The Seven Wonders Of The Ancient World Term paper

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The famed Seven Wonders of the Ancient World is a collection of seven great temples, monuments, and tombs. The list of wonders 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 marvels have long been destroyed, but their legacies shall live forever. (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’ father, Sneferu, had many problems with his own pyramid. The first attempt at building was cut short when the half-completed pyramid collapsed after a heavy rain. On the second attempt, the architect lessened the angle at the top half of the pyramid, giving it a rhomboid shape. It was known as the Bent Pyramid. (Clayton, 16)

Learning from the mistakes made on his father’s tomb, Cheops’ architects found the perfect angle needed to keep the pyramid stable as well as straight. Cheops’ chief-of-works was his cousin, the Vizier Hemon.

Cheops and Hemon chose the site for the pyramid on a plateau in Giza just on the edge of the Libyan desert. Before any building could take place, the land first had to be leveled using a complex process involving water. After this, the sides of the tomb had to be precisely calculated to face the four cardinal points of the compass. Since the Egyptians had not yet discovered the compass, this was done by observing the stars. The Egyptians were so accurate with this process that “the error of alignment on the four sides is only a matter of fractions of a degree.” The difference in lengths between the longest and shortest sides was less than 8 inches, quite incredible considering the primitive tools used by the Egyptians for measuring. (Clayton, 17-21)

The mystery of the Great Pyramid that still puzzles historians today is that no one knows how it was built. The most popular theory is that a large, winding ramp was gradually built around the pyramid as it got taller and taller. (Clayton, 22).

According to Herodotus, it took a workforce of 100,000 men twenty years to complete the Great Pyramid. However, all the hard work certainly paid off; the Great Pyramid is the only Wonder still standing today. “The Arab proverb well sums up its impact: ‘Man fears Time, yet Time fears the pyramids.’” (Clayton, 31, 37)

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon are thought to have been built by King Nebuchadnezzar II between 580 and 560 BC, although their existence has never been officially proven. Nebuchadnezzar was an incredible builder. After his reconstruction of Babylon, it was known as the most regal city of ancient times. (Carroll, 11)

While there are several variations on the story of how and why Nebuchadnezzar built the Hanging Gardens, they all basically tell the same tale. Nebuchadnezzar’s wife was a foreigner and yearned for the mountainous landscape of her homeland. To make her happy, Nebuchadnezzar constructed huge stone steppes on which he planted the most beautiful and exotic garden of the time. They gardens were called “hanging” because on the tiered walls they appeared to be floating in air. (Carroll, 11)

Marble banquet chambers were built on every terrace, and each was decorated with mosaics depicting tales of the gods. “The buildings were surrounded by lawns, pavilions for music and dance, and swimming ponds in which the water was colored red, gold, or blue, according to the day of the week.” From the description, the palace apparently was the epitome of luxury.

According to legend, the Gardens were so beautiful that Nebuchadnezzar’s wife, who had so wanted to return to the forests and mountains of her own land, finally felt at home in Babylon. (Carroll, 11)

In the temple at Olympia stood another Wonder, an enormous statue of the Greek’s most important god Zeus. The temple of Zeus was constructed as a meeting point for the athletes of the Olympic games. They all gathered to worship Zeus before, during, and after the games. On the middle day of the Olympics, 100 oxen were sacrificed and burned outside the temple. (Clayton, 59-62)

It is believed that a small wooden or stone sculpture was worshipped at first, but “the current taste of the fifth century BC demanded a much more impressive image.” The council in charge of the temple searched long and hard for a sculptor to create such an “impressive image”. They decided on Pheidias, a citizen of Athens. Pheidias was already well known in Athens for his incredible sculpting ability. He had sculpted two masterpieces for the Acropolis of Athens, both gigantic figures of the goddess Athena. While working on these statues, he developed a new technique that made sculpting with gold and ivory faster and cheaper. He built a wooden frame that resembled the final sculpture and then covered it with thin plates of sculpted ivory and precious metals. Although the statue was hollow, the appearance on the outside was beautiful and powerful. Pheidias’ statue of Zeus was so well done that people actually felt they were in the presence of the god. (Clayton, 63-64)

This is understandable, however, considering how massive the statue was. The base was 18 feet wide, 30 feet deep, and a meter high. The statue itself was 40 feet tall, about the size of a three-story building. (Clayton, 66)

450 years after its creation, the statue of Zeus continued to attract crowds of people who still believed in him. In 391, however, the Christian emperor Theodosius I ordered all pagan temples shut down. The Olympic games were no longer held and eventually no one came to see the statue anymore.

When the statue was well over 800 years old, it was moved to a palace in Constantinople. In 462, a terrible fire destroyed the palace and the statue with it.

Even though no copies 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 examples of architecture in ancient Greece. “It was a vast gleaming marble building in a great courtyard open to the skies to be viewed from afar.” The huge temple occupied over 80,000 square feet of ground and was surrounded by groves and large lawns. It was supported by 127 columns and covered by a large stone slab that was sculpted with scenes of gods and goddesses. (Carroll, 9)

Although it was the most beautiful building in Greece, the temple...

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