

Essay, Research Paper The celebrated Seven Wonders of the Ancient World is a aggregation of seven great temples, memorials, and graves. The list of admirations is comprised of the Great Pyramid of Giza, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Statue of Zeus at Olympia, the Temple of Artemis at Ephesos, the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, the Colossus of Rhodes, and the Pharos at Alexandria. Six of these wonders have long been destroyed, but their bequests shall populate everlastingly. ( Carroll, 6-15 ) The Great Pyramid of Giza was built for the Egyptian Pharaoh Cheops around 2560 BC. It was the grandest of all pyramids built during Egypt? s Old Kingdom. ( Clayton, 13 ) Cheops? male parent, Sneferu, had many jobs with his ain pyramid. The first effort at edifice was cut short when the half-completed pyramid collapsed after a heavy rain. On the 2nd effort, the designer lessened the angle at the top half of the pyramid, giving it a rhomboid form. It was known as the Bent Pyramid. ( Clayton, 16 ) Learning from the errors made on his male parent? s grave, Cheops? designers found the perfect angle needed to maintain the pyramid stable every bit good as heterosexual. Cheops? chief-of-works was his cousin, the Vizier Hemon. Khufus and Hemon chose the site for the pyramid on a tableland in Giza merely on the border of the Libyan desert. Before any edifice could take topographic point, the land foremost had to be leveled utilizing a complex procedure affecting H2O. After this, the sides of the grave had to be exactly calculated to confront the four central points of the compass. Since the Egyptians had non yet discovered the compass, this was done by detecting the stars. The Egyptians were so accurate with this procedure that? the mistake of alliance on the four sides is merely a affair of fractions of a degree. ? The difference in lengths between the longest and shortest sides was less than 8 inches, rather unbelievable sing the primitive tools used by the Egyptians for mensurating. ( Clayton, 17-21 ) The enigma of the Great Pyramid that still puzzles historiographers today is that no 1 knows how it was built. The most popular theory is that a big, weaving incline was bit by bit built around the pyramid as it got taller and taller. ( Clayton, 22 ) . Harmonizing to Herodotus, it took a work force of 100,000 work forces twenty old ages to finish the Great Pyramid. However, all the difficult work surely paid off ; the Great Pyramid is the lone Wonder still standing today. ? The Arab adage good sums up its impact: ? Man fears Time, yet Time fears the pyramids. ? ? ( Clayton, 31, 37 ) The Hanging Gardens of Babylon are thought to hold been built by King Nebuchadnezzar II between 580 and 560 BC, although their being has neer been officially proven. Nebuchadnezzar was an unbelievable builder. After his Reconstruction of Babylon, it was known as the most imperial metropolis of ancient times. ( Carroll, 11 ) While there are several fluctuations on the narrative of how and why Nebuchadnezzar built the Hanging Gardens, they all fundamentally tell the same narrative. Nebuchadnezzar? s married woman was a alien and yearned for the cragged landscape of her fatherland. To do her happy, Nebuchadnezzar constructed immense rock steppes on which he planted the most beautiful and alien garden of the clip. They gardens were called? hanging? because on the tiered walls they appeared to be drifting in air. ( Carroll, 11 ) Marble feast Chamberss were built on every patio, and each was decorated with mosaics picturing narratives of the Gods. ? The edifices were surrounded by lawns, marquees for music and dance, and swimming pools in which the H2O was colored ruddy, gold, or blue, harmonizing to the twenty-four hours of the week. ? From the description, the castle seemingly was the prototype of luxury. Harmonizing to fable, the Gardens were so beautiful that Nebuchadnezzar? s married woman, who had so wanted to return to the woods and mountains of her ain land, eventually felt at place in Babylon. ( Carroll, 11 ) In the temple at Olympia stood another Wonder, an tremendous statue of the Greek? s most of import God Zeus. The temple of Zeus was constructed as a meeting point for the jocks of the Olympic games. They all gathered to idolize Zeus before, during, and after the games. On the in-between twenty-four hours of the Olympics, 100 cattle were sacrificed and burned outside the temple. ( Clayton, 59-62 ) It is believed that a little wooden or rock sculpture was worshipped at first, but? the current gustatory sensation of the 5th century BC demanded a much more impressive image. ? The council in charge of the temple searched long and hard for a sculpturer to make such an? impressive image? . They decided on Pheidias, a citizen of Athens. Pheidias was already good known in Athens for his unbelievable sculpting ability. He had sculpted two chef-doeuvres for the Acropolis of Athens, both mammoth figures of the goddess Athena. While working on these statues, he developed a new technique that made sculpting with gold and tusk faster and cheaper. He built a wooden frame that resembled the concluding sculpture and so covered it with thin home bases of graven tusk and cherished metals. Although the statue was hollow, the visual aspect on the exterior was beautiful and powerful. Pheidias? statue of Zeus was so good done that people really felt they were in the presence of the God. ( Clayton, 6 3-64 ) This is apprehensible, nevertheless, sing how monolithic the statue was. The base was 18 pess broad, 30 pess deep, and a metre high. The statue itself was 40 pess tall, about the size of a three-story edifice. ( Clayton, 66 ) 450 old ages after its creative activity, the statue of Zeus continued to pull crowds of people who still believed in him. In 391, nevertheless, the Christian emperor Theodosius I ordered all heathen temples shut down. The Olympic games were no longer held and finally no 1 came to see the statue any longer. When the statue was good over 800 old ages old, it was moved to a castle in Constantinople. In 462, a awful fire destroyed the castle and the statue with it. Even though no transcripts of the statue exist, from the written histories and descriptions alone it is considered the greatest work of classical sculpture. ( Clayton, 76-77 ) The temple of Artemis at Ephesos was considered to be one of the most beautiful illustrations of architecture in ancient Greece. ? It was a huge glimmer marble edifice in a great courtyard unfastened to the skies to be viewed from afar. ? The immense temple occupied over 80,000 square pess of land and was surrounded by Grovess and big lawns. It was suppor ted by 127 columns and covered by a big rock slab that was sculpted with scenes of Gods and goddesses. ( Carroll, 9 ) Although it was the most beautiful edifice in Greece, the temple was known more for the unbelievable array of popular people that visited it. During his conquerings, Alexander the Great came to see the temple. He told the citizens that he would finance the remainder of the edifice of the temple if they inscribed his name indoors. One diplomatic citizen told him, ? It is non suiting that one God should construct a temple for another god. ? Flattered, Alexander went on his manner. ( Clayton, 82-83 ) The temple was besides celebrated for its jurisprudence of refuge, or protecting people who needed aid. Xerxes, the male monarch of Persia, sent his kids at that place after he was defeated by the Greeks. Alexander the Great had two people claiming refuge dragged from the temple and stoned to decease. One of the Ptolemy brothers from Egypt fled there with his married woman, but they were both murdered. Marc Antony killed Cleopatra? s sister, who had fled to the temple, in order to see the throne went to Cleopatra, and therefore, himself. ( Clayton, 83-84 ) The temple remained an of import cultural centre for 800 old ages until it was destroyed in 260 Ad by the incursive Goths, neer to be rebuilt once more. ( Carroll, 9 ) The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus was the largest grave of all time built in the ancient universe. It was built for King Maussollos of Caria around 550 BC by his married woman Artemisia, who was besides his sister. After his decease, Artemisia wanted to construct him the largest grave of all time. ( Carroll, 12 ) The Mausoleum was rectangular with sides of 120 and 100 pess. A tower was constructed over the chief burial chamber that reached 140 pess at its top. At the really tip of the tower was placed a sculpture of the royal twosome driving a chariot. The existent edifice consisted of three chief parts: a base of about 60 pess in tallness, a colonnade of 36 columns, and a pyramid-shaped roof. ( Clayton, 103 ) The queen requested the services of four of the greatest creative persons of the clip. Each creative person was assigned one side of the edifice: Brayaxis had the North ; Timotheus, the South ; Leochares, the West ; and the great Scopas, the E. The beauty and quality of the graven ornaments by these creative persons are what gave the edifice its popularity. ( Carroll, 12 ) The edifice stood integral up until the thirteenth century when an temblor brought the columns and roof crashing down. However, the staying parts were destroyed in 1494 when the Knights of St. John decided to refortify their palace with the square rocks of the Mausoleum. This continued for a period of 28 old ages until, at last, every rock had been removed from the Mausoleum and the belowground burial chamber was opened and looted. Although merely a few sculptures were discovered still integral, the astonishing beauty of them is what made the Mausoleum a Wonder of the World. ( Clayton, 104-107 ) The Colossus of Rhodes was an tremendous statue built on the Isle of Rhodes. Demetrius I, the? Besieger? , laid besieging to Rhodes for a whole twelvemonth. Demetrius was so impressed by the courage of the Rhodians that he left all his besieging engines outside their walls. The Rhodians sold the equipment and made programs for the building of a big statue dedicated to the Greek Sun God, Helios. With the money they made, the Rhodians bought 200 dozenss of bronze. They hired the celebrated sculpturer Chares of Lindos to make the 110-foot statue. ( Carroll, 14 ) Neither the visual aspect nor the location of the Colossus is known for certain. His face can be seen on the Rhodian coins but the place his organic structure was in is unknown every bit good. Chares made a model for the Colossus out of Fe and square blocks of rock. This was placed on a base of white marble. Unlike other bronze statues in which the creative person theoretical accounts the statue and so casts it in parts, the Colossus was cast right on its base. As Philo says, ? ? the mortise joints had to be cast upon the pess and, as when a house is built, the whole work had to lift upon itself. ? This signifier of sculpting is much more hard and clip consuming. The Colossus held a big torch in one manus that served as a beacon for ships. A coiling stairway was built inside the statue and people could mount all the manner up to the caput. Chares was so affiliated to his chef-doeuvre that, harmonizing to fable, after person criticized a finer point in its building, he committed self- destruction on the topographic point. ( Clayton, 130-131 ) The statue took 12 old ages to construct, from 292 to 280 BC and stood for about 50 old ages before an temblor caused the great Colossus to interrupt at the articulatio genuss and topple over. Ptolemy III offered to reconstruct the Colossus but the Rhodians refused because an prophet forbid them to raise it once more. It lay on the land for 900 old ages. ( Carroll, 14 ) The Arabs plundered Rhodes in 654 and shipped the broken pieces to Asia Minor. There it was sold to a Jew from Emesa who reportedly moved the fragments to Syria on the dorsums of 900 camels. After that, the Colossus was neer seen once more. ( Clayton, 137 ) The last of the Wonders is the Pharos at Alexandria. The Pharos was a immense beacon built on the island of Pharos merely off the seashore of Alexandria. The designer of the Pharos was Sostratus of Cnidus who lived in Alexandria in 280 BC. A fable says that he was betrothed to a adult female from another land who was scheduled to come to Alexandria. On the dark of her reaching, a strong air current blew the ship off class and, because there was no beacon, was lost at sea. Sostratus decided to make a tower that would save all others from such calamity. Bing close friends with the Pharaoh Ptolemy II, he was given limitless financess. Sostratus began building of the first beacon in history. ( Carroll, 10 ) The Pharos was built from white marble and was 440 pess tall. It was built in three subdivisions, the underside a square block, the in-between an eight-sided tower, and the top a round turret with big Windowss that faced the sea. Through these Windowss, the visible radiation of a immense fire provided a beacon for ships for about a thousand old ages until it was destroyed during the Middle Ages by an temblor. ( Carroll, 10 ) Through infinite histories and fables, historiographers eager to visualize each edifice and statue as it appeared to the ancient people that built them have chronicled the beginnings and life spans of these admirations. Hopefully, with modern techniques, all the inquiries we still have can be answered and we can truly see why these seven creative activities were considered admirations of the universe.