The ancient was once a thriving civilization and their great achievements were recorded in the history and thus became a legend. Yet, many historians and archaeologists still try to study the ruins on their previous locations. Here are the following architectures that had been considered as one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. The first edifice from the list was the handsome marble temple dedicated to Artemis also known as Diana in the Roman mythology. Artemis was the Greek and Roman goddess of hunting and the moon. Both the Romans and the Greeks worship her as their pagan idol. If Athena had a temple in Athens called Parthenon; Artemis also had a temple not in the Greek soil but in the ancient city of Ephesus (now modern Turkey). The architect who designed and built the temple was not known and no records of the name exist in any historical records. The ancient people managed to finish Artemis’ temple in 550 B.C.E with the following dimensions: “425 feet (129 metres) high, 225 feet (69 metres) wide, and supported by 127 60 foot (18 metres) columns.” The temple was considered as one of the wonders of the ancient world because of its similarity with the architecture of Parthenon; some replicas of Artemis’ temple show a beautiful white marble building with post-and-lintel architecture complete with frieze, high and low sculptural reliefs, and a main gate filled with tall fluted ionic columns that support the temple’s roof. The symmetrical design was the main reason why this simple building became highly popular to historians as the second Parthenon due to its striking resemblance with the Kallikrates and Iktinos building construction. The cause of the building’s destruction was due to the man named Herostratus who according to historical records, in order for his name to be recognized and engraved on the pages of the world history, he decided to take a rash action of performing scariliege in the act of destroying the temple in hopes of making himself famous as the one who set fire to Artemis’ temple; and to this day, the ruins of the once great structure. (Mark, The Seven Wonders).
The second building from the list was the Hanging Gardens of Babylon which has been known throughout the world as Nebuchadnezzar’s garden due to its vast array and rich flora and fauna depicted inside the hanging man-made forests. Some ancient writers such as the famous Greek historian, Herodotus never cited any reference whether the Nebuchadnezzar’s idealistic palace really did had any hanging garden arranged alternately onto the elevated terrace steps of his palace. The building was originally built for Nebuchadnezzar’s wife and some other writers who traveled to Babylon described the building with an automatic water feature for the growth of the plants; however, the remarkable engineering of this giant water facility of ancient Babylon is still disputed due to the lack of credible resources that can justify the existence of such architecture. The main design of the Hanging Gardens according to Madgwick was the Ishtar Gate, the main entrance that was made with glazed royal blue tiles. The Hanging Gardens was called that way due to the fact that each step of the structure had a patch of greenery on them such as the exotic Persian trees and other plants from the neighboring cities near Babylon. (16). In an unfortunate event way back in the 1st century A.D., it was believed that the famed majestic gardens of Babylon perished due to a strong earthquake which killed nearly half of the population of the city and deteriorated much of its tangible relics such as buildings. (Mark, The Seven Wonders).
In the ancient world, the presence of lighthouses served as the beacon of hope and light to those voyagers both on the land and sea because it provided the community with light. Perhaps the most famous lighthouse in the history of the ancient world was Pharos, the lighthouse of Egypt that guarded the Pharos harbor for thousands of years. First erected in 280 B.C., the great stone lighthouse stood about 134 meters high from the ground. At that time, making tall structures require more man-power and years of forced labor before the project completion and the lighthouse of Pharos was one of the proof that man can do always challenge themselves to create something unusual especially for the benefit of the community. (Mark, The Seven Wonders). Building a lighthouse on the coast of Pharos proved to be a wise move because of the semi-isolated location of the land from the rest of the community. Lighthouses were the amazing feat of man’s architecture genius because the lighthouse of Pharos was considered the seven and final great buildings created by man throughout history. The tall stature of the lighthouse was only second to the Great Pyramid of Egypt and aside from the tall triangular mounds of limestone rock, the Pharos lighthouse was considered as the second tall structure that can be seen even from a far distance on the sea and land. Just like the natural order of things, these structures often met their fate either as museums or architectural ruins. In the 21st century, historians still cannot trace the remains of the once great stone lighthouse; it was damaged by a severe earthquake in the 956 A.D. but withstood the damage and managed to last for more centuries, continuing the role of the lighthouse until its destruction in 1480 A.D. as a result of numerous earthquakes that shattered its foundation on the ground. (Mark, The Seven Wonders; Clayton, 138).
Furthermore, the final relic of the ancient times was The Colossus of Rhodes, which was a giant statue of Helios, the Greek god for the Sun. The term colossus translates to “statue” in the English language and the fact that they used the name Colossus of Rhodes meant the statue of Rhodes. However, this great statue of the naked Helios did not served as a design on the harbor or a landscape just like the role of the Statue of Liberty in New York. In the ancient times, the grand statue must have an impact on the mindset and the behavior of the people. The statue of Helios stood dignified and albeit terrifying because of its enormous size. However, it was the humongous size that makes the work so advantageous because it intimidates outsiders from entering port of Mandraki and Rhodes without proper documentation. In 294 B.C., Chares and his team of sculptors were commissioned by the people of Rhodes to carve a sculpture of the Greek God because they believed that they must honor the deity by building a replica of him to serve as a guardian but also to serve as a remembrance of that victory. First, sculptors made bronze casts for the molds. It took them full 12 years to complete the edifice of Helios. The statue of Helios or the Colossus of Rhodes was the best evidence of man’s triumph and the symmetrical and well-proportioned body of the sculpture was the symbol of Greek humanism which was a style that influenced the latter art movements. The statue of Helios that once stood guard was destroyed by a great earthquake which left the statue in ruin. In fact according to Pliny the Elder’s statement, the great earthquake shattered the great statue of the God in ruins; the destruction happened in 225 B.C. (Woods and Woods 23-24). The Colossus of Rhodes was considered as the greatest wonders of the world because of the size, credibility, and the perfect balanced of the humanism and divinity.
WORKS CITED
Clayton, Peter A. “The Pharos at Alexandria.” The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. London: Routledge, 1988. Web. Google Book.
Madgwick, Wendy. Questions and Answers: Ancient Civilizations. London: Kingfisher Publishing/Grolier., 2003. Print.
Mark, Joshua J. “The Seven Wonders.” Ancient History Encycoloedia., 2009. Web. 18 Apr. 2016.
Woods, Michael and Mary B. Woods. Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Minneapolis, MN: Twenty-first century Books, 2009. Web. Google Book.
