The Original Seven Wonders of Antiquity

the generally accepted seven seven seven wonders [Music] just before we get started with the video today do you want to try something new from me well i have a new podcast called the casual criminalist i cover a lot of criminal stuff and crimes on my various youtube channels because apparently you guys love the darker stuff well eat your black hearts out because i now have a long form about an hour-long weekly podcast covering some of the darkest things that i could find from the uk doctor who was the worst serial killer in history to the time an american socialite allegedly murdered her best friend with her car and totally got away with it and much more it's pretty laid back it's more freeform it's got the occasional laugh because well isn't crime hilarious weekly shows wherever you get your podcasts there are links below the generally accepted seven wonders of antiquity were established by prominent greek writers and travellers of the ancient world the first discussion of the world's most beautiful sights seems to have been by historian herodotus remnants of his list are incomplete but they show an early desire to sum up the architectural accomplishments and beauty of greek civilization in the fourth century bce greece expanded our empire to cover much of the known world from mainland greece to egypt to the edge of persia and with the expanded potential for travel herodotus's idea it caught on the list changed over time but eventually settled on what is now considered the seven wonders of the ancient world today we're going to discuss each of these seven wonders their legacy and how we view them in the modern world [Music] the lighthouse of alexandria was built during the ptolemaic kingdom's reign of egypt around 280 bce the ptolemaic kingdom was a greek state that started under ptolemy the first in 320 bce and ended with cleopatra's death in 30 bce alexander the great founded the city of alexandria around 335 bce and just across the water from the new city sat a small island called pharas ptolemy the first commissioned the lighthouse's construction on ferrous and 305 bce and it began sometime in the following decade ptolemy died before it was completed but his son ptolemy ii oversaw its completion the building took 12 years to construct and it was seen as an incredible monument from the moment it was completed with its striking walls of limestone and granite over the next fifteen hundred years a handful of our writers took detailed notes on the lighthouse's dimensions and design giving us a tiny margin of error as to its size and structure estimates on its height range from 103 to 118 meters with a 30 by 30 meter square base the tower was made up of three tapering tiers the lower square section a middle octagonal section and at the top the circular segment the building was decorated with texts and motifs of the greek gods use and poseidon from imprints on surviving roman coins we can see that the structure was topped by a statue of one of these gods and that each corner included a statue of the lesser god triton aside from its appealing appearance though the lighthouse was also totally functional a massive mirror was attached to the top of the structure to reflect sunlight during the days while a furnace lit the way for ships that were sailing at night the lighthouse stood firm for over a thousand years before a series of earthquakes finally did it in around 800 ce the first quake damaged the top tier of the structure which was then replaced with an islamic style dome but a magnitude 7 earthquake in 956 caused irreparable structural damage the crumbling lighthouse stood for another 400 years before it was finally destroyed for good in 1480 at the hands of another earthquake and i'll just add here that if you'd like to learn a whole lot more about the lighthouse of alexandria i've actually done a deep dive into it on my other channel megaprojects the mausoleum as halicarnassus also known as the tomb of mausolus was built from 353 to 350 bce in the fourth century bce helicomas which sits in modern-day turkey was the capital of the small regional kingdom of carrier the kingdom's leader mausolus expanded his empire into the nearby region called alicia known for its distinct raised teams near the end of his life borzelos was determined to build a similar resting place for himself and his wife inspired by lycian tombs and the roulette's obsession with greek architecture mausolus died in 353 bce so his wife artemisia took control of the project she hired the region's most famous artists and architects including scopus the man who designed the temple to artimus in nearby a thesis artemisia lived another two years but the result completed the year following her death was unlike any tomb the world had ever seen in fact it supposedly looked much more like a greek temple than a house for the dead it included two main levels of construction with a large marble staircase leading to a raised platform surrounded by 36 large pillars between the pillars sat statues of lions which reached 1.6 metres tall the tomb itself sat on the raised platform and at its peak reached 45 meters above the ground the tomb's roof was pyramid shaped and included a quadriga a statue of four massive horses pulling a chariot on which mausoleus and artemisia rode the tomb became so iconic that the word for an above ground tomb or mausoleum was derived from the name of the man who lay inside the mausoleum was the longest standing of any wonder but the pyramids surviving countless invasions by foreign rulers including alexander the great it stood for 16 centuries until like so many of the ancient wonders it succumbed to a handful of earthquakes and collapsed completely in 1404 the temple of artemis was built and rebuilt three times over its long history and each time the result was more grand and beautiful than the last all three iterations stood in the historical city of the thesis in modern-day turkey though the original construction date is unknown it was likely at some point in the 8th century this iteration didn't last long as it was destroyed by a flood in the 7th century the second iteration was built around 550 bce and was the first greek temple ever built primarily out of marble it was large and grand but again it didn't last very long an infamous arsonist named hirostratus set fire to the temple's wooden roof beams resulting in its destruction in 356 bce alexander the great personally offered to finance the temple's reconstruction but the ephesians refused stating that it would be improper for one god to build a temple to another instead they financed the project themselves and the result was arguably the most beloved greek temple it was a massive structure 137 metres long by 69 metres wide and 18 meters high with more than 125 columns it retained the striking marble exterior and upon its completion around 320 bce became perhaps the most striking of any of the ancient wonders as the writer inhibitor noted when i saw the sacred house of artemis that towers to the clouds the other wonders were placed in the shade the final reconstruction survived for over 600 years and was even mentioned several times throughout the bible as a thesis was a hot spot for christian missionaries once christianity spread through the region the temple was shut down but remained intact until a goth invasion in 268 ce the goths may have burnt into the ground or simply damaged it we don't know other recollections claim that it was finally destroyed by the archbishop of constantinople around 400 ce the statue of zeus built by the famed sculpture phidias was completed in 435 bce and sat in the temple of zeus in olympia the aliens famous for hosting the olympic games had a bit of rivalry with their neighbors the athenians and sought to improve their own stature by building the wonderful tribute to one of the most powerful of the ancient greek gods though considerably smaller than most of the wonders on this list the 12.4 metre tall statue would have been a sight to behold its frame was made out of wood but the exterior was covered with gold panels and precious gems the sculpture depicts zeus seated on his massive throne holding a scepter in one hand and the goddess of victory nighty in the other the crown of olive branches sat upon the god's head the enormous statue consumed half of the width of the temple and according to the geographer strabo would have been taller than the temple and the enormous figure stood from his throne little is known about the statue's ultimate fate as the centuries past greek mythology fell out of favor and it became a symbol of paganism around 40 ce the roman emperor caligula reportedly requested that the statues had be removed and brought to him in rome but according to legend zeus struck caligula dead and the statue at olympia let out a burst of raucous laughter at his victory the statue likely stood for about 800 years and in the 5th century ce it was either destroyed in a fire that burned the temple to the ground or it was broken down and taken to constantinople where it would have been melted down for the value of its metals the colossus of rhodes was both the last completed and first destroyed of the ancient world's seven wonders it was started around the same time as the lighthouse of alexandria and was completed in 280 bce in the late 14th century bc the island of rhodes was under siege by an army under the command of a man named antigona's monophythalmus rhodes's ally ptolemy the first the man who commissioned the construction of the lighthouse sent a fleet of ships to deter antigonas whose armies fled without their weapons the people of rhodes gathered up these weapons melted them down and sold the metal for a sum of 300 talents quite the payoff in thanks to their patron god helios the rhodians used the money to build a colossal statue in his likeness the resulting figure stood 33 meters high approximately two-thirds the height of the statue of liberty making it the tallest statue in the ancient world the figure only stood for 54 years but in that time it became one of the most beloved sites in the greek world it was destroyed by well you probably guessed a massive earthquake in 226 bce breaking it into pieces which fell across the land on which it stood however such was the scale of the sculpture that the massive remnants remained a popular attraction for visitors to the greek island ptolemy iii offered to finance the reconstruction of the statue but the oracle of rhodes advised against it claiming that the statue's destruction was a clear sign that the rhodians had somehow offended the god helios that it was meant to honour modern depictions of the figure tend to show it with spread legs standing over a narrow passage of water but despite the glorious image that would have been it almost certainly stood completely on solid ground not only would the weight of the materials have collapsed the statue but the ruins would have blocked off entry to the local harbor the statue and its ruins likely stood on the acropolis overlooking the port until they were melted down in 653 ce by arab invaders [Music] perhaps the most hotly contested entry today is going to be the hanging gardens of babylon not only is there little recorded history about the wonder but ruins of the supposedly massive structure have never been found according to legends the gardens were constructed by king nebuchadnezzar ii for his median wife who missed the lush gardens of her homeland this would place the construction of the gardens sometime around 600 bce but nebuchadnezzar's histories and those of babylonians of that era are completely devoid of any mention of such a wondrous structure in fact most of the descriptions of the gardens come from men who lived centuries later and likely never saw the gardens themselves they simply passed on the grand tales that they heard the garden supposedly sat on a gigantic multi-tiered structure with each deer containing a balcony that housed the rich oases waterfalls irrigated each level creating a lush cascading image of vines and water descending from the heavens to earth if the gardens did exist it's almost impossible to determine where they would have stood while babylon sat somewhere along the euphrates the river has changed course over time possibly covering areas of the city where the gardens would have stood what's more some archaeologists claim the gardens stood in the city nineveh where the assyrian king sennacherib is known to have built a magnificent garden we will likely never know for sure whether the hanging gardens ever did exist as the possible location near babylon is currently too unstable to excavate the only one of the ancient wonders to survive to modern times is the great pyramid of khufu near cairo in egypt perhaps even more impressive the pyramid was built almost 2 000 years before the completion of any of the other wonders the ancient egyptians of course built the pyramids as monumental tombs for their rulers but they also contained chambers for the pharaoh's wives and treasures khufu's doom was once part of a much larger complex of temples and pyramids two of which still stand today but while the surviving neighbors are certainly quite wonderful none of them can match the scale of the pyramid of kofu the great pyramid towers above the rest of the wonders on this list standing at 146.5 meters tall and holding the title of the world's tallest building for nearly 4 000 years upon its completion the pyramid was covered with a bright limestone casing which was eventually pillaged over the following millennia estimates of its shape with the casing conclude that the length of each 230 meter side differed by as little as 18 centimeters even with its outer layer gone the pyramid weighs over 6 million tons and consists of 2.3 million blocks of limestone and granite the grey pyramid is so large and so complex that its construction still puzzles engineers and historians to this day keep in mind that the ancient egyptians did not use wheels pulleys or iron tools for the construction yet modern estimates believe that it was built in as little as 10 years by a force of at least 40 000 men at its height this meant that one 80-ton granite block was placed on the foundation every 20 seconds frankly we can only thank the egyptian gods that the great pyramid was never destroyed because if it had been we might not believe it was real [Music] despite some disagreement between the ancients on which structures truly belong on the list of wonders the world seemed to have settled on a consensus but maybe the phrase wonders of the ancient world is a bit misleading to the original writers of the lists it may have been factual but with our modern scope the fact that five of the seven wonders were built by the greek empire begs the question of whether a new name is in order lists of still-standing ancient wonders have been compiled to include more global entrants but perhaps the title seven wonders of the ancient world right now could be more appropriately called the seven wonders of ancient greece so i really hope you found that video interesting if you did smash that like button below don't forget to subscribe if you have a suggestion for a future side projects video leave it in the comments below because we look to the suggestions we look to the comments four suggestions and we make those and thank you for watching

Channel: Sideprojects

Views: 340,274

Keywords: megaprojects, construction, engineering, projects

Id: nyvDjd58mXg

Length: 15min 12sec (912 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 14 2021