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EPHESUS

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 14:14:34 +0100

Ephesus

Ephesus (Ἔφεσος) Ancient City of Anatolia (Efes)
Library of Celsus Ephesus Ephesus (Efes)

Ephesus (Ancient Greek Ἔφεσος, Turkish Efes) was an ancient Greek city on the west coast of Anatolia, near present-day Selçuk, Izmir Province, Turkey. It was one of the twelve cities of the Ionian League during the Classical Greek era. In the Roman period, it was for many years the second largest city of the Roman Empire; ranking behind Rome, the empire's capital.^[1]^[2] Ephesus had a population of more than 250,000 in the 1st century BC, which also made it the second largest city in the world.^[2]

The city was famed for the Temple of Artemis (completed around 550 BCE), one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The temple was destroyed in 401 CE by a mob led by St. John Chrysostom.^[3] Emperor Constantine I rebuilt much of the city and erected new public baths. The town was again partially destroyed by an earthquake in 614. The city's importance as a commercial center declined as the harbor was slowly silted up by the Cayster River (Küçük Menderes).

Ephesus was one of the seven churches of Asia that are cited in the Book of Revelation.^[4] The Gospel of John may have been written here.^[5] It is also the site of a large gladiators' graveyard.

Today's archaeological site lies 3 kilometers southwest of the town of Selçuk, in the Selçuk district of İzmir Province, Turkey. The ruins of Ephesus are a favorite international and local tourist attraction, partly owing to their easy access from Adnan Menderes Airport and via the port of Kuşadası.

History

Neolithic age

The area surrounding Ephesus was already inhabited during the Neolithic Age (about 6000 BCE), as was revealed by the excavations at the nearby hoyuk (artificial mounds known as tells) of Arvalya and Cukurici.^[6]^[7]

Bronze age

Excavations in recent years have unearthed settlements from the early Bronze Age at the Ayasuluk Hill. In 1954 a burial ground from the Mycenaean era (1500-1400 BCE) with ceramic pots was discovered close to the ruins of the basilica of St. John.^[8] This was the period of the Mycenaean Expansion when the Achaioi (as they were called by Homer) settled in Ahhiyawa during the 14th and 13th centuries BCE. Scholars believe that Ephesus was founded on the settlement of Apasa (or Abasa), a Bronze Age-city noted in 14th-century BCE Hittite sources as in the land of Ahhiyawa. ^[9]

Dark age

Site of the Temple of Artemis in the town of Selçuk, near Ephesus.

Ephesus was founded as an Attic-Ionian colony in the 10th century BCE on the Ayasuluk Hill, three kilometers from the center of antique Ephesus (as attested by excavations at the Seljuk castle during the 1990s). The mythical founder of the city was a prince of Athens named Androklos, who had to leave his country after the death of his father, King Kadros. According to legend, he founded Ephesus on the place where the oracle of Delphi became reality ("A fish and a boar will show you the way"). Androklos drove away most of the native Carian and Lelegian inhabitants of the city and united his people with the remainder. He was a successful warrior, and as king he was able to join the twelve cities of Ionia together into the Ionian League. During his reign the city began to prosper. He died in a battle against the Carians when he came to the aid of Priene, another city of the Ionian League.^[10] Androklos and his dog are depicted on the Hadrian temple frieze, dating from the second century. Later, Greek historians such as Pausanias, Strabo and the poet Kallinos, and the historian Herodotos reassigned the city's mythological foundation to Ephos, queen of the Amazons.

The Greek goddess Artemis and the great Anatolian goddess Kybele were identified together as Artemis of Ephesus. The many-breasted "Lady of Ephesus", identified with Artemis, was venerated in the Temple of Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders of the World and the largest building of the ancient world according to Pausanias (4.31.8). Pausanius mentions that the temple was built by Ephesus, son of the river god Caystrus^[11] before the arrival of the Ionians. Of this structure, scarcely a trace remains.

Archaic period

About 650 BCE, Ephesus was attacked by the Cimmerians, who razed the city, including the temple of Artemis. When the Cimmerians had been driven away, the city was ruled by a series of tyrants. After a revolt by the people, Ephesus was ruled by a council called the Kuretes. The city prospered again, producing a number of important historical figures, such as the iambic poet Callinus ^[12] and the satirist Hipponax, the philosopher Heraclitus, the great painter Parrhasius and later the grammarian Zenodotos and physicians Soranus and Rufus.

About 560 BCE Ephesus was conquered by the Lydians under king Croesus. He treated the inhabitants with respect, despite ruling harshly, and even became the main contributor to the reconstruction of the temple of Artemis.^[13] His signature has been found on the base of one of the columns of the temple (now on display in the British Museum). Croesus made the populations of the different settlements around Ephesus regroup (synoikismos) in the vicinity of the Temple of Artemis, enlarging the city.

Later in the same century, the Lydians under Croesus invaded Persia. The Ionians refused a peace offer from Cyrus the Great, siding with the Lydians instead. After the Persians defeated Croesus the Ionians offered to make peace, but Cyrus insisted that they surrender and become part of the empire.^[14] They were defeated by the Persian army commander Harpagos in 547 BCE. The Persians then incorporated the Greek cities of Asia Minor into the Achaemenid Empire. Those cities were then ruled by satraps.

Ephesus has intrigued archaeologists because for the Archaic Period there is no definite location for the settlement. There are numerous sites to suggest the movement of a settlement between the Bronze Age and the Roman period, but the silting up of the natural harbors as well as the movement of the Kayster River meant that the location never remained the same.

Classical period

Ephesus continued to prosper. But when taxes continued to be raised under Cambyses II and Darius, the Ephesians participated in the Ionian Revolt against Persian rule in the Battle of Ephesus (498 BCE), an event which instigated the Greco-Persian wars. In 479 BCE, the Ionians, together with Athens and Sparta, were able to oust the Persians from Anatolia. In 478 BCE, the Ionian cities entered with Athens and Sparta into the Delian League against the Persians. Ephesus did not contribute ships but gave financial support by offering the treasure of Apollo to the goddess Athena, protectress of Athens.

During the Peloponnesian War, Ephesus was first allied to Athens^{[citation needed]} but sided in a later phase, called the Decelean War, or the Ionian War, with Sparta, which also had received the support of the Persians. As a result, rule over the kingdoms of Anatolia was ceded again to Persia.

These wars did not much affect daily life in Ephesus. The Ephesians were surprisingly modern in their social relations. They allowed strangers to integrate. Education was much valued. Through the cult of Artemis, the city also became a bastion of women's rights. Ephesus even had female artists. In later times, Pliny the Elder mentioned having seen at Ephesus a representation of the goddess Diana by Timarata, the daughter of a painter.

In 356 BCE the temple of Artemis was burned down, according to legend, by a lunatic called Herostratus. The inhabitants of Ephesus at once set about restoring the temple and even planned a larger and grander one than the original.

Hellenistic period

Historical map of Ephesus, from Meyers Konversationslexikon, 1888

When Alexander the Great defeated the Persian forces at the Battle of Granicus in 334 BCE, the Greek cities of Asia Minor were liberated. The pro-Persian tyrant Syrpax and his family were stoned to death, and Alexander was greeted warmly when he entered Ephesus in triumph. When Alexander saw that the temple of Artemis was not yet finished, he proposed to finance it and have his name inscribed on the front. But the inhabitants of Ephesus demurred, claiming that it was not fitting for one god to build a temple to another. After Alexander's death in 323 BCE, Ephesus in 290 BCE came under the rule of one of Alexander's generals, Lysimachus.

As the river Cayster silted up the harbor, the resulting marshes caused malaria and many deaths among the inhabitants. The people of Ephesus were forced to move to a new settlement two kilometers further on, when the king flooded the old city by blocking the sewers.^[15] This settlement was called after the king's second wife, Arsinoe II of Egypt. After Lysimachus had destroyed the nearby cities of Lebedos and Colophon in 292 BCE, he relocated their inhabitants to the new city.

Ephesus revolted after the treacherous death of Agathocles, giving the Syrian king Seleucus I Nicator an opportunity for removing and killing Lysimachus, his last rival, at the Battle of Corupedium in 281 BCE. After the death of Lysimachos the town again was named Ephesus.

Thus Ephesus became part of the Seleucid Empire. After the murder of king Antiochus II Theos and his Egyptian wife, pharaoh Ptolemy III invaded the Seleucid Empire and the Egyptian fleet swept the coast of Asia Minor. Ephesus came under Egyptian rule between 263-197 BCE.

When the Seleucid king Antiochus III the Great tried to regain the Greek cities of Asia Minor, he came in conflict with Rome. After a series of battles, he was defeated by Scipio Asiaticus at the Battle of Magnesia in 190 BCE. As a result, Ephesus came under the rule of the Attalid king of Pergamon Eumenes II (197-133 BCE). When his grandson Attalus III died without male children of his own, he left his kingdom to the Roman Republic.

Roman period

Theater.

Temple of Hadrian.

Ephesus became subject of the Roman Republic. The city felt at once the Roman influence. Taxes rose considerably, and the treasures of the city were systematically plundered. In 88 BCE Ephesus welcomed Archelaus, a general of Mithridates the Great, king of Pontus, when he conquered western Anatolia. This led to the Asiatic Vespers, the slaughter of 80,000 Roman citizens in Asia Minor, or any person who spoke with a Latin accent. Many had lived in Ephesus. But when they saw how badly the people of Chios had been treated by Zenobius, a general of Mithridates, they refused entry to his army. Zenobius was invited into the city to visit Philopoemen (the father of Monima, the favorite wife of Mithridates) and the overseer of Ephesus. As the people expected nothing good of him, they threw him into prison and murdered him. Mithridates took revenge and inflicted terrible punishments. However, the Greek cities were given freedom and several substantial rights. Ephesus became, for a short time, self-governing. When Mithridates was defeated in the First Mithridatic War by the Roman consul Lucius Cornelius Sulla, Ephesus came back under Roman rule in 86 BCE. Sulla imposed a huge indemnity, along with five years of back taxes, which left Asian cities heavily in debt for a long time to come.^[16]

When Augustus became emperor in 27 BCE, he made Ephesus instead of Pergamum the capital of proconsular Asia, which covered western Asia Minor. Ephesus entered an era of prosperity. It became the seat of the governor, growing into a metropolis and a major center of commerce. It was second in importance and size only to Rome.^[17] Ephesus has been estimated to be in the range of 400,000 to 500,000 inhabitants in the year 100, making it the largest city in Roman Asia and of the day. Ephesus was at its peak during the first and second century CE.

The city was famed for the Temple of Artemis (Diana),^[18] who had her chief shrine there, the Library of Celsus, and its theatre, which was capable of holding 25,000 spectators. This open-air theater was used initially for drama, but during later Roman times gladiatorial combats were also held on its stage, with the first archaeological evidence of a gladiator graveyard found in May 2007.^[19] The population of Ephesus also had several major bath complexes, built at various points while the city was under Roman rule. The city had one of the most advanced aqueduct systems in the ancient world, with multiple aqueducts of various sizes to supply different areas of the city, including 4 major aqueducts.

The city and temple were destroyed by the Goths in 263. This marked the decline of the city's splendor.

Byzantine era (395-1071)

Ephesus remained the most important city of the Byzantine Empire in Asia after Constantinople in the 5th and 6th centuries. The emperor Constantine I rebuilt much of the city and erected a new public bath. In 406 John Chrysostom, archbishop of Constantinople, ordered the destruction of the Temple of Artemis.^[20] Emperor Flavius Arcadius raised the level of the street between the theatre and the harbour. The basilica of St. John was built during the reign of emperor Justinian I in the sixth century.

The town was again partially destroyed by an earthquake in 614.

The importance of the city as a commercial center declined as the harbor was slowly silted up by the river (today, Küçük Menderes) despite repeated dredging during the city's history.^[21] (Today, the harbor is 5 kilometers inland). The loss of its harbor caused Ephesus to lose its access to the Aegean Sea, which was important for trade. People started leaving the lowland of the city for the surrounding hills. The ruins of the temples were used as building blocks for new homes. Marble sculptures were ground to powder to make lime for plaster.

Sackings by the Arabs first in the year 654-655 by caliph Muawiyah I, and later in 700 and 716 hastened the decline further.

When the Seljuk Turks conquered Ephesus in 1090,^[22] it was a small village. The Byzantines resumed control in 1100 and changed the name of the town to Hagios Theologos. They kept control of the region until 1308. Crusaders passing through were surprised that there was only a small village, called Ayasalouk, where they had expected a bustling city with a large seaport. Even the temple of Artemis was completely forgotten by the local population.

Turkish era

İsa Bey Mosque.

The town was conquered in 1304 by Sasa Bey, an army commander of the Menteşoğulları principality. Shortly afterwards, it was ceded to the Aydınoğulları principality that stationed a powerful navy in the harbour of Ayasuluğ (the present-day Selçuk, next to Ephesus). Ayasoluk became an important harbour, from whence the navy organised raids to the surrounding regions.

The town knew again a short period of flourishing during the 14th century under these new Seljuk rulers. They added important architectural works such as the İsa Bey Mosque, caravansaries and Turkish bathhouses (hamam).

They were incorporated as vassals into the Ottoman Empire for the first time in 1390. The Central Asian warlord Tamerlane defeated the Ottomans in Anatolia in 1402, and the Ottoman sultan Bayezid I died in captivity. The region was restored to the Anatolian Turkish Beyliks. After a period of unrest, the region was again incorporated into the Ottoman Empire in 1425.

Ephesus was eventually completely abandoned in the 15th century and lost her former glory. Nearby Ayasuluğ was renamed Selçuk in 1914.

Ephesus and Christianity

House of the Virgin Mary.

Ephesus was an important center for Early Christianity from the AD 50s. From AD 52-54, Paul lived in Ephesus, working with the congregation and apparently organizing missionary activity into the hinterlands.^[23] He became embroiled in a dispute with artisans, whose livelihood depended on selling the statuettes of Artemis in the Temple of Artemis (Acts 19:23–41). He wrote between 53 and 57 AD the letter 1 Corinthians from Ephesus (possibly from the "Paul tower" close to the harbour, where he was imprisoned for a short time). Later Paul wrote the Epistle to Ephesians while he was in prison in Rome (around 62 AD)

Anatolia was associated with John,^[24] one of the chief apostles, and the Gospel of John might have been written in Ephesus, c 90-100.^[25] Ephesus was one of the seven cities addressed in Revelation (2:1–7), indicating that the church at Ephesus was still strong.

Two decades later, the church at Ephesus there was still important enough to be addressed by a letter written by Bishop Ignatius of Antioch to the Ephesians in the early 2nd century AD, that begins with, "Ignatius, who is also called Theophorus, to the Church which is at Ephesus, in Asia, deservedly most happy, being blessed in the greatness and fullness of God the Father, and predestinated before the beginning of time, that it should be always for an enduring and unchangeable glory" (Letter to the Ephesians). The church at Ephesus had given their support for Ignatius, who was taken to Rome for execution.

The house of the Virgin Mary, about 7 km (4 mi) from Selçuk, is believed to have been the last home of Mary, mother of Jesus. It is a popular place of pilgrimage which has been visited by three recent popes.

The Church of Mary close to the harbor of Ephesus was the setting for the Third Ecumenical Council in 431, which resulted in the condemnation of Nestorius. A Second Council of Ephesus was held in 449, but its controversial acts were never approved by the Catholics. It came to be called the Robber Council of Ephesus or Robber Synod of Latrocinium by its opponents.

Main sites

Roman Library of Celsus.

Gate of Augustus.

Tomb of John the Apostle at the Basilica of St. John.

Ephesus contains the largest collection of Roman ruins in the eastern Mediterranean. Only an estimated 15% has been excavated. The ruins that are visible give some idea of the city's original splendor, and the names associated with the ruins are evocative of its former life. The theater dominates the view down Harbour Street, which leads to the silted-up harbor.

The Library of Celsus, the façade of which has been carefully reconstructed from all original pieces, was built ca. CE 125 by Gaius Julius Aquila in memory of his father and once held nearly 12,000 scrolls. Designed with an exaggerated entrance — so as to enhance its perceived size, speculate many historians — the building faces east so that the reading rooms could make best use of the morning light.

A part of the site, Basilica of St. John, was built in the 6th century CE, under emperor Justinian I over the supposed site of the apostle's tomb. It is now surrounded by Selçuk.

The Temple of Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, is represented only by one inconspicuous column, revealed during an archaeological excavation by the British Museum in the 1870s. Some fragments of the frieze (which are insufficient to suggest the form of the original) and other small finds were removed – some to London and some to the Archaeological Museum, Istanbul.

The Odeon was a small roofed theater^[26] constructed by Vedius Antonius and his wife around 150 CE. It was a small salon for plays and concerts, seating about 1,500 people. There were 22 stairs in the theater. The upper part of the theater was decorated with red granite pillars in the Corinthian style. The entrances were at both sides of the stage and reached by a few steps.^[27]

The Temple of Hadrian dates from the 2nd century but underwent repairs in the 4th century and has been reerected from the surviving architectural fragments. The reliefs in the upper sections are casts, the originals being now exhibited in the Selçuk Archaeological Museum. A number of figures are depicted in the reliefs, including the emperor Theodosius I with his wife and eldest son.^[28] The temple was depicted on the reverse of the Turkish 20 million lira banknote of 2001-2005^[29] and of the 20 new lira banknote of 2005-2009.^[30]

The Temple of Domitian was one of the largest temples on the city. It was erected on a pseudodipteral plan with 8 x 13 columns. The temple and its statue are some of the few remains connected with Domitian.^[28]

At an estimated 44,000 seating capacity, the Theater is believed to be the largest outdoor theater in the ancient world.^[31]

The Tomb/Fountain of Pollio was erected in 97 CE in honor of C. Sextilius Pollio, who constructed the Marnas aqueduct, by Offilius Proculus. It has a concave facade.^[27]^[28]

There were two agoras, one for commercial and one for state business.^[32]^[33]

Seven sleepers

Ephesus is believed to be the city of the Seven Sleepers. The story of the Seven Sleepers, who are considered saints by Catholics, Orthodox Christians and Muslims, tells that they were persecuted because of their belief in God and that they slept in a cave near Ephesus for centuries.

Image of Ephesus on the reverse of the 20 new lira banknote (2005-2008)

Archaeology

The history of archaeological research in Ephesus stretches back to 1863, when British architect John Turtle Wood, sponsored by the British Museum, began to search for the Artemision. In 1869 he discovered the pavement of the temple, but since further expected discoveries were not made the excavations stopped in 1874. In 1895 German archaeologist Otto Benndorf, financed by a 10,000 guilder donation made by Austrian Karl Mautner Ritter von Markhof, resumed excavations. In 1898 Benndorf founded the Austrian Archaeological Institute which plays a leading role in Ephesus today. ^[34]

Notable persons

Heraclitus Presocratic philosopher
Zeuxis (5th century BCE) painter
Parrhasius (5th century BCE) painter
Agasias (2nd century BCE) Greek sculptors
Manuel Philes (c. 1275-1345) Byzantine poet

References

^ Quezi: Ephesus
^ ^a ^b Oklahoma Christian University: Ephesus
^ John Freely, The Western Shores of Turkey: Discovering the Aegean and Mediterranean Coasts, 2004, p. 148.
^ 2:1–7
^ Harris, Stephen L., Understanding the Bible, Palo Alto, Mayfield, 1985.
^ [VIII. Muze Kurtrma Kazilari Semineri ] Adil Evren - Cengiz Icten,pp 111-133 1997
^ [Arkeoloji ve Sanat Dergisi - Cukurici Hoyuk sayi 92 ] Adil Evren 1998
^ Coskun Özgünel (1996). "Mykenische Keramik in Anatolien". Asia Minor Studien 23.
^ Akurgal, Ekrem (2001). The Hattian and Hittite Civilizations. Publications of the Republic of Turkey; Ministry of Culture. p. 111. ISBN 975-17-2756-1.
^ Pausanius (1965). Description of Greece,. New York: Loeb Classical Library. pp. 7.2.8–9.
^ "Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology". Ancientlibrary.com. http://www.ancientlibrary.com/smith-bio/1133.html. Retrieved 2009-04-20.
Mausoleum of Halicarnassus

Fanciful interpretation of the Mausoleum, from a 1572 engraving by Marten Heemskerk

The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus or Tomb of Mausolus^[1] (in Greek, Μαυσωλεῖον τῆς Ἁλικαρνασσοῦ) was a tomb built between 353 and 350 BC at Halicarnassus (present Bodrum, Turkey) for Mausolus, a satrap in the Persian Empire, and Artemisia II of Caria, his wife and sister. The structure was designed by the Greek architects Satyros and Pythis.^[2]^[3] It stood approximately 45 meters (135 ft) in height, and each of the four sides was adorned with sculptural reliefs created by each one of four Greek sculptors — Leochares, Bryaxis, Scopas of Paros and Timotheus.^[4] The finished structure was considered to be such an aesthetic triumph that Antipater of Sidon identified it as one of his Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

The word mausoleum has since come to be used generically for any grand tomb.
Contents

1 Conquest
2 Halicarnassus
3 Construction of the Mausoleum
4 Medieval and modern times
5 Notes
6 Further reading
7 External links
Conquest

623 BC, Halicarnassus was the capital of a small regional kingdom in the coast of Asia Minor. In 377 BC the ruler of the region, Hecatomnus of Milas, died and left the control of the kingdom to his son, Mausolus. Hecatomnus, a local satrap under the Persians, took control of several of the neighboring cities and districts. After Artemisia and Mausolus, he had several other daughters and sons: Ada (adopted mother of Alexander the Great), Idrieus and Pixodarus. Mausolus extended its territory as far as the southwest coast of Anatolia. Artemisia and Mausolus ruled from Halicarnassus over the surrounding territory for twenty-four years. Mausolus, although descended from local people, spoke Greek and admired the Greek way of life and government. He founded many cities of Greek design along the coast and encouraged Greek democratic traditions.

Halicarnassus

Mausolus decided to build a new capital; a city as safe from capture as it was magnificent to be seen. He chose the city of Halicarnassus. If Mausolus' ships blocked a small channel, they could keep all enemy warships out. He started to make of Halicarnassus a capital fit for a warrior prince. His workmen deepened the city's harbor and used the dragged sand to make protecting breakwaters in front of the channel. On land they paved streets and squares, and built houses for ordinary citizens. And on one side of the harbor they built a massive fortified palace for Mausolus, positioned to have clear views out to sea and inland to the hills — places from where enemies could attack.

On land, the workmen also built walls and watchtowers, a Greek–style theatre and a temple to Ares — the Greek god of war.

Artemisia and Mausolus spent huge amounts of tax money to embellish the city. They commissioned statues, temples and buildings of gleaming marble. In the center of the city Artemisia planned to place a resting place for her body, and her husband's, after their death. It would be a tomb that would forever show how rich they were.

In 353 BC Mausolus died, leaving Artemisia broken-hearted. It was the custom in Caria for rulers to be siblings; such incestuous marriages kept the power and the wealth in the family. As a tribute to him, she decided to build him the most splendid tomb, a structure so famous that Mausolus's name is now the eponym for all stately tombs, in the word mausoleum. The construction was also so beautiful and unique it became one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

Soon after construction of the tomb started, Artemisia found herself in a crisis. Rhodes, a Greek island at the Aegean Sea, had been conquered by her and Mausolus. When the Rhodians heard about her husband's death, they rebelled and sent a fleet of ships to capture the city of Halicarnassus. Knowing that the Rhodian fleet was on the way, Artemisia hid her own ships at a secret location at the east end of the city's harbor. After troops from the Rhodian fleet disembarked to attack, Artemisia's fleet made a surprise raid, captured the Rhodian fleet and towed it out to sea. Artemisia put her own soldiers on the invading ships and sailed them back to Rhodes. Fooled into thinking that the returning ships were their own victorious navy, the Rhodians failed to put up a defense and the city was easily captured, quelling the rebellion.

Artemisia lived for only two years after the death of her husband. The urns with their ashes were placed in the yet unfinished tomb. As a form of sacrifice ritual the bodies of a large number of dead animals were placed on the stairs leading to the tomb, then the stairs were filled with stones and rubble, sealing the access. According to the historian Pliny the Elder, the craftsmen decided to stay and finish the work after the death of their patron "considering that it was at once a memorial of his own fame and of the sculptor's art."

Construction of the Mausoleum

Scale model of the Mausoleum at Miniatürk, Istanbul

Artemisia spared no expense in building the tomb. She sent messengers to Greece to find the most talented artists of the time. These included Scopas, the man who had supervised the rebuilding of the temple of Artemis at Ephesus. The famous sculptors were (in the Vitruvius order) Leochares, Bryaxis, Scopas and Timotheus, as well as hundreds of other craftsmen.

The tomb was erected on a hill overlooking the city. The whole structure sat in an enclosed courtyard. At the center of the courtyard was a stone platform on which the tomb sat. A stairway flanked by stone lions led to the top of the platform, which bore along its outer walls many statues of gods and goddess. At each corner, stone warriors mounted on horseback guarded the tomb. At the center of the platform, the marble tomb rose as a square tapering block to one-third of the Mausoleum's 45-meter (135 ft) height. This section was covered with bas-reliefs showing action scenes, including the battle of the centaurs with the lapiths and Greeks in combat with the Amazons, a race of warrior women.

On the top of this section of the tomb thirty-six slim columns, ten per side, with each corner sharing one column between two sides; rose for another third of the height. Standing between each column was a statue. Behind the columns was a solid cella-like block that carried the weight of the tomb's massive roof. The roof, which comprised most of the final third of the height, was pyramidal. Perched on the top was a quadriga: four massive horses pulling a chariot in which rode images of Mausolus and Artemisia.

Medieval and modern times

This lion is among the few free-standing sculptures from the Mausoleum at the British Museum

The Mausoleum overlooked the city of Halicarnassus for many years. It was untouched when the city fell to Alexander III of Macedon in 334 BC and still undamaged after attacks by pirates in 62 and 58 BC. It stood above the city's ruins for sixteen centuries. Then a series of earthquakes shattered the columns and sent the bronze chariot crashing to the ground. By 1404 AD only the very base of the Mausoleum was still recognizable.

In the early fifteenth century, the Knights of St John of Malta invaded the region and built a massive castle called Bodrum Castle. When they decided to fortify it in 1494, they used the stones of the Mausoleum. In 1522 rumors of a Turkish invasion caused the Crusaders to strengthen the castle at Halicarnassus (which was by then known as Bodrum) and much of the remaining portions of the tomb were broken up and used in the castle walls. Sections of polished marble from the tomb can still be seen there today.

At this time a party of knights entered the base of the monument and discovered the room containing a great coffin. In many histories of the Mausoleum one can find the following story of what happened: The party, deciding it was too late to open it that day, returned the next morning to find the tomb, and any treasure it may have contained, plundered. The bodies of Mausolus and Artemisia were missing too. The Knights claimed that Muslim villagers were responsible for the theft. Today, on the walls of the small museum building next to the site of the Mausoleum we find a different story. Research done by archeologists in the 1960s shows that long before the knights came, grave robbers had dug a tunnel under the grave chamber, stealing its contents. Also the museum states that it is most likely that Mausolus and Artemisia were cremated, so only an urn with their ashes were placed in the grave chamber. This explains why no bodies were found.

Before grinding and burning much of the remaining sculpture of the Mausoleum into lime for plaster, the Knights removed several of the best works and mounted them in the Bodrum castle. There they stayed for three centuries.

The design of the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne was inspired by that of the Mausoleum

In the 19th century a British consul obtained several of the statues from the castle, which now reside in the British Museum. In 1852 the British Museum sent the archaeologist Charles Thomas Newton to search for more remains of the Mausoleum. He had a difficult job. He didn't know the exact location of the tomb, and the cost of buying up all the small parcels of land in the area to look for it would have been astronomical. Instead Newton studied the accounts of ancient writers like Pliny to obtain the approximate size and location of the memorial, then bought a plot of land in the most likely location. Digging down, Newton explored the surrounding area through tunnels he dug under the surrounding plots. He was able to locate some walls, a staircase, and finally three of the corners of the foundation. With this knowledge, Newton was able to determine which plots of land he needed to buy.

Newton then excavated the site and found sections of the reliefs that decorated the wall of the building and portions of the stepped roof. Also discovered was a broken stone chariot wheel some two metres (7 ft) in diameter, which came from the sculpture on the Mausoleum's roof. Finally, he found the statues of Mausolus and Artemisia that had stood at the pinnacle of the building. In October 1857 Newton carried blocks of marble from this site by the HMS Supply and landed them in Malta. These blocks were used for the construction of a new dock in Malta for the Royal Navy. Today this dock is known at Dock No. 1 in Cospicua, but the building blocks are hidden from view, submerged in Dockyard Creek in the Grand Harbour.

From 1966 to 1977, the Mausoleum was thoroughly researched by Prof. Kristian Jeppesen of Aarhus University, Denmark. He has produced a six-volume monograph, The Maussolleion at Halikarnassos.

The Masonic House of the Temple of the Scottish Rite, Washington, DC, John Russell Pope, architect, 1911-15, is a more scholarly version

The beauty of the Mausoleum was not only in the structure itself, but in the decorations and statues that adorned the outside at different levels on the podium and the roof: statues of people, lions, horses, and other animals in varying scales. The four Greek sculptors who carved the statues: Bryaxis, Leochares, Scopas and Timotheus were each responsible for one side. Because the statues were of people and animals, the Mausoleum holds a special place in history, as it was not dedicated to the gods of Ancient Greece.

The Mausoleum site in ruins, as it is today

Today, the massive castle of the Knights of Malta still stands in Bodrum, and the polished stone and marble blocks of the Mausoleum can be spotted built into the walls of the structure. At the site of the Mausoleum itself, only the foundation remains, together with a small museum. Some of the surviving sculptures at the British Museum include fragment of statues and many slabs of the frieze showing the battle between the Greeks and the Amazons. There the images of Mausolus and his queen forever watch over the few broken remains of the beautiful tomb she built for him.

Modern buildings based upon the Mausoleum of Maussollos include Grant's Tomb and 26 Broadway in New York City; Los Angeles City Hall; the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia; the spire of St. George's Church, Bloomsbury in London; the Indiana War Memorial (and in turn Chase Tower) in Indianapolis;^[5], the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite Southern Jurisdiction's headquarters, the House of the Temple in Washington D.C., the Civil Courts Building in St. Louis, and the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial in Pittsburgh^[6].

Notes
1. ^ "Mausoleion" meant "[building] dedicated to Mausolus"; thus, Mausoleum of Mausolus is a tautology..
2. ^ Kostof, Spiro (1985). A History of Architecture. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 9. ISBN 0-19-503473-2.
3. ^ Gloag, John (1969) [1958]. Guide to Western Architecture (Revised Edition ed.). The Hamlyn Publishing Group. pp. 362.
4. ^ Smith, William (1870). "Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, page 744". http://www.ancientlibrary.com/smith-dgra/0751.html. Retrieved 2006-09-21.
5. ^ in.gov
6. ^ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2009/09/14/ST2009091402834.html
Further reading
- Kristian Jeppesen, et al. The Maussolleion at Halikarnassos, 6 vols.

STATUE OF ZEUS AT OLYMPIA

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 13:55:43 +0100

Statue of Zeus at Olympia

Coordinates: 37°38′16.3″N 21°37′48″E / 37.637861°N 21.63°E / 37.637861; 21.63

A fanciful reconstruction of Phidias' statue of Zeus, in an engraving made by Philippe Galle in 1572, from a drawing by Maarten van Heemskerck.

The Statue of Zeus at Olympia was made by the Greek sculptor Phidias, circa 432 BC on the site where it was erected in the Temple of Zeus, Olympia, Greece. It was considered to be one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.^[1]

Description: The seated statue, some 12 meters (39 feet) tall, occupied the whole width of the aisle of the temple built to house it. "It seems that if Zeus were to stand up," the geographer Strabo noted early in the first century BC, "he would unroof the temple."^[2] The Zeus was a chryselephantine sculpture, made of ivory and gold-plated bronze. No copy in marble or bronze, has survived, though there are recognizable but approximate versions on coins of nearby Elis and on Roman coins and engraved gems.^[3] A very detailed description of the sculpture and its throne was recorded by the traveler Pausanias, in the second century AD. The sculpture was wreathed with shoots of olive worked in gold and seated on a magnificent throne of cedarwood, inlaid with ivory, gold, ebony and precious stones. In Zeus' right hand there was a small statue of crowned Nike, goddess of victory, also chryselephantine, and in his left hand, a sceptre inlaid with gold, on which an eagle perched.^[4] Plutarch, in his Life of the Roman general Aemilius Paulus, records that the victor over Macedon, when he beheld the statue, “was moved to his soul, as if he had seen the god in person,” while the first century AD Greek orator Dio Chrysostom declared that a single glimpse of the statue would make a man forget all his earthly troubles.^[5]

Roman Seated Zeus, marble and bronze (restored), following the type established by Phidias (Hermitage Museum)

The date of the statue, in the third quarter of the fifth century BC, long a subject of debate, was confirmed archaeologically by the rediscovery and excavation of Phidias' workshop.

According to a legend, when Phidias was asked what inspired him—whether he climbed Mount Olympus to see Zeus, or whether Zeus came down from Olympus so that Pheidias could see him—the artist answered that he portrayed Zeus according to Book One, verses 528 – 530 of Homer's Iliad ^[6]:

Coin of Elis illustrating the Olympian Zeus (Nordisk familjebok)

ἦ καὶ κυανέῃσιν ἐπ' ὀφρύσι νεῦσε Κρονίων

ἀμβρόσιαι δ' ἄρα χαῖται ἐπερρώσαντο ἄνακτος

κρατὸς ἀπ' ἀθανάτοιο μέγαν δ' ἐλέλιξεν Ὄλυμπον.

He spoke, the son of Kronos, and nodded his head with the dark brows,

and the immortally anointed hair of the great god

swept from his divine head, and all Olympos was shaken. ^[7]

The sculptor also was reputed to have immortalised his eromenos, Pantarkes, by carving "Pantarkes kalos" into the god's little finger, and placing a relief of the boy crowning himself at the feet of the statue.^[8]

Loss and destruction: According to Suetonius, the Roman Emperor Caligula "gave orders that such statues of the gods as were especially famous for their sanctity or for their artistic merit, including that of Zeus at Olympia, should be brought from Greece, in order to remove their heads and put his own in their place."^[9] Caligula was assassinated in AD 41. In Rome other interpretations were placed on the phenomenon: according to Suetonius, Caligula's "approaching murder was foretold by many prodigies. The statue of Jupiter at Olympia, which he had order to be taken to pieces and moved to Rome, suddenly uttered such a peal of laughter that the scaffoldings collapsed and the workmen took to their heels."^[10]

The workshop of Phidias at Olympia.

The circumstances of its eventual destruction are a source of debate: the eleventh-century Byzantine historian Georgios Kedrenos^[11] recorded the tradition that it was carried off to Constantinople, where it was destroyed in the great fire of the Lauseion, in AD 475.^[12] Others argue that it perished with the temple when it burned in 425. According to Lucian of Samosata in the later second century, "they have laid hands on your person at Olympia, my lord High-Thunderer, and you had not the energy to wake the dogs or call in the neighbours; surely they might have come to the rescue and caught the fellows before they had finished packing up the swag."^[13]

Phidias' workshop rediscovered: Perhaps the greatest discovery came in 1954-58 with the excavation of the workshop at Olympia where Phidias created the statue. Tools, terracotta moulds and a cup inscribed "I belong to Pheidias" were found here, just where the traveller Pausanias said the Zeus was constructed.^[14]^[15]^[16] This has enabled archaeologists to re-create the techniques used to make the great work and confirm its date.

References

Notes

^ Statue of Zeus from encyclopædiabritannica.com. Retrieved 22 November 2006
^ Alaa K. Ashmawy, "The Seven Wonders: The Statue of Zeus at Olympia" Retrieved on 30 September 2007.
^ Gisela M. A. Richter, "The Pheidian Zeus at Olympia" Hesperia 35 .2 (April-June 1966:166-170) p. 166f, 170. Details of the sculpture in this article are corroborated in the Richter article.
^ "On his head is a sculpted wreath of olive sprays. In his right hand he holds a figure of Victory made from ivory and gold. In his left hand, he holds a sceptre inlaid with every kind of metal, with an eagle perched on the sceptre. His sandals are made of gold, and his robe is also gold. His garments are carved with animals and with lilies. The throne is decorated with gold, precious stones, ebony, and ivory." (Pausanias, Description of Greece 5.11.1-.10). Pausanias was informed that the paintings on the throne were by the brother of Phidias, Panaenus.
^ Or. 12.51
^ Zamarovský, Vojtěch. Za sedmi divy světa. pp. 186.
^ Iliad, I, 528-530
^ Sex in the Ancient World from A to Z, by John Grimes Younger, p.95. Routledge; Abingdon and New York, 2005.
^ Suetonius, Gaius 2.2; compare Cassius Dio, 59.28.3.
^ Suetonius, Gaius, 57.1.
^ Georgius Kedrenos, Historiarum Compendium §322c, in Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae 34, vol. I, p. 564, according to Richter 1966 note 1.
^ Schobel 1965; Richter 1966.
^ Lucian's dialogue Timon the Misanthrope, translated by H. W. Fowler And F. G. Fowler.
^ "Phidias", Oxford Dictionary of Art, e-Notes.com
^ K. Kris Hirst, "A Walking Tour of Olympia, Greece", about.com
^ "Olympia, Workshop of Pheidias", Perseus Building Catalog, about.com

Bibliography

Kenneth D. S. Lapatin, Chryselephantine Statuary in the Ancient Mediterranean World, Oxford U Press (2001) ISBN 0198153112
Alfred Mallwitz and Wolfgang Schiering, Die Werkstatt des Pheidias in Olympia I: Olympische Forschungen V, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter (1964)
Wolfgang Schiering, Die Werkstatt des Pheidias in Olympia II: Werkstattfunde: Olympische Forschungen XVIII, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter (1991) ISBN 3110124688

COLOSSUS OF RHODES

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 13:50:58 +0100

Colossus of Rhodes

This drawing of Colossus of Rhodes, which illustrated The Grolier Society's 1911 Book of Knowledge, is probably fanciful, as the statue likely did not stand astride the harbour mouth.

Colossus of Rhodes, imagined in a 16th-century engraving by Martin Heemskerck, part of his series of the Seven Wonders of the World.

The Colossus of Rhodes was a statue of the Greek god Helios, erected in the city of Rhodes on the Greek island of Rhodes by Chares of Lindos between 292 and 280 BC. It is considered one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Before its destruction, the Colossus of Rhodes stood over 30 meters (107 ft) high, making it one of the tallest statues of the ancient world.^[1]

Siege of Rhodes

Main article: Siege of Rhodes

Alexander the Great died at an early age in 323 BC without having had time to put into place any plans for his succession. Fighting broke out among his generals, the Diadochi, with four of them eventually dividing up much of his empire in the Mediterranean area. During the fighting, Rhodes had sided with Ptolemy, and when Ptolemy eventually took control of Egypt, Rhodes and Ptolemaic Egypt formed an alliance which controlled much of the trade in the eastern Mediterranean.

Antigonus I Monophthalmus was upset by this turn of events. In 305 BC he had his son Demetrius Poliorcetes, also a general, invade Rhodes with an army of 40,000; however, the city was well defended, and Demetrius—whose name "Poliorcetes" signifies the "besieger of cities"—had to start construction of a number of massive siege towers in order to gain access to the walls. The first was mounted on six ships, but these capsized in a storm before they could be used. He tried again with a larger, land-based tower named Helepolis, but the Rhodian defenders stopped this by flooding the land in front of the walls so that the rolling tower could not move.

In 304 BC a relief force of ships sent by Ptolemy arrived, and Demetrius's army abandoned the siege, leaving most of their siege equipment. To celebrate their victory, the Rhodians sold the equipment left behind for 300 talents^[2] (roughly US$360 million in today's money) and decided to use the money to build a colossal statue of their patron god, Helios. Construction was left to the direction of Chares, a native of Lindos in Rhodes, who had been involved with large-scale statues before. His teacher, the sculptor Lysippos, had constructed a 22 meter (70 ft) high^[3] bronze statue of Zeus at Tarentum.

Construction

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Ancient accounts, which differ to some degree, describe the structure as being built with iron tie bars to which brass plates were fixed to form the skin. The interior of the structure, which stood on a 15-meter- (50-foot-) high white marble pedestal near the Mandraki harbor entrance, was then filled with stone blocks as construction progressed.^[4] Other sources place the Colossus on a breakwater in the harbor. The statue itself was over 30 meters (107 ft) tall. Much of the iron and bronze was reforged from the various weapons Demetrius's army left behind, and the abandoned second siege tower was used for scaffolding around the lower levels during construction. Upper portions were built with the use of a large earthen ramp. During the building, workers would pile mounds of dirt on the sides of the colossus. Upon completion all of the dirt was removed and the colossus was left to stand alone. After twelve years, in 280 BC, the statue was completed. Preserved in Greek anthologies of poetry is what is believed to be the genuine dedication text for the Colossus.^[5]

To you, o Sun, the people of Dorian Rhodes set up this bronze statue reaching to Olympus, when they had pacified the waves of war and crowned their city with the spoils taken from the enemy. Not only over the seas but also on land did they kindle the lovely torch of freedom and independence. For to the descendants of Herakles belongs dominion over sea and land.

Possible construction method

Modern engineers have put forward a plausible hypothesis for the statue construction, based on the technology of those days (which was not based on the modern principles of earthquake engineering), and the accounts of Philo and Pliny who both saw and described the remains.^[6]

The base pedestal was at least 60 feet (18 m) in diameter and either circular or octagonal. The feet were carved in stone and covered with thin bronze plates riveted together. Eight forged iron bars set in a radiating horizontal position formed the ankles and turned up to follow the lines of the legs while becoming progressively smaller. Individually cast curved bronze plates 60 inches (1,500 mm) square with turned in edges were joined together by rivets through holes formed during casting to form a series of rings. The lower plates were 1-inch (25 mm) in thickness to the knee and 3/4 inch thick from knee to abdomen, while the upper plates were 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick except where additional strength was required at joints such as the shoulder, neck, etc. The legs would need to be filled at least to the knees with stones for stability. Accounts described earthen mounds used to aid construction; however, to reach the top of the statue would have required a mound 300 feet (91 m) in diameter, which exceeded the available land area, so modern engineers have proposed that the abandoned siege towers stripped down would have made efficient scaffolding.

A computer simulation of this construction indicated that an earthquake would have caused a cascading failure of the rivets, causing the statue to break up at the joints while still standing instead of breaking after falling to the ground, as described in second hand accounts. The arms would have been first to separate, followed by the legs. The knees were less likely to break and the ankles' survival would have depended on the quality of the workmanship.

Destruction

Further information: 226 BC Rhodes earthquake

The statue stood for only 56 years until Rhodes was hit by the 226 BC Rhodes earthquake, when significant damage was also done to large portions of the city, including the harbor and commercial buildings, which were destroyed.^[7] The statue snapped at the knees and fell over on to the land. Ptolemy III offered to pay for the reconstruction of the statue, but the oracle of Delphi made the Rhodians afraid that they had offended Helios, and they declined to rebuild it.

The remains lay on the ground as described by Strabo (xiv.2.5) for over 800 years, and even broken, they were so impressive that many traveled to see them. Pliny the Elder remarked that few people could wrap their arms around the fallen thumb and that each of its fingers was larger than most statues.^[8]

In 654, an Arab force under Muslim caliph Muawiyah I captured Rhodes, and according to the chronicler Theophanes the Confessor,^[9] the remains were sold to a "Jewish merchant of Edessa". The buyer had the statue broken down, and transported the bronze scrap on the backs of 900 camels to his home. There is compelling evidence, however, that all traces of the Colossus had actually disappeared long before the Arab invasion. Theophanes is the sole source of this story to which all other sources can be traced. The stereotypical Arab destruction and the purported sale to a Jew probably originated as a powerful metaphor for Nebuchadnezzar's dream of the destruction of a great and awesome statue, and would have been understood by any seventh century monk as evidence for the coming apocalypse.^[10] The same story is recorded by Barhebraeus, writing in Syriac in the 13th century in Edessa (see E.A. Wallis Budge, The Chronography of Gregory Abu'l-Faraj, vol I, p. 98, APA - Philo Press, Amsterdam, 1932): (After the Arab pillage of Rhodes) "And a great number of men hauled on strong ropes which were tied round the brass Colossus which was in the city and pulled it down. And they weighed from it three thousand loads of Corinthian brass, and they sold it to a certain Jew from Emesa" (the Syrian city of Homs).

Posture

The Colossus of Rhodes depicted in 1880.

The harbor-straddling Colossus was a figment of medieval imaginations based on the dedication text's mention of "over land and sea" twice. Many older illustrations (above) show the statue with one foot on either side of the harbor mouth with ships passing under it: "...the brazen giant of Greek fame, with conquering limbs astride from land to land..." ("The New Colossus", a poem engraved on a bronze plaque and mounted inside the Statue of Liberty in 1903). Shakespeare's Cassius in Julius Caesar (I,ii,136–38) says of Caesar:

Why man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus, and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs and peep about
To find ourselves dishonorable graves

Shakespeare alludes to the Colossus also in Troilus and Cressida (V.5) and in Henry IV, Part 1 (V.1).

While these fanciful images feed the misconception, the mechanics of the situation reveal that the Colossus could not have straddled the harbor as described in Lemprière's Classical Dictionary. If the completed statue straddled the harbor, the entire mouth of the harbor would have been effectively closed during the entirety of the construction; nor would the ancient Rhodians have had the means to dredge and re-open the harbor after construction. The statue fell in 224 BC: if it straddled the harbor mouth, it would have entirely blocked the harbor. Also, since the ancients would not have had the ability to remove the entire statue from the harbor, it would not have remained visible on land for the next 800 years, as discussed above. Even neglecting these objections, the statue was made of bronze, and an engineering analysis proved^{[citation needed]} that it could not have been built with its legs apart without collapsing from its own weight. Many researchers have considered alternate positions for the statue which would have made it more feasible for actual construction by the ancients.^{[citation needed]}

Location of the ruins

Media reports in 1989 initially suggested that large stones found on the seabed off the coast of Rhodes might have been the remains of the Colossus; however this theory was later shown to be without merit.

Another theory published in an article in 2008 by Ursula Vedder suggests that the Colossus was never in the port, but rather on a hill named Monte Smith, which overlooks the port area. The temple on top of Monte Smith has traditionally thought to have been devoted to Apollo, but according to Vedder, it would have been a Helios sanctuary. The enormous stone foundations at the temple site, the function of which is not definitively known by modern scholars, are proposed by Vedder to have been the supporting platform of the Colossus.^[11]

Statue of Liberty

The design, posture and dimensions of the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor are based on what the Colossus was thought by engineers in the late 19th century to have looked like. There is a famous reference to the Colossus in the poem "The New Colossus" by Emma Lazarus, written in 1883 and inscribed on a plaque located inside the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty:

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Rebuilding

There has been much debate as to whether to rebuild the Colossus. Those in favor say it would boost tourism in Rhodes greatly, but those against construction say it would cost too large an amount (over 100 million euro). This idea has been revived many times since it was first proposed in 1970 but, due to lack of funding, work has not yet started.

In November 2008, it was announced that the Colossus of Rhodes was to be rebuilt. According to Dr. Dimitris Koutoulas, who is heading the project in Greece, rather than reproducing the original Colossus, the new structure will be a, "highly, highly innovative light sculpture, one that will stand between 60 and 100 metres tall so that people can physically enter it." The project is expected to cost up to €200m which will be provided by international donors and the German artist Gert Hof. The new Colossus will adorn an outer pier in the harbour area of Rhodes, where it will be visible to passing ships. Koutoulas said, "Although we are still at the drawing board stage, Gert Hof's plan is to make it the world's largest light installation, a structure that has never before been seen in any place of the world."^[12]

Popular culture

In the comic book Asterix at the Olympic Games, Rhodes sends "a colossus" to compete in the Olympic Games.
In Sergio Leone's sword and sandal film Il Colosso di Rodi (1961) the Colossus stands spread-legged over the only entrance to Rhodes' harbour. In this instance the statue is hollow (like the Statue of Liberty) and is armed with defensive weaponry.
Sylvia Plath's poem "The Colossus", refers to the Colossus of Rhodes.
In the PlayStation 2 game God of War II, both Rhodes and the Colossus of Rhodes are featured at the start of the game, offering an interactive theory as to how the Colossus was destroyed.
In the novel Seven Ancient Wonders by Australian novelist Matthew Reilly, The Colossus is fictionalised to have been holding a piece of the Golden Capstone (which fictionally sat atop the Great Pyramid) and after being felled by the earthquake, was hidden in a trap laden abandoned mine.
The novel The Bronze God of Rhodes by L. Sprague de Camp is a fictionalized account of the building of the Colossus.
In the video game X-Men Legends, an opponent called "Champion of Rhodes" challenges the character, serving as a dark version of the character Colossus.
In the Civilization (series), The Colossus is one of first wonders available.
In Rise of Nations, 'The Colossus' is one of the first wonders available to be built. It allows the player who built it to have a population cap increased by 50. This makes The Colossus an important wonder for the whole game.
In the strategy game Rome Total War, the Colossus of Rhodes is a wonder that can be captured when a player's faction controls the Isle of Rhodes. Capturing this wonder increases tradable goods for whatever faction is in control of it.
In the open movie Elephants Dream, Emo "creates" the Colossus of Rhodes to mock and to anger Proog.
In the Disney animated movie Hercules, Phil lives in the head of the Colossus.
In the novel A Feast for Crows by George R.R. Martin the "Titan of Braavos" stands astride the harbor of Braavos as an homage to the Colossus of Rhodes
In the video game Talismania, one of the levels consists of building the Colossus to scare away the Kraken.
In Transformers animated there is a character known as Colossus Rhodes.

References

James R. Ashley (2004). Macedonian Empire. McFarland & Company. ISBN 0-7864-1918-0. page 75

Notes

^ The Colossus of Nero was either 100 or 120-foot (37 m) tall, depending on the source.
^ Pliny's Natural History xxxiv.18.
^ Forty cubits high, according to Pliny the Elder (Natural History xxxiv.18).
^ Accounts of Philo of Byzantium ca. 150 B.C. and Pliny (Plineus Caius Secundus) ca. 50 A.D. based on viewing the broken remains
^ Anthologia Graeca 4, 171 H. Beckby (Munich 1957)
^ International Symposium on History of Machines and Mechanisms: Engineering Aspects of the Collapse of the Colossus of Rhodes Statue. pages 69 - 85 ISBN 978-1-4020-2203-6
^ Bozeman, Adda Bruemmer (1994). Politics and culture in international history: from the ancient Near East to the opening of the modern age. Transaction Publishers. pp. 108. ISBN 1560007354. http://books.google.com/books?id=XrzTZmsKZAoC&pg=PA108&dq=226+bc+rhodes+earthquake&lr=&as_drrb_is=q&as_minm_is=0&as_miny_is=&as_maxm_is=0&as_maxy_is=&as_brr=3#v=onepage&q=226%20bc%20rhodes%20earthquake&f=false.
^ Natural History, book 34, xviii, 41.
^ See also Constantine VII Porphyrogenitos, De administrando imperio xx-xxi.
^ The Arabs and the Colossus. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 3rd ser. L.I. Conrad July 1996 Pg 165-187
^ P.M. HISTORY April 2008
^ Helena Smith, Colossus of Rhodes to be rebuilt as giant light sculpture, Guardian UK Online, 17 November 2008 (retrieved 19 November 2008).

HANGING GARDENS OF BABYLON

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 13:46:12 +0100

Hanging Gardens of Babylon

An ancient depiction of the Hanging Gardens. Irrigation on an artificial slope.

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, also known as the Hanging Gardens of Semiramis, near present-day Al Hillah, Babil in Iraq, are considered to be one of the original Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. They were built by the Chaldean king Nebuchadnezzar around 600 BC. He is reported to have constructed the gardens to please his homesick wife, Amytis of Media, who longed for the trees and fragrant plants of her homeland Persia.^[1] The gardens were destroyed by several earthquakes after the 2nd century BC.

The lush Hanging Gardens are extensively documented by Greek historians such as Strabo and Diodorus Siculus. Through the ages, the location may have been confused with gardens that existed at Nimrud, since tablets from there clearly show gardens. Writings on these tablets describe the possible use of something similar to an Archimedes screw as a process of raising the water to the required height.^{[citation needed]} Nebuchadnezzar II also used massive slabs of stone, which was unheard of in Babylon, to prevent the water from eroding the ground.

Greek references

Gardens of Semiramis, 20th century interpretation

The Greek Historian Strabo:

"Babylon, too, lies in a plain; and the circuit of its wall is three hundred and eighty-five stadia. The thickness of its wall is thirty-two feet; the height thereof between the towers is fifty cubits; that of the towers is sixty cubits; the passage on top of the wall is such that four-horse chariots can easily pass one another; and it is on this account that this and the hanging garden are called one of the Seven Wonders of the World. The garden is quadrangular in shape, and each side is four plethra in length. It consists of arched vaults, which are situated, one after another, on checkered, cube-like foundations. The checkered foundations, which are hollowed out, are covered so deep with earth that they admit of the largest of trees, having been constructed of baked brick and asphalt — the foundations themselves and the vaults and the arches. The ascent to the uppermost terrace-roofs is made by a stairway; and alongside these stairs there were screws, through which the water was continually conducted up into the garden from the Euphrates by those appointed for this purpose. For the river, a stadium in width, flows through the middle of the city; and the garden is on the bank of the river."^[2]

The Greek Historian Diodorus:

"The Garden was 100 feet (30 m) long by 100 ft wide and built up in tiers so that it resembled a theatre. Vaults had been constructed under the ascending terraces which carried the entire weight of the planted garden; the uppermost vault, which was seventy-five feet high, was the highest part of the garden, which, at this point, was on the same level as the city walls.The roofs of the vaults which supported the garden were constructed of stone beams some sixteen feet long, and over these were laid first a layer of reeds set in thick tar, then two courses of baked brick bonded by cement, and finally a covering of lead to prevent the moisture in the soil penetrating the roof. On top of this roof enough topsoil was heaped to allow the biggest trees to take root. The earth was leveled off and thickly planted with every kind of tree. And since the galleries projected one beyond the other, where they were sunlit, they contained conduits for the water which was raised by pumps in great abundance from the river, though no one outside could see it being done."^[3]

Other references

Scriptores Rerum Alexandrii Magni

A 16th-century hand-coloured engraving of the "Hanging Gardens of Babylon" by Dutch artist Martin Heemskerck, with the Tower of Babel in the background.

"And then there were the Hanging Gardens. Paracleisos going up to the top is like climbing a mountain. Each terrace rises up from the last like the syrinx, the pipes of pan, which are made of several tubes of unequal length. This gives the appearance of a theater. It was flanked by perfectly constructed walls twenty-six feet thick. The galleries were roofed with stone balconies. Above these there was the first of a bed of reeds with a great quantity of bitumen, then a double layer of baked bricks set in gypsum, then over that a covering of lead so that moisture from the soil heaped above it would not seep through. The earth was deep enough to contain the roots of the many varieties of trees which fascinated the beholder with their great size and their beauty. There was also a passage which had pipes leading up to the highest level and machinery for raising water through which great quantities of water were drawn from the river, with none of the process being visible from the outside."^[4]

Controversy

There is some controversy as to whether the Hanging Gardens were an actual creation or a poetic creation due to the lack of documentation of them in the chronicles of Babylonian history. In ancient writings the Hanging Gardens of Babylon were first described by Berossus, a Chaldean priest who lived in the late 4th century BC. These accounts were later elaborated on by Greek historians.

A more recent theory proposes that the gardens were actually constructed under the orders of Sennacherib, who took the throne of Assyria in 705 BC, reigning until 681 BC. During new studies of the location of Nineveh (Located on the eastern bank of the Tigris in ancient Assyria) his gardens were placed close to the entrance of his palace, on the bank of the river Tigris. It is possible that in the intervening centuries, the two sites became confused, and the hanging gardens were attributed to Babylon.^[5]

References

^ Foster, Karen Polinger (1998). "Gardens of Eden: Flora and Fauna in the Ancient Near East". Transformations of Middle Eastern Natural Environments: Legacies and Lessons. New Haven: Yale University. pp. 320–329. http://environment.yale.edu/documents/downloads/0-9/103foster.pdf. Retrieved 2007-08-11.
^ 1. Geographies, Book 16, ch 1, § 5
^ 2. Wellard, 1972, pp. 156
^ 3. C. W. Müller, Scriptores Rerum Alexandrii Magni, in the Didot edition of Arrian, 1846, 137
^ Seven Wonders of the World - The History Channel

GREAT PYRAMID OF GIZA

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 13:41:07 +0100

Great Pyramid of Giza

Coordinates: 29°58′45.03″N 31°08′03.69″E / 29.979175°N 31.1343583°E / 29.979175; 31.1343583

The Great Pyramid of Giza, in 2005. Built c. 2560 BC, it is the oldest and largest of the three pyramids in the Giza Necropolis.

The Great Pyramid of Giza (also called the Pyramid of Khufu and the Pyramid of Cheops) is the oldest and largest of the three pyramids in the Giza Necropolis bordering what is now El Giza, Egypt, and in a historical irony is the oldest of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World and the only one that survives substantially intact. It is believed the pyramid was built as a tomb for fourth dynasty Egyptian Pharaoh Khufu (Cheops in Greek) and constructed over a 20 year period concluding around 2551 BC. The Great Pyramid was the tallest man-made structure in the world for over 3,800 years. Originally the Great Pyramid was covered by casing stones that formed a smooth outer surface; what is seen today is the underlying core structure. Some of the casing stones that once covered the structure can still be seen around the base. There have been varying scientific and alternative theories regarding the Great Pyramid's construction techniques. Most accepted construction hypotheses are based on the idea that it was built by moving huge stones from a quarry and dragging and lifting them into place.

There are three known chambers inside the Great Pyramid. The lowest chamber is cut into the bedrock upon which the pyramid was built and was unfinished. The so-called^[1] Queen's Chamber and King's Chamber are higher up within the pyramid structure. The Great Pyramid of Giza is the main part of a complex setting of buildings that included two mortuary temples in honor of Khufu (one close to the pyramid and one near the Nile), three smaller pyramids for Khufu's wives, an even smaller "satellite" pyramid, a raised causeway connecting the two temples, and small mastaba tombs surrounding the pyramid for nobles.

Building of the Great pyramid of Giza

It is believed the pyramid was built as a tomb for Fourth dynasty Egyptian pharaoh Khufu and constructed over a 14^[2] to 20 year period. Khufu's vizier, Hemon, or Hemiunu, is believed by some to be the architect of the Great Pyramid.^[3] It is thought that, at construction, the Great Pyramid was originally 280 Egyptian cubits tall, 146.478 metres (480.57 ft) but with erosion and absence of its pyramidion, its current height is 138.75 metres (455.22 ft). Each base side was 440 royal cubits, 230.37 metres (755.81 ft) in length. A royal cubit measures 0.524 meters.^[4] The total mass of the pyramid is estimated at 5.9 million tonnes. The volume, including an internal hillock, is believed to be roughly 2,500,000 cubic meters.^[5] Based on these estimates, building this in 20 years would involve installing approximately 800 tonnes of stone every day. The first precision measurements of the pyramid were done by Egyptologist Sir Flinders Petrie in 1880–82 and published as The Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh.^[6] Almost all reports are based on his measurements. Many of the casing stones and interior chamber blocks of the Great Pyramid were fit together with extremely high precision. Based on measurements taken on the north eastern casing stones, the mean opening of the joints are only 0.5 millimeters wide (1/50th of an inch).^[7]

Great Pyramid of Giza from a 19th century stereopticon card photo

The pyramid remained the tallest man-made structure in the world for over 3,800 years,^[8] unsurpassed until the 160-meter-tall spire of Lincoln Cathedral was completed c. 1300. The accuracy of the pyramid's workmanship is such that the four sides of the base have a mean error of only 58 millimeters in length ^[9] The base is horizontal and flat to within 21 mm^[10]. The sides of the square base are closely aligned to the four cardinal compass points (within 4 minutes of arc)^[11] based on true north, not magnetic north^[12], and the finished base was squared to a mean corner error of only 12 seconds of arc^[13]. The completed design dimensions, as suggested by Petrie's survey and later studies, are estimated to have originally been 280 cubits in height by 440 cubits in length at each of the four sides of its base. These proportions equate to π/2 to an accuracy of better than 0.05% (corresponding to the approximation of π as 22/7). Some Egyptologists consider this to have been the result of deliberate design proportion^[14]. Verner wrote, "We can conclude that although the ancient Egyptians could not precisely define the value of π, in practice they used it".^[15] Petrie, author of Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh, who was the first accurate surveyor of Giza and the excavator and surveyor of the Pyramid of Meidum, concluded: "but these relations of areas and of circular ratio are so systematic that we should grant that they were in the builders design".^[16] Earlier in the chapter he wrote more specifically, that: “We conclude therefore that the approximation of 7 to 22 as the ratio of diameter to circumference was recognised”.^[17] These proportions equated to the four outer faces sloping by 51.843° or 51° 50′ 34″, which would have been understood and expressed by the Ancient Egyptians as a seked slope of 5½ palms^[18].

Materials

The Great Pyramid consists of more than 2.3 million limestone blocks (unless it was built on a substantial core of natural rock, which is possible). The Egyptians obtained the majority of the limestone blocks from a nearby quarry. The Tura limestone used for the casing was quarried across the river. The largest granite stones in the pyramid, found in the "King's" chamber, weigh 25 to 80 tonnes and were transported more than 500 miles away from Aswan. Traditionally, ancient Egyptians cut stone blocks by hammering wedges into the stone which were then soaked with water. The wedges expanded, causing the rock to crack. Once they were cut, they were carried by boat either up or down the Nile River to the pyramid.^[19]

Casing stones

casing stone

At completion, the Great Pyramid was surfaced by white 'casing stones' – slant-faced, but flat-topped, blocks of highly polished white limestone. These were carefully cut to what is approximately a face slope with a seked of 5 1/2 palms to give the required overall dimensions. Visibly, all that remains is the underlying stepped core structure seen today. In AD 1300, a massive earthquake loosened many of the outer casing stones, which were then carted away by Bahri Sultan An-Nasir Nasir-ad-Din al-Hasan in 1356 in order to build mosques and fortresses in nearby Cairo. The stones can still be seen as parts of these structures to this day. Later explorers reported massive piles of rubble at the base of the pyramids left over from the continuing collapse of the casing stones, which were subsequently cleared away during continuing excavations of the site. Nevertheless, a few of the casing stones from the lowest course can be seen to this day in situ around the base of the Great Pyramid, and display the same workmanship and precision as has been reported for centuries. Petrie also found a different orientation in the core and in the casing measuring 193 centimeters ± 25 centimeters. He suggested a redetermination of north was made after the construction of the core, but a mistake was made, and the casing was built with a different orientation.^[20] Petrie related the precision of the casing stones as to being "equal to opticians' work of the present day, but on a scale of acres." and "to place such stones in exact contact would be careful work; but to do so with cement in the joints seems almost impossible."^[21]

Construction theories

Main article: Egyptian pyramid construction techniques

Many alternative, often contradictory, theories have been proposed regarding the Pyramid's construction techniques.^[22] Not all even agree that the blocks were quarried; Davidovits claims that they were cast in situ using a "limestone concrete", a theory which is rejected by other Egyptologists. The rest accept that it was built by moving huge stones from a quarry, being only unable to agree whether they were dragged, lifted or even rolled into place. The Greeks believed that slave labour was used but modern Egyptologists accept that it was built by many tens of thousands of skilled workers. They camped near the pyramids and worked for a salary or as a form of paying taxes until the construction was completed.^{[citation needed]} Their cemeteries were discovered in 1990 by archaeologists Zahi Hawass and Mark Lehner. Verner posited that the labor was organized into a hierarchy, consisting of two gangs of 100,000 men, divided into five zaa or phyle of 20,000 men each, which may have been further divided according to the skills of the workers.^[23]

One of the mysteries of the pyramid's construction is how they planned its construction. John Romer suggests that they used the same method that had been used for earlier and later constructions, laying out parts of the plan on the ground at a 1 to 1 scale. He writes that "such a working diagram would also serve to generate the architecture of the pyramid with a precision unmatched by any other means." He devotes a chapter of his book to the physical evidence that there was such a plan.^[24] In fact, the Cole survey of 1925 discovered as part of some planning an actual Original Builder's Mark, engraved into the pavement perpendicular to the N face, suggesting definitely different slopes planned into the Pyramid E and W faces.

Interior

Diagram of the interior structures of the Great Pyramid. The inner line indicates the pyramid's present profile, the outer line indicates the original profile.

The original entrance to the Great Pyramid is 55' vertically about ground level and 24' east of the centre line of the pyramid. This was probably a measure to defeat any attempt to break into the pyramid. The efficacy of this ruse is proven by the presence of a Robbers Tunnel dug into the stonework on the centre line of the pyramid. This is the work of Caliph al-Mamun, whose men would have dug all the way through the pyramid without encountering anything had it not been for the unfortunate accident described below.

From this original entrance there is a Descending Passage 3'11" in height and 3'5" in width which goes down at an angle of 26° 31'23" through the masonry of the pyramid and then into the bedrock beneath it. After 345' the passage becomes level and continues for a further 29' to the lower Chamber, which appears not to have been finished. There is a continuation of the horizontal passage in the south wall of the lower chamber; there is also a pit dug in the floor of the chamber, which may represent a start at making the chamber deeper, or may have some ritual significance as a conduit to the pirmaeval waters under the earth.

Some Egyptologists suggest the Lower Chamber was intended to be the original burial chamber, but that King Khufu later changed his mind and wanted it to be higher up in the pyramid.^[25] Egyptologist Bob Brier believes it was an insurance policy in case Khufu died early. When he was still alive and healthy after about 5 years of construction, the second (Queen's) chamber was begun. Sometime around the fifteenth year this chamber was also abandoned unfinished and the last or King's Chamber was built high up in the center of the pyramid.^[26]

33' from the entrance there is a square hole in the roof of the Descending Passage. This is the beginning of the Ascending Passage and was originally concealed with a slab of stone. The banging and thumping of al-Mamun's men dislodged this slab, which fell to the floor of the Descending Passage and slithered to the bottom of the sloping portion. The noise it made alerted the robbers that they needed to turn left.

The Ascending Passage is 129' long, as wide and high as the Descending Passage and slopes up at almost precisely the same angle. At the lower end the Ascending Passage is closed by three huge blocks of granite, each about 5' long. These appear to have been stored in the Grand Gallery - they are approximately an inch wider and higher than the entrance to the Ascending Passage - and released after the pharaoh's burial to slide down the Ascending Passage and permanently seal it. Once released, it would have been impossible to control the speed of descent of these granite blocks, so it is almost certain that they were released from above by workmen who would then have been shut in the pyramid.

At the start of the Grand Gallery on the right hand side there is a hole cut in the wall (and now blocked by chicken wire). This is the start of a vertical shaft which follows an irregular path through the masonry of the pyramid to join the Descending Passage. Almost certainly this was the escape route of these workmen and its roughness may indicate that it was constructed surreptitiously.

Also at the start of the Grand Gallery there is a Horizontal Passage leading to the so-called Queen's Chamber. The passage is 3'8" high for most of its length, but near the chamber there is a step in the floor, after which the passage is 5'8" high. In the left-hand wall of this Horizontal Passage there are two metal pipes sloping down at an angle. These were inserted by Japanese archaeologists who had previously used cosmic rays passing through the pyramid to expose x-ray film placed in the Lower Chamber, effectifely x-raying the pyramid. They discovered two anomalies suggestive of hidden chambers, but when they drilled down to these anomalies they found chambers one course high and completely filled with desert sand. It is thought that blocks of stone which failed to arrive in time for some reason were substituted for with the sand.

The Queen's Chamber is exactly half-way between the north and south faces of the pyramid and measures 18'10" north to south, 17'2" east to west and has a pointed roof with an apex 20'5" above the floor. At the eastern end of the chamber there is a niche 15'4" high, probably intended to house a statue of Khufu, though there is no sign of such a statue having been installed. The original depth of the niche was 3'5" but it has been deepened by treasure hunters.

In the north and south walls of the Queen's Chamber there are shafts. Unlike those in the King's Chamber, which immediately slope upwards, these are horizontal for over 6' before sloping upwards. The horizontal distance was cut in 1872 by a British engineer, Waynman Dixon, who believed on the analogy of the King's Chamber that such shafts must exist. He was proved right, but the fact that the shafts do not connect with the outer faces of the pyramid, nor with the Queen's Chamber leaves their purpose unknown. At the end of one of his shafts Dixon discovered a ball of black dioriate - almost certainly a "hammer" used to smooth the stonework - and a bronze implement of unknown purpose. Both objects are currently in the British Museum.

The shafts in the Queen's Chamber were explored in 1992 by the German engineer Rudolf Gantenbrink using a crawler robot of his own design which he called "Upuaut 2". He discovered that one of the shafts was blocked by limestone "doors" with two eroded copper handles. Unfortunately he issued a press release and in so doing fell foul of Zahi Hawass, who banned him from further work in Egypt. Some years later the National Geographic Society created a similar robot which drilled a small hole in the southern door, only to find another larger door behind it.^[27] The northern passage, which was harder to navigate due to twists and turns, was also found to be blocked by a door.^[28]

The Grand Gallery continues the slope of the Ascending Passage, but is 28' high and 153' long. At the base it is 6'9" wide, but after 7'6" the blocks of stone in the walls are corbelled inwards by 3" on each side. There are seven of these steps, so at the top the Grand Gallery is only 3'5" wide. It is roofed by slaps of stone laid at a slightly steeper angle than the floor of the gallery, so that each stone fits into a slot cut in the top of the gallery like the teeth of a ratchet. The purpose was to have each block supported by the wall of the Gallery rather than resting on the block beneath it, which would have resulted in an unacceptable cumulative pressure at the lower end of the Gallery.

At the upper end of the Gallery on the right-hand side there is a hole near the roof which opens onto a short tunnel by means of which access can be gained to the lowest of the Relieving Chambers. The other Reliving Chambers were discovered in 1837/8 by Colonel Howard Vyse and J. S. Perring, who dug tunnels upwards using blasting powder.

The floor of the Grand Gallery consists of a shelf or step on either side, 1'8" wide, leaving a lower ramp 3'5" wide between them. In the shelves there are 54 slots, 27 on each side, matched by both vertical and horizontal slots in the walls of the Gallery (forming a cross shape rising out of the slot in the shelf). The purpose of these slots is not known, but the central gutter in the floor of the Gallery, which is the same width as the Ascending Passage, has led to speculation that the blocking stones were stored in the Grand Gallery and the slots held wooden beams to restrain them from sliding down the passage. This, in turn, has led to the proposal that originally many more than 3 blocking stones were intended, to completely fill the Ascending Passage.

At the top of the Grand Gallery there is a step giving onto a horizontal passage approximately 3'4" long, in which can be detected four slots, three of which were almost certainly intended to hold granite portcullises. Fragments of granite found by Petrie in the Descending Passage may have come from these now vanished doors.

The King's Chamber is 34'4" from east to west and 17'2" north to south. It has a flat roof 19'1" above the floor. 3' above the floor there is an "air shaft" in the north and south walls (one is now filled by an extractor fan to try to circulate air in the pyramid). The purpose of these shafts is not known: they appear to be aligned on stars, but on the other hand one of them follows a dog-leg course through the masonry, which would seem to spoil any benefit from celestial alignment. They do not appear to contribute to air circulation, so the most likely explanation is a ritual one.

The King's Chamber is entirely faced with granite, the blocks of stone being fitted with such precision that it is impossible to insert a piece of paper between them. Above the roof, which is formed of nine slabs of stone weighing in total about 400 tons, are five compartments known as Relieving Chambers. The first four, like the King's Chamber, have flat roofs formed by the floor of the chamber above, but the final chamber has a pointed roof. Vyse suspected the presence of upper chambers when he found that he could push a long reed through a crack in the ceiling of the first chamber. From lower to upper, the chambers are known as "Davidson Chamber", "Wellington Chamber", "Lady Arbuthnot's Chamber" and "Cambell's Chamber". It is believed that the compartments were intended to safeguard the King's Chamber from the possibility of a roof collapsing under the weight of stone above the Chamber. As the chambers were not intended to be seen, they were not finished in any way and a few of the stones still retain mason's marks painted on them. One of the stones in Cambell's Chamber bears a mark, apparently the name of a work gang, which incorporates the only reference in the pyramid to Pharaoh Khufu.

The only object in the King's Chamber is a rectangular granite sarcophagus, one corner of which is broken. The sarcophagus is slightly larger than the Ascending Passage, which indicates that it must have been placed in the Chamber before the roof was put in place. Unlike the fine masonry of the walls fo the Chamber, the sarcophagus is quite roughly finished, with saw marks visible in several places. This is in contrast with the finely finished and decorated sarophagi found in other pyramids of the same period. Petrie suggested that such a sarcophagus was intended but was lost in the river on the way north from Aswan and a hurriedly made replacement was used instead. This ingenious theory does not explain why the sarcophagus could not have been finished in situ.^[29]

Entrance

Today tourists enter the Great Pyramid via the Robbers' Tunnel dug by workmen employed by Caliph al-Ma'mun around AD 820. The tunnel is cut straight through the masonry of the pyramid for approximately 90', then turns sharply left to encounter the blocking stones in the Ascending Passage. Unable to remove these stones, the workmen tunnelled up beside them through the softer limestone of the Pyramid until they reached the Ascending Passage. It is possible to enter the Descending Passage from this point, but access is usually forbidden.

In recent years entrance to the pyramid has been restricted to groups of 100 morning and afternoon. As tickets are highly prized, those wishing to enter must queue outside the right ticket office for an hour or more before it opens. Under Zahi Hawass photography inside the pyramid is now strictly forbidden.

King's Chamber and the Golden Mean

At the end of the lengthy series of entrance ways leading into the interior is the structure's main chamber, the King's Chamber. This granite room was originally 10 × 20 × 11.4 cubits, or about 5.235 m × 10.47 m × 5.974 m,^[30]^[31] comprising a double 10 × 10 cubit square floor, and a height equal to half the double square's diagonal. Some believed that the height was consistent with the geometric methods for determining the Golden Ratio φ (phi) as the height is approximately phi times the width minus ½, while phi can be derived from other dimensions of the pyramid,^[32] but evidence from Petrie’s surveys and later conclusions drawn by others shows that it was in fact the circular proportions that were deliberately incorporated into the internal and external designs of the Great Pyramid by its architects and builders, for symbolic reasons.^[33] The so called golden ratio phi simply exists in the proportions of the architecture as an inadvertent by-product of the inclusion of the circular proportions. The reason for the inadvertent inclusion is that phi, the golden ratio, has a naturally occurring mathematical relation to the circular ratio pi that is unrelated to the architecture or geometry, and which was unknown to the pyramid's builders. Petrie confirmed that the King’s Chamber was a triumph of Egyptian geometry, the ratio of its length to the circuit of the side wall being the same as the ratio of 1 to pi, and that the exterior of the pyramid had been built to the same proportions.^[33]^[34]^[35]

Pyramid complex

Map of Giza pyramid complex

Main article: Giza pyramid complex

The Great Pyramid is surrounded by the usual complex of buildings. The Pyramid Temple, which stood on the east side of the pyramid and measured 171' north to south and 132' east to west, has almost entirely disappeared apart from the black basalt paving. There are only a few remnants of the causeway which linked the pyramid with the valley and the presumed Valley Temple which, if it exists, is buried beneath the village of Kafr es-Samman.

On the south side are the subsidiary pyramids, popularly known as Queens' Pyramids. Three remain standing to nearly full height but the fourth was so ruined that its existence was not suspected until the recent discovery of the first course of stones and the remains of the capstone. Herodotus claims that Khufu was a tyrant who prostituted his daughter in order to raise the money for building the Great Pyramid. She, however, requested a stone from each of her customers and used them to build her smaller pyramid. There is no evidence to support this tale (though it may reflect an arranged marriage advantageous for Khufu) and it is not certain that the Queens' Pyramids housed members of the court. Some have suggested that they corresponded to the later canopic jars for burial of the royal viscera - heart, lungs, liver and entrails.

Hidden beneath the paving around the pyramid was the tomb of Queen Hetepheres, sister-wife of Sneferu and mother of Khufu. Discovered by accident by the Reisner expedition, the burial was intact, though the carefully sealed coffin proved to be empty. Reisner suggests that Hetepheres was originally buried near her husband's pyramid but the tomb was robbed and the mummy destroyed. Khufu transferred the burial to his own pyramid complex, but the priests responsible for the burial did not dare tell him that his mother's body was missing.

There are three boat-shaped pits around the pyramid, of a size and shape to have held complete boats, though so shallow that any superstructure must have been removed or disassembled. It is not clear how these pits were sealed, as the span is rather too large for stone slabs, which may be why they were found empty apart from ropes and a few fragments of gilded wood found in one pit by Reisner. However in May, 1954, the Egyptian archaeologist Kamal el-Mallakh discovered a fourth pit, in shape a long, narrow rectangle, still covered by slabs of stone weighing up to 15 tons. Inside were 1224 pieces of wood, the longest 75' in length, the shortest 4". These were entrusted to a native boat builder, Haj Ahmed Yusuf, who slowly and methodically worked out how the pieces fit together. The entire process, including conservation and straightening of the warped wood, took fourteen years.

The result is a spectacular cedar-wood boat 143' long, its timbers held together by ropes. It is not clear how the boat was made water-tight. Early theories that soaking in water caused the wood to swell and thus become water-tight did not prove effective with the modern reconstruction "Horizon of Min" based on boats found in the Wadi Gawasis excavation and the reconstructers had recourse to traditional fibre caulking reinforced by beeswax. There is no sign of such measures on the Khufu boat, which may simply mean that the boat was never actually floated. The name "Djedefre", Khufu's son and successor, is found on some of the slabs of stone that sealed the pit, indicating that the boat was put there by Khufu's son.

The reconstructed boat is housed in a special boat-shaped, air-conditioned museum beside the pyramid. During construction of this museum, which stands above the boat pit, a second sealed boat pit was discovered. It was deliberately left unopened in the hope that future excavation techniques will allow more information to be recovered, however a hole was drilled in the sealing stones and air extracted from the pit in the hope of obtaining information about the ancient atmosphere. However as the air was found to be identical to modern air it was concluded that the pit is not hermetically sealed.

The Gizeh pyramid complex, which includes the pyramids of Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure, is surrounded by a cyclopaean stone wall, outside which Mark Lehner has discovered the town where the workers on the pyramids were housed. Among the discoveries are communal sleeping quarters, bakeries, breweries and kitchens (with evidence showing that bread and fish were staples of the diet), a hospital and a cemetery (where some of the skeletons were found with signs of trauma associated with accidents on a building site).^[29]

Thieves, tourists and excavators

Although succeeding pyramids were smaller, pyramid building continued until the end of the Middle Kingdom. However, as authors Briar and Hobbs claim, "all the pyramids were robbed" by the New Kingdom, when the construction of royal tombs in a desert valley, now known as the Valley of the Kings, began.^[36]^[37] Joyce Tyldesley states that the Great Pyramid itself "is known to have been opened and emptied by the Middle Kingdom", before the Arab caliph Abdullah al-Mamun entered the pyramid around AD 820.^[38]

References

Notes

Group photo of Australian 11th Battalion soldiers on the Great Pyramid in 1915.

Aerial photography, taken from Eduard Spelterini's balloon on November 21, 1904

^ John Romer, in his The Great Pyramid: Ancient Egypt Revisited notes "By themselves, of course, none of these modern labels define the ancient purposes of the architecture they describe." p. 8
^ John Romer, basing his calculations on the known time scale for the Red pyramid, calculates 14 years — pp.74, schedule on pp 456-560.
^ Shaw (2003) p.89.
^ Dilke (1987) pp.9,23.
^ Levy (2005) p.17.
^ http://www.ronaldbirdsall.com/gizeh/petrie/index.htm
^ Dr. I.E.S. Edwards: "The Pyramids of Egypt" 1986/1947 p. 285
^ Collins (2001) p.234.
^ Cole Survey (1925) based on side lengths 230.252m, 230.454m, 230.391m, 230.357m
^ Lehner (1997) The Complete Pyramids. pp108
^ Petrie (1883) pp38
^ Petrie (1883) pp125
^ Petrie (1883) pp39
^ Lightbody (2008) p.24.
^ Verner (2003) p.70.
^ Petrie Wisdom of the Egyptians 1940: 30
^ Petrie Wisdom of the Egyptians 1940: 27
^ Verner. The Pyramids. Their Archaeology and History. 2003 pp462
^ Lehner (1997)
^ Petrie (1883).
^ Romer, John (2007). The Great Pyramid: Ancient Egypt Revisited. Cambridge University Press. p. 41. ISBN 9780521871662. http://books.google.com/books?id=ag_blaOMgDUC&pg=PA41&lpg=PA41&dq=petrie+opticians+work&source=bl&ots=nwRCi32eiV&sig=WSSgx3Ssk36FiCld6n64H_fsQDQ&hl=en&ei=7PaASpfUIYnatgOSnuXuCA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3#v=onepage&q=petrie%20opticians%20work&f=false. Retrieved 2009-08-24.
^ "Building the Great Pyramid". Public BBC. 2006-02-03. http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/egyptians/great_pyramid_01.shtml.
^ Verner (2001) pp.75-82.
^ Romer, John, The Great Pyramid: Ancient Egypt Revisited, p. 327, pp. 329-337
^ "Unfinished Chamber". Public Broadcasting Service. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/pyramid/explore/khufuunfhi.html. Retrieved 2008-08-11.
^ Hidden ramps may solve the mystery of the Great Pyramid's construction Archaeological Institute of America, Volume 60 Number 3, May/June 2007.
^ Gupton, Nancy (2003-04-04). "Ancient Egyptian Chambers Explored". National Geographic. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/09/0910_020913_egypt_1.html. Retrieved 2008-08-11.
^ "Third "Door" Found in Great Pyramid". National Geographic. 2002-09-23. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/09/0923_020923_egypt.html. Retrieved 2008-08-11.
^ ^a ^b Measurements taken from I. E. S. Edwards "The Pyramids of Egypt" (1993)
^ Petrie (1883) The Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh pp 83 and Xiii
^ Maragioglio and Rinaldi (1964) L’architectura delle Pyramidi Menfite IV
^ Calter (2008) pp. 156-171, 548-551.
^ ^a ^b Jackson and Stamp (2002) Pyramid: Beyond Imagination. pp153
^ Petrie (1940) Wisdom of the Egyptians pp. 29
^ Lightbody (2008) Egyptian Tomb Architecture. The Archaeological Facts of Pharaonic Circular Symbolism. pp 29
^ Brier 1999, p. 164

^ Lighthouse of Alexandria

Lighthouse of Alexandria
Drawing by archaeologist Hermann Thiersch (1909).
Location:	Pharos, Alexandria, Egypt
Coordinates	31°12′51″N 29°53′06″E / 31.21417°N 29.885°E / 31.21417; 29.885Coordinates: 31°12′51″N 29°53′06″E / 31.21417°N 29.885°E / 31.21417; 29.885
Year first constructed:	279 BC
Deactivated:	1303/1323
Foundation:	Stone
Construction:	Masonry
Height:	115–135 m (380–440 ft)
Range:	56 km (35 mi)

Three-dimensional reconstruction based on a comprehensive 2006 study

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The Lighthouse of Alexandria (or the Pharos of Alexandria, Greek: ὁ Φάρος τῆς Ἀλεξανδρείας) was a tower built in the 3rd century BC (between 285 and 247 BC) on the island of Pharos in Alexandria, Egypt, to serve as that port's landmark, and later, its lighthouse.

With a height variously estimated at between 115 and 135 m (380 and 440 ft) it was identified as one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World by Antipater of Sidon. It may have been the world's tallest building in its time.

1 History

History

Pharos was a small island just off the coast of Alexandria. It was linked to the mainland by a man-made connection named the Heptastadion, which thus formed one side of the city's harbor. As the Egyptian coast is very flat and lacking in the kind of landmark used at the time for navigation^{[clarification needed]}, a marker of some sort at the mouth of the harbour was deemed necessary — a function the Pharos was initially designed to serve. Use of the building as a lighthouse, with a fire and reflective mirrors at the top, is thought to date to around the 1st century AD, during the Roman period. Prior to that time the Pharos served solely as a landmark or day beacon.

Construction and destruction

The lighthouse was completed in the 3rd century BC. After Alexander the Great died unexpectedly at age 32, Ptolemy Soter announced himself king in 305 BC, and ordered its construction shortly thereafter. The building was finished during his son Ptolemy Philadelphos's reign.

It is according to legend that Ptolemy forbade Sostratus to put his name on his work. But the architect left the following inscription on the base's walls nonetheless:

"Sostratus, the son of Dexiphanes, the Cnidian, dedicated (or erected) this to the Saviour gods, on behalf of those who sail the seas"; the original Greek inscription "ΣΟΣΤΡΑΤΟΣ ΔΕΞΙΦΑΝΟΥ ΚΝΙΔΙΟΣ ΘΕΟΙΣ ΣΩΤΕΡΣΙΝ ΥΠΕΡ ΤΩΝ ΠΛΩΙΖΟΜΕΝΩΝ" literally means: "Sostratos of Dexiphanes [meaning: son of Dexiphanes] the Cnidian to Saviour Gods for the seafarers (or seafaring [ones])"

These words were hidden under a layer of plaster, on top of which was chiseled another inscription honoring Ptolemy the king as builder of the Pharos. After centuries the plaster wore away, revealing the name of Sostratus.

The Lighthouse of Alexandria

The lighthouse was badly damaged in the earthquake of 956, then again in 1303 and 1323. The fullest description of it comes from the Arab traveller Abou Haggag Youssef Ibn el-Andaloussi, who visited the structure in 1166. His description runs:

“

The Pharos rises at the end of the island. The building is square, about 8.5 metres (28 ft) each side. The sea surrounds the Pharos except on the east and south sides. This platform measures, along its sides, from the tip, down to the foot of the Pharos walls, 6.5 metres (21 ft) in height. However, on the sea side, it is larger because of the construction and is steeply inclined like the side of a mountain. As the height of the platform increases towards the walls of the Pharos its width narrows until it arrives at the measurements above.

On this side it is strongly built, the stones being well shaped and laid along with a rougher finish than elsewhere on the building. This part of the building that I have just described is recent because on this side the ancient work needed to be replaced.

On the seaward south side, there is an ancient inscription which I cannot read; it is not a proper inscription because the forms of the letters are carried out in hard black stone. The combination of the sea and the air has worn away the background stone and the letters stand out in relief because of their harshness. The A measures a little over 54 centimetres (21 in). The top of the M stands out like a huge hole in a copper boiler. The other letters are generally of the same size. The doorway to the Pharos is high up. A ramp about 183 metres (600 ft) long used to lead up to it. This ramp rests on a series of curved arches; my companion got beneath one of the arches and stretched out his arms but he was not able to reach the sides. There are 16 of these arches, each gradually getting higher until the doorway is reached, the last one being especially high.

”

The Andaloussi description of the dimensions does not appear to match the Thiersch drawing, the classic painting, or the graphic reconstruction, all of which show buildings with a footprint that would have been a square at least 80 feet (24 m) on a side, based on the scale of surrounding objects.^{[citation needed]}

Fort Qaitbey was built on the site of the Pharos in the 15th century, using some of its fallen masonry.

There are ancient claims the light from the lighthouse could be seen from up to 35 miles (56 km) away. Unconfirmed legends claim the light from Pharos could burn enemy ships before they reached shore.

Constructed from large blocks of light-coloured stone, the tower was made up of three stages: a lower square section with a central core, a middle octagonal section, and, at the top, a circular section. At its apex was positioned a mirror which reflected sunlight during the day; a fire was lit at night. Extant Roman coins struck by the Alexandrian mint show that a statue of a triton was positioned on each of the building's four corners. A statue of Poseidon stood atop the tower during the Roman period.

The Pharos' masonry walls were reinforced with molten lead to withstand the pounding of the waves.^{[citation needed]} It was still standing when the Muslim traveller Ibn Jubayr visited the city in 1183. He said of it that: "Description of it falls short, the eyes fail to comprehend it, and words are inadequate, so vast is the spectacle." It appears that in his time, a church was located on the top.^{[citation needed]}

The two earthquakes in 1303 and 1323 damaged the lighthouse to the extent that the Arab traveler Ibn Battuta reported no longer being able to enter the ruin. Even the stubby remnant disappeared in 1480, when the then-Sultan of Egypt, Qaitbay, built a medieval fort on the former location of the building using some of the fallen stone. The remnants of the Pharos that were incorporated into the walls of Fort Qaitbay are clearly visible owing to their excessive size in comparison with surrounding masonry.

The fate of the Lighthouse of Alexandria from the Arab conquest until its collapse in the 14th century has been investigated by Doris Behrens-Abouseif in her article "The Islamic History of the Lighthouse of Alexandria".^[1]

Recent archaeological research

Divers discovered remains of the lighthouse in Autumn 1994, on the floor of Alexandria's Eastern Harbour. A Nova program chronicled the discovery.^[2] Subsequent satellite imaging has revealed further remains. It is possible to go diving and see the ruins.

Significance

Pharos became the etymological origin of the word 'lighthouse' in Greek (φάρος), Bulgarian (фар) and many Romance languages, such as French (phare), Italian (faro), Portuguese (farol), Spanish (faro), Romanian (far), and Catalan (far).

The design of minarets in many early Egyptian Islamic mosques followed a similar three-stage design to that of the Pharos, attesting to the building's broader architectural influence.^[3]

In 2008 it was suggested^[4] that the Pharos was the vertical yardstick used in the first precise measurement of the size of the earth.

Pharos in culture

The Pharos of Abusir, an ancient funerary monument thought to be modeled after the Pharos at Alexandria, with which it is approximately contemporaneous

In architecture

Tower of Hercules, a Roman lighthouse modelled on the Pharos

A well-preserved ancient tomb in the town of Abusir, 48 kilometres (30 mi) southwest of Alexandria, is thought to be a scaled-down model of the Alexandria Pharos. Known colloquially under various names — the Pharos of Abusir, the Abusir funerary monument and Burg al-Arab (Arab's Tower) — it consists of a 3-story tower, approximately 20 metres (66 ft) in height, with a square base, a hexagonal midsection and cylindrical upper section, like the building upon which it was apparently modeled. It dates to the reign of Ptolemy II (285-246 BC), and is therefore likely to have been built at about the same time as the Alexandria Pharos.
The Tower of Hercules, near A Coruña in Spain, a 2nd century AD Roman lighthouse, is closely modelled on the Alexandrian Pharos.
A replica of the Lighthouse of Alexandria was constructed in the Window of the World Cultural Park in Shenzhen, China.
The design of the George Washington Masonic National Memorial in Alexandria, Virginia was partially inspired by the Lighthouse of Alexandria.^{[citation needed]}

In books

The enduring memory of the lighthouse is reflected in literature. It was described at length in the Zhufan Zhi (諸蕃志, "Records of Foreign Peoples") by Zhao Rugua (1170–1228), a Chinese customs inspector for the port city of Quanzhou during the Song Dynasty.^[5]

Matthew Reilly uses this ancient wonder as the location of a piece of the golden capstone in his novel that states in the cultural section from Book 2 of the Cambridge Latin Course, the Pharos of Alexandria is mentioned, along with the history of Alexandria, as one of the greatest international ports of the ancient world. Also mentioned in Enid Blyton's Five Go To Demon's Rocks (1961), in a conversation between "Julian" and "Anne" about an earthquake destroying a lighthouse.

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Lighthouse of Alexandria

^ in: Muqarnas XXIII [2006], pp. 1-14)
^ NOVA online - Treasures of the Sunken City
^ Petersen A.: Dictionary of Islamic Architecture, page 188. Routledge, 1996.
^ DIO volume 14 pages 3-12 and page 2 footnote.
^ Needham, Joseph (1986). Science and Civilization in China: Volume 4, Physics and Physical Technology, Part 3: Civil Engineering and Nautics. Taipei: Caves Books, Ltd. Page 662.

TEMPLE OF ARTEMIS

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 13:30:34 +0100

Temple of Artemis

Coordinates: 37°56′59″N 27°21′50″E / 37.94972°N 27.36389°E / 37.94972; 27.36389

Model of Temple of Artemis, Miniaturk Park, Istanbul, Turkey

The Temple of Artemis (Greek: Ἀρτεμίσιον Artemision), also known less precisely as Temple of Diana, was a Greek temple dedicated to Artemis completed— in its most famous phase— around 550 BC at Ephesus (in present-day Turkey). Though the monument was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, only foundations and sculptural fragments of the temple remain. There were previous temples on its site, where evidence of a sanctuary dates as early as the Bronze Age. The whole temple was made of marble except for the roof.

The new temple antedated the Ionic immigration by many years. Callimachus, in his Hymn to Artemis, attributed the origin of the temenos at Ephesus to the Amazons, whose worship he imagines already centered upon an image. In the seventh century the old temple was destroyed by a flood. The construction of the "new" temple, which was to become known as one of the wonders of the ancient world, began around 550 BC. It was a 120-year project, initially designed and built by the Cretan architect Chersiphron and his son Metagenes, at the expense of Croesus of Lydia.

It was described by Antipater of Sidon, who compiled the list of the Seven Wonders:

I have set eyes on the wall of lofty Babylon on which is a road for chariots, and the statue of Zeus by the Alpheus, and the hanging gardens, and the colossus of the Sun, and the huge labour of the high pyramids, and the vast tomb of Mausolus; but when I saw the house of Artemis that mounted to the clouds, those other marvels lost their brilliancy, and I said, "Lo, apart from Olympus, the Sun never looked on aught so grand".^[1]

Location

Synthesizing Artemis of Ephesus: an 18th-century engraving of a Roman marble copy of a Greek replica of a lost Geometric period xoanon.

The Temple of Artemis was located near the ancient city of Ephesus, about 50 km south from the modern port city of İzmir, in Turkey. Today the site lies on the edge of the modern town of Selçuk.

Ephesian Artemis

Artemis was a Greek Goddess, the virginal huntress and twin of Apollo, who supplanted the Titan Selene as goddess of the Moon. Of the Olympian goddesses who inherited aspects of the Great Goddess of Crete, Athena was more honored than Artemis at Athens. At Ephesus, a goddess whom the Greeks associated with Artemis was passionately venerated in an archaic, certainly pre-Hellenic cult image^[2] that was carved of wood and kept decorated with jewelry. Robert Fleischer identified as decorations of the primitive xoanon the changeable features that since Minucius Felix and Jerome's Christian attacks on pagan popular religion had been read as many breasts or "eggs" — denoting her fertility (others interpret the objects to represent the testicles of sacrificed bulls that would have been strung on the image, with similar meaning). Most similar to Near-Eastern and Egyptian deities, and least similar to Greek ones, her body and legs are enclosed within a tapering pillar-like term, from which her feet protrude. On the coins minted at Ephesus, the apparently many-breasted goddess wears a mural crown (like a city's walls), an attribute of Cybele (see polos). On the coins she rests either arm on a staff formed of entwined serpents or of a stack of ouroboroi, the eternal serpent with its tail in its mouth. Something the Lady of Ephesus had in common with Cybele was that each was served by temple slave-women, or hierodules (hiero "holy", doule "female slave"), under the direction of a priestess who inherited her role, attended by a college of eunuch priests called "Megabyzoi"^[3] and also by young virgins (korai).^[4]

Traditional many-breasted interpretation in a 16th-century fountain of Diana Efesina, Villa d'Este

The "eggs" or "breasts" of the Lady of Ephesus, it now appears, must be the iconographic descendents of the amber gourd-shaped drops, elliptical in cross-section and drilled for hanging, that were rediscovered in 1987-88; they remained in situ where the ancient wooden cult figure of the Lady of Ephesus had been caught by an eighth-century flood (see History below). This form of breast-jewelry, then, had already been developed by the Geometric Period. A hypothesis offered by Gerard Seiterle, that the objects in Classical representations represented bulls' scrotal sacs^[5] cannot be maintained (Fleischer, "Neues zur kleinasiatischen Kultstatue" Archäologischer Anzeiger 98 1983:81-93; Bammer 1990:153).

A votive inscription mentioned by Florence Mary Bennett,^[6] which dates probably from about the third century BC, associates Ephesian Artemis with Crete: "To the Healer of diseases, to Apollo, Giver of Light to mortals, Eutyches has set up in votive offering [a statue of] the Cretan Lady of Ephesus, the Light-Bearer."

The Greek habits of syncretism assimilated all foreign gods under some form of the Olympian pantheon familiar to them— in interpretatio graeca— and it is clear that at Ephesus, the identification with Artemis that the Ionian settlers made of the "Lady of Ephesus" was slender. This was different that the monotheistic Christian culture that prevailed in the centuries that followed. A inscription at Ephesus^[7] provides a commentary on the historical events of the past:

"Destroying the delusive image of the demon Artemis, Demeas has erected this symbol of Truth, the God that drives away idols, and the Cross of priests, deathless and victorious sign of Christ."

The Lady of Ephesus, 1st century AD (Museum of Efes, Turkey)

The assertion that the Ephesians thought that their cult image had fallen from the sky, though it was a familiar origin-myth at other sites, is only known at Ephesus from Acts 19:35:

"What man is there that knoweth not how that the city of the Ephesians is a worshipper of the great goddess Diana, and of the [image] which fell down from Jupiter?"

Lynn LiDonnici observes that modern scholars are likely to be more concerned with origins of the Lady of Ephesus and her iconology than her adherents were at any point in time, and are also prone to creating a synthetic account of the Lady of Ephesus by drawing together documentation that ranges over more than a millennium in its origins, creating a falsified, unitary picture, as of an unchanging icon.^[8]

History

The sacred site at Ephesus was far older than the Artemision. Pausanias^[9] understood the shrine of Artemis there to be very ancient. He states with certainty that it antedated the Ionic immigration by many years, being older even than the oracular shrine of Apollo at Didyma. He said that the pre-Ionic inhabitants of the city were Leleges and Lydians. Callimachus, in his Hymn to Artemis, attributed the origin of the temenos at Ephesus to the Amazons, whose worship he imagines already centered upon an image (bretas).

Pre-World War I excavations by David George Hogarth,^[10] who identified three successive temples overlying one another on the site, and corrective re-excavations in 1987-88^[11] have confirmed Pausanias' report.

Test holes have confirmed that the site was occupied as early as the Bronze Age, with a sequence of pottery finds that extend forward to Middle Geometric times, when the clay-floored peripteral temple was constructed, in the second half of the eighth century BC.^[12] The peripteral temple at Ephesus was the earliest example of a peripteral type on the coast of Asia Minor, and perhaps the earliest Greek temple surrounded by colonnades anywhere.

The Temple of Artemis, as imagined in this hand-coloured engraving by Martin Heemskerck (1498 - 1574), has the "old-fashioned" look of Santa Maria Novella in Florence and other Italian quattrocento churches of the previous generation.

In the seventh century, a flood^[13] destroyed the temple, depositing over half a meter of sand and scattering flotsam over the former floor of hard-packed clay. In the flood debris were the remains of a carved ivory plaque of a griffin and the Tree of Life, apparently North Syrian. More importantly, flood deposits buried in place a hoard against the north wall that included drilled amber tear-shaped drops with elliptical cross-sections, which had once dressed the wooden effigy of the Lady of Ephesus; the xoanon itself must have been destroyed in the flood. Bammer notes that though the flood-prone site was raised by silt deposits about two metres between the eighth and sixth centuries, and a further 2.4 m between the sixth and the fourth, the site was retained: "this indicates that maintaining the identity of the actual location played an important role in the sacred organization" (Bammer 1990:144).

The new temple, now built of marble, with its peripteral columns doubled to make a wide ceremonial passage round the cella, was designed and constructed around 550 BC by the Cretan architect Chersiphron and his son Metagenes. A new ebony or grapewood cult statue was sculpted by Endoios,^[14] and a naiskos to house it was erected east of the open-air altar.

This enriched reconstruction was built at the expense of Croesus, the wealthy king of Lydia.^[15] The rich foundation deposit of more than a thousand items has been recovered: it includes what may be the earliest coins of the silver-gold alloy electrum. Fragments of the bas-reliefs on the lowest drums of Croesus' temple, preserved in the British Museum, show that the enriched columns of the later temple, of which a few survive (illustration, below right) were versions of the earlier feature. Marshy ground was selected for the building site as a precaution against future earthquakes, according to Pliny the Elder.^[16] The temple became a tourist attraction, visited by merchants, kings, and sightseers, many of whom paid homage to Artemis in the form of jewelry and various goods. Its splendor also attracted many worshipers.

Croesus' temple was a widely respected place of refuge, a tradition that was linked in myth with the Amazons who took refuge there, both from Heracles and from Dionysus.

Destruction

The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus was destroyed on July 21, 356 BC in an act of arson committed by Herostratus. According to the story, his motivation was fame at any cost, thus the term herostratic fame.

A man was found to plan the burning of the temple of Ephesian Diana so that through the destruction of this most beautiful building his name might be spread through the whole world. Valerius Maximus, VIII.14.ext.5

The Ephesians, outraged, consigned Herostratus to torture and his name to oblivion. Theopompus later noted the name, which is how it is known today.^[17]

That very same night, Alexander the Great was born. Plutarch remarked that Artemis was too preoccupied with Alexander's delivery to save her burning temple. Alexander later offered to pay for the temple's rebuilding, but the Ephesians refused. Eventually, the temple was restored after Alexander's death, in 323 BC.

Drum from the base of a column from the fourth-century rebuilding (British Museum)

This reconstruction was itself destroyed during a raid by the Goths, an East Germanic tribe, in 262, in the time of emperor Gallienus: "Respa, Veduc and Thuruar, leaders of the Goths, took ship and sailed across the strait of the Hellespont to Asia. There they laid waste many populous cities and set fire to the renowned temple of Diana at Ephesus," reported Jordanes in Getica.^[18]

The temple appears multiple times in Christian accounts of Ephesus. According to the New Testament, the appearance of the first Christian missionary in Ephesus caused locals to fear for the temple's dishonor.^[19] The second-century Acts of John includes a story of the temple's destruction: the apostle John prayed publicly in the very Temple of Artemis, exorcising its demons and "of a sudden the altar of Artemis split in many pieces... and half the temple fell down," instantly converting the Ephesians, who wept, prayed or took flight.^[20] Over the course of the fourth century, perhaps the majority of Ephesians did convert to Christianity; all temples were declared closed by Theodosius I in 391.

In 401, the temple in its last version was finally destroyed by a mob led by St. John Chrysostom,^[21] and the stones were used in construction of other buildings. Some of the columns in Hagia Sophia originally belonged to the temple of Artemis,^[22] and the Parastaseis syntomoi chronikai records the re-use of several statues and other decorative elements throughout Constantinople.

The main primary sources for the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus are Pliny the Elder's Natural History XXXVI.xxi.95, Pomponius Mela i:17, and Plutarch's Life of Alexander III.5 (referencing the burning of the Artemiseum).

Rediscovery

The site of the temple today.

After sixty years of searching, the site of the temple was rediscovered in 1869 by an expedition sponsored by the British Museum led by John Turtle Wood;^[23] excavations continued until 1874.^[24] A few further fragments of sculpture were found during the 1904-06 excavations directed by David George Hogarth. The recovered sculptured fragments of the fourth-century rebuilding and a few from the earlier temple, which had been used in the rubble fill for the rebuilding, were assembled and displayed in the "Ephesus Room" of the British Museum. ^[25]

Today the site of the temple, which lies just outside Selçuk, is marked by a single column constructed of dissociated fragments discovered on the site.

Architecture and art

Most of the physical description and art within the Temple of Artemis comes from Pliny, though there are different accounts, and the actual size varies.

Pliny describes the temple as 377 feet (115 meters) long and 180 feet (55 meters) wide, made almost entirely of marble, making its area about three times as large as the Parthenon. The temple's cella was enclosed in colonnades of 127 Ionic columns, each 60 feet (18 meters) in height.

The Temple of Artemis housed many fine works of art. Sculptures by renowned Greek sculptors Polyclitus, Pheidias, Cresilas, and Phradmon adorned the temple, as well as paintings and gilded columns of gold and silver. The sculptors often competed at creating the finest sculpture. Many of these sculptures were of Amazons, who were said to have founded the city of Ephesus.

Pliny tells us that Scopas, who also worked on the Mausoleum of Mausollos, worked carved reliefs into the temple's columns. Athenagoras of Athens names Endoeus, a pupil of Daedalus, as the sculptor of the main statue of Artemis in Ephesus.

Cult and influence

The Temple of Artemis was located at an economically robust region, drawing merchants and travellers from all over Asia Minor. The temple was influenced by many beliefs, and can be seen as a symbol of faith for many different peoples. The site also drew pilgrims, peasants, and artisans. The Ephesians worshiped Cybele, and incorporated many of their beliefs into the worship of Artemis. Artemisian Cybele became quite contrasted from her Roman counterpart, Diana. The cult of Artemis attracted thousands of worshipers from far-off lands. It still does today.

References

Notes

^ Antipater, Greek Anthology IX.58.
^ The iconic images have been most thoroughly assembled by Robert Fleischer, Artemis von Ephesos und der erwandte Kultstatue von Anatolien und Syrien EPRO 35 (Leiden:Brill) 1973.
^ Strabo, Geographica, 14.1.23<; sometimes the existence of a college is disputed and rather, a succession of priests given the title of "Megabyzos" is preferred.
^ Xenophon, Anabasis, v.3.7.
^ Seiterle, "Artemis: die Grosse Göttin von Ephesos" Antike Welt 10 (1979), pp 3-16, accepted in the 1980s by Walter Burkert and Brita Alroth, among others, criticised and rejected by Robert Fleischer, but widely popularized.
^ Florence Mary Bennett, Religious Cults Associated with the Amazons (1912): Chapter III: Ephesian Artemis (on-line text).
^ Quoted in Ramsay MacMullen, Christianizing the Roman Empire AD 100-400 1984, ch. III "Christianity as presented" p. 18.
^ Lynn R. LiDonnici, "The Images of Artemis Ephesia and Greco-Roman Worship: A Reconsideration" The Harvard Theological Review 85.4 (October 1992), pp 389-415.
^ Pausanias, Description of Greece 7.2.6.
^ D.G. Hogarth, editor, 1908. Excavations at Ephesus.
^ Anton Bammer, "A Peripteros" of the Geometric Period in the Artemision of Ephesus" Anatolian Studies 40 (1990), pp. 137-160
^ Bammer (1990:142) noted some still earlier placements of stones, Mycenaean pottery and crude clay animal figurines, but warned "it is still to early to come to conclusions about a cult sequence."
^ The flood is dated by fragmentary ceramics. (Bammer 1990:141).
^ Pliny's Natural History, 16.79.213-16; Pliny's source was the Roman Mucianus, who thought that the cult image by an "Endoios" was extremely ancient, however. Endoios' name appears in late sixth-century Attic inscriptions; work attributed to him was noted by Pausanias. The more important fact, as Lynn LiDonnici points out, is that Ephesians remembered that a particular sculptor had created the remade image (LiDonnici 1992:398.)
^ Herodotus' statement to this effect is confirmed by the conjectural reading of a fragmentary dedicatory inscription, conserved in the British Museum (A Guide to the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities in the British Museum 84).
^ Pliny's rationalized narrative of site selection did not take into account the antiquity of the sacred site.
^ Smith, William (1849). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. pp. 439. http://www.ancientlibrary.com/smith-bio/1547.html. Retrieved July 21 2009.
^ Jordanes, Getica xx.107.
^ Acts 19:27
^ Ramsay MacMullen, Christianizing the Roman Empire A.D. 100-400 1984, p 26.
^ John Freely, The Western Shores of Turkey: Discovering the Aegean and Mediterranean Coasts 2004, p. 148
^ St. Sophia Construction for the Third Time
^ J.T. Wood
^ "Ephesos - An Ancient Metropolis: Exploration and History". Austrian Archaeological Institute. October 2008. http://www.oeai.at/eng/ausland/geschichte.html. Retrieved 2009-11-01.
^ The sculptures were published in the British Museum Catalogue of Sculpture, vol. II, part VI.

Bibliography

Anton Bammer, "A Peripteros" of the Geometric Period in the Artemision of Ephesus" Anatolian Studies 40 (1990), pp. 137-160.
Lynn R. LiDonnici, "The Images of Artemis Ephesia and Greco-Roman Worship: A Reconsideration" The Harvard Theological Review 85.4 (October 1992), pp 389-415.

WONDERS OF THE WORLD

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 13:13:03 +0100

Wonders of the World

Various lists of the Wonders of the World have been compiled over the ages to catalogue the most spectacular man-made constructions and natural things in the world.

The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World is the first known list of the most remarkable man-made creations of classical antiquity, and was based on guide-books popular among Hellenic sight-seers and only includes works located around the Mediterranean rim. The number seven was chosen because the Greeks believed it to be the representation of perfection and plenty.^[1] Many similar lists have been made, including lists for the Medieval World and the Modern World.

1 Seven Wonders of the Ancient World

Seven Wonders of the Ancient World

Main article: Seven Wonders of the Ancient World

The Great Pyramid of Giza, the only wonder of the ancient world still in existence

The Colosseum in Rome

The Great Wall of China

Old City of Jerusalem

The Aurora Borealis or Northern Lights

Grand Canyon

The Great Barrier Reef

The London sewerage system's original Abbey Mills pumping station

Machu Picchu

The historian Herodotus (484—ca. 425 BCE), and the scholar Callimachus of Cyrene (ca. 305—240 BCE) at the Museum of Alexandria, made early lists of Seven wonders but their writings have not survived, except as references. The seven wonders included:

The earliest lists had the Ishtar Gate as the seventh wonder of the world instead of the Lighthouse of Alexandria.

The Greek category was not Wonders but "thaumata"(Greek: Θαύματα), which translates closer to "things to be seen". The list that we know today was compiled in the Middle Ages—by which time many of the sites were no longer in existence. Today, the only ancient world wonder that still exists is the Great Pyramid of Giza.

Wonders of the Medieval World

Many lists of wonders of the world are said to have existed during the Middle Ages, although it is unlikely that these lists originated at that time because the word medieval was not even invented until the Enlightenment-era, and the concept of a Middle Age did not become popular until the 16th century. Brewer's refers to them as "later list[s]"^[2] suggesting the lists were created after the Middle Ages.

Many of the structures on these lists were built much earlier than the Medieval Ages, but were well known.^[3] These lists go by names such as Wonders of the Middle Ages (implying no specific limitation to seven), Seven Wonders of the Middle Ages, Medieval Mind and Architectural Wonders of the Middle Ages.

Typically representative are:^[2]^[3]^[4]^[5]

Other sites sometimes included on such lists:

Wonders of the modern world

Many lists have been made of the greatest structures built during modern times or of the greatest wonders existing today. Some of the most notable lists are presented below.

American Society of Civil Engineers

The American Society of Civil Engineers compiled a list of wonders of the modern world:^[10]

Wonder	Date Started	Date Finished	Location
Channel Tunnel	December 1, 1987	May 6, 1994	Strait of Dover, between the United Kingdom and France
CN Tower	February 6, 1973	June 26, 1976, tallest freestanding structure in the world 1976–2007.	Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Empire State Building	January 22, 1930	May 1, 1931, Tallest structure in the world 1931–1967. First building with 100+ stories.	New York, NY, U.S.
Golden Gate Bridge	January 5, 1933	May 27, 1937	Golden Gate Strait, north of San Francisco, California, U.S.
Itaipu Dam	January 1970	May 5, 1984	Paraná River, between Brazil and Paraguay
Delta Works/ Zuiderzee Works	1950	May 10, 1997	Netherlands
Panama Canal	January 1, 1880	January 7, 1914	Isthmus of Panama

New7Wonders Foundation's seven wonders of the world

Main article: New Seven Wonders of the World

In 2001 an initiative was started by the Swiss corporation New7Wonders Foundation to choose the New Seven Wonders of the World from a selection of 200 existing monuments for profit.^[11] Twenty-one finalists were announced January 1, 2006.^[12] Egypt was not happy with the fact that the only original wonder would have to compete with the likes of the Statue of Liberty, the Sydney Opera House, and other landmarks; and called the project absurd. To solve this, Giza was named an honorary Candidate.^[13] The results were announced on July 7, 2007:^[14]

Wonder	Date of construction	Location
Great Wall of China	5th century BCE – 16th century CE	China
Petra	c.100 BCE	Jordan
Christ the Redeemer	Opened 12 October 1931	Brazil
Machu Picchu	c.1450 CE	Peru
Chichen Itza	c.600 CE	Mexico
Roman Colosseum	Completed 80 CE	Italy
Taj Mahal	Completed c.1648 CE	India
Great Pyramid (Honorary Candidate)	Completed c.2560 BCE	Egypt

USA Today's New Seven Wonders

In November 2006 the American national newspaper USA Today in conjunction with the American television show Good Morning America revealed a list of New Seven Wonders as chosen by six judges.^[15] The wonders were announced one per day over a week on Good Morning America. An eighth wonder was chosen on November 24, 2006 from viewer feedback.^[16]

Number	Wonder	Location
1	Potala Palace	Lhasa, Tibet, China
2	Old City of Jerusalem	Jerusalem, Israel
3	Polar ice caps	Polar regions
4	Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument	Hawaii, United States
5	Internet	Everywhere
6	Maya ruins	Yucatán Peninsula, México
7	Great Migration of Serengeti and Masai Mara	Tanzania and Kenya
8	Grand Canyon (viewer-chosen eighth wonder)	Arizona, United States

Seven Natural Wonders of the World

Similar to the other lists of wonders, there is no consensus on a list of seven natural wonders of the world, as there has been debate over how large the list should be. One of the many lists was compiled by CNN:^[17]

New7Wonders of Nature is a contemporary effort to create a list of seven natural wonders chosen by people through a global poll, organized by New Open World Corporation (NOWC), which ran the New Seven Wonders of the World campaign.

Seven Natural Wonders:^[18] is a not for profit endeavour created to protect the seven natural wonders that have already been established.

Seven Wonders of the Underwater World

The Seven Underwater Wonders of the World was a list drawn up by CEDAM International, an American-based non-profit group for divers, dedicated to ocean preservation and research.

In 1989 CEDAM brought together a panel of marine scientists, including Dr. Eugenie Clark, to pick underwater areas which they considered to be worthy of protection. The results were announced at The National Aquarium in Washington DC by actor Lloyd Bridges, star of TV's Sea Hunt:^[19]^[20]

Seven Wonders of the Industrial World

Main article: Seven Wonders of the Industrial World

British author Deborah Cadbury wrote Seven Wonders of the Industrial World, a book telling the stories of seven great feats of engineering of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In 2003 the BBC made a seven-part documentary series on the book, with each episode dramatising the construction one of the wonders. The seven industrial wonders are:

Travel wonders of the world

Travel writer Howard Hillman is one of many who have compiled lists of the top man-made^[21] and natural^[22] tourist travel wonders of the world:

Man-made travel wonders

Natural travel wonders

References

^ Anon. (1993)The Oxford Illustrated Encyclopedia First Edition Oxford:Oxford University
^ ^a ^b I H Evans (reviser), Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (Centenary edition Fourth impression (corrected); London: Cassell, 1975), page 1163
^ ^a ^b Hereward Carrington (1880–1958), "The Seven Wonders of the World: ancient, medieval and modern", reprinted in the Carington Collection (2003) ISBN 0-7661-4378-3, page 14.
^ Edward Latham. A Dictionary of Names, Nicknames and Surnames, of Persons, Places and Things (1904), page 280.
^ Francis Trevelyan Miller, Woodrow Wilson, William Howard Taft, Theodore Roosevelt. America, the Land We Love (1915), page 201.
^ Palpa, as You Like it, page 67)
^ The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Crusades (2001, page 153))
^ The Rough Guide To England (1994, page 596))
^ The Catholic Encyclopedia, v.16 (1913), page 74
^ American Society of Civil Engineers Seven Wonders
^ New Seven Wonders
^ Finalist Page
^ Egypt Angered at New Wonders Idea
^ Reuters via ABC News Australia "Opera House snubbed as new Wonders unveiled" 7 July 2007
^ New Seven Wonders panel
^ The world's 8th wonder: Readers pick the Grand Canyon
^ CNN Natural Wonders
^ Seven Natural Wonders
^ Underwater Wonders of the World
^ 2nd list of Underwater Wonder
^ Hillman, Howard. "World's top 10 man-made travel wonders". Hillman Quality Publications. http://www.hillmanwonders.com/top10/man_made.htm#_vtop. Retrieved 2007-07-07.
^ Hillman, Howard. "World's top 10 natural travel wonders". Hillman Quality Publications. http://www.hillmanwonders.com/top10/natural.htm#_vtop. Retrieved 2007-07-07.

External links

Seven Wonders of the Modern World – a list of modern wonders compiled by the American Society of Civil Engineers

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonders_of_the_World"

Views

Personal tools

NEW SEVEN WONDERS OF THE WORLD

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 13:18:46 +0100

New Seven Wonders of the World

Official advertisement poster of the Jordan Tourism Board calling to cast a vote for Petra in the poll for the "New 7 Wonders of the World".

New Seven Wonders of the World was a project that attempted to update the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World concept with a modern list of wonders. A popularity poll was led by Canadian-Swiss Bernard Weber^[1] and organized by the Swiss-based, government-controlled New7Wonders Foundation,^[2] with winners announced on July 7, 2007 in Lisbon, Portugal.^[3]

The theme song of the contest was written by Tony (a/k/a Taloch) Jameson of the UK medieval folk/rock band, The Dolmen. Members of the band performed the song live at the Lisbon ceremonies.^[4]

The New7Wonders Foundation claimed that more than 100 million votes were cast through the Internet or by telephone. Nothing prevented multiple votes, so the poll was considered "decidedly unscientific".^[5] According to John Zogby, founder and current President/CEO of the Washington-based polling organization Zogby International, New7Wonders Foundation drove “the largest poll on record”.^[3]

The program drew a wide range of official reaction. Some countries touted their finalist and tried to get more votes cast for it, while others downplayed or criticized the contest.^[3]^[5]^[3] After supporting the New7Wonders Foundation at the beginning of the campaign, by providing advice on nominee selection, The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) distanced itself from the undertaking in 2007.^[6]^[7] Many monuments were supported by dedicated websites or strong placements on national websites. National figures and celebrities promoted the New7Wonders campaign in many countries.^[8] New7Wonders stated that it saw its goal of global dialogue and cultural exchange as having been achieved, thanks to the sheer number of votes cast and the geographical and cultural diversity of the voters registered.^[9]

The New7Wonders Foundation, established in 2001, relied on private donations and the sale of broadcast rights and received no public funding or taxpayers' money.^[9] After the final announcement, New7Wonders said it didn't earn anything from the exercise and barely recovered its investment.^[10]^[11]

In 2007 the foundation launched a similar contest, called New7Wonders of Nature, with nominees solicited through December 31, 2008. The 21 finalists will then be the subject of voting until the summer of 2010.

1 History

History

The origin of the idea of seven wonders of the world dates back to Herodotus (484 BC – 425 BC) and Callimachus (305 BC – 240 BC), who made lists which included the Great Pyramid of Giza, Hanging Gardens of Babylon, Statue of Zeus at Olympia, Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, Mausoleum of Maussollos at Halicarnassus, Colossus of Rhodes and Lighthouse of Alexandria. Only the Great Pyramid of Giza is still standing. The other six were destroyed by earthquake, fire, or other causes.^[12]

The finalist candidates for the New Seven Wonders.

According to the New7Wonders milestone page,^[13] Swiss-originated Canadian filmmaker and aviator Bernard Weber launched the project in September 1999. The project's web site started in 2001 when Mr. Weber paid $700 for a site based in Canada.^[3] To be included on the new list, the wonders had to be man-made, completed before 2000, and in an acceptable state of preservation. By November 24, 2005, 177 monuments were up for consideration. On January 1, 2006, the New7Wonders Foundation said the list had been narrowed to 21 sites,^[14] by its panel of seven world leading architects from five continents: Zaha Hadid, Cesar Pelli, Tadao Ando, Harry Seidler, Aziz Tayob, Yung Ho Chang and its President, Prof. Federico Mayor, the former Director General of UNESCO.^[15] The list was later reduced to 20 removing the Pyramids of Giza — the only remaining of the 7 Ancient Wonders of the World — from the voting and designating it an Honorary New7Wonders Candidate.^[16]

The project assigned what it called attributes to each finalist, such as perseverance for the Great Wall of China, passion for the Taj Mahal, and awe for the Easter Island statues.

A midpoint tally reported a top 10 list which included all 7 winners, plus the Acropolis, Easter Island, and the Eiffel Tower.^[17]

Federico Mayor, a former UNESCO Director General, was the president of project's expert panel as an individual.^[18] New7Wonders is not connected with UNESCO.^[19]

Organisers stated that the primary goal of the campaign is to foster and encourage global exchange and intercultural appreciation. In addition, what New7Wonders calls "Global Memory" was created, meaning 7 things that everyone worldwide can remember and share. ^[20] Also New7Wonders wants to use part of the revenue from the contest between the well-known monuments, from future votes, related merchandise, and use of the voters database,^[21] to set up, or contribute to, various restoration projects in the world.^[11]^[22]^[5] A goal of New7Wonders has always been "raising awareness about the world’s unique cultural heritage sites (...) Getting that message across would be something of a wonder on its own" according to Newsweek and MSNBC, July 5, 2007.^[3]

Winners

Location of the New Seven Wonders winners.

In alphabetical order:

Wonder	Location	Image
Giza Pyramid Complex (The last remaining ancient wonder of the world)	Cairo, Egypt
Chichen Itza	Yucatán, Mexico
Christ the Redeemer	Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Colosseum	Rome, Italy
Great Wall of China	China
Machu Picchu	Cuzco, Perú
Petra	Jordan
Taj Mahal	Agra, India

Reactions

United Nations

In 2007 the New7Wonders Foundation contracted a partnership with the United Nations in recognition of the efforts to promote the UN's Millennium Development Goals“. The UN stated:

“

The New7Wonders campaigns aim to contribute to the process of uplifting the well being and mutual respect of citizens around the world, through encouraging interaction, expression of opinion and direct participation by voting and polling on popular themes and global issues which are understandable to everyone.^[23]

”

UNESCO

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), in a press release on June 20, 2007, reaffirmed that it has no link with the "private initiative", which it says would reflect "only the opinions of those with access to the Internet". The press release concluded:

“

There is no comparison between Mr. Weber’s mediatised campaign and the scientific and educational work resulting from the inscription of sites on UNESCO’s World Heritage List. The list of the 7 New Wonders of the World will be the result of a private undertaking, reflecting only the opinions of those with access to the Internet and not the entire world. This initiative cannot, in any significant and sustainable manner, contribute to the preservation of sites elected by this public.^[7]

”

Egypt

Egyptian commentators have viewed it as competition to the status of the Great Pyramid of Giza, the only surviving monument of the original Ancient Wonders. "This is probably a conspiracy against Egypt, its civilization and monuments", wrote editorialist Al-Sayed al-Naggar in a leading state-owned daily. Egyptian Culture Minister Farouq Hosni said the project was "absurd" and described its creator, Weber, as a man "concerned primarily with self-promotion". Nagib Amin, an Egyptian expert on World Heritage Sites, has pointed out that "in addition to the commercial aspect, the vote has no scientific basis."

After the complaints from Egypt, the New7Wonders Foundation designated the Pyramids of Giza — the only remaining of the 7 Ancient Wonders of the World — as an Honorary New7Wonders Candidate, and removed them from the voting. However, the Great Pyramid of Giza is not featured in their official results web site.^[16]

Brazil

In Brazil there was a campaign Vote no Cristo (Vote for the Christ) which had the support of private companies, namely telecommunications operators that stopped charging voters to make telephone calls to vote.^[24] Additionally, leading corporate sponsors including Banco Bradesco and Rede Globo spent millions of réis in the effort to have the statue voted into the top seven.^[3] Newsweek reports the campaign was so pervasive that:

“

One morning in June, Rio de Janeiro residents awoke to a beeping text message on their cell phones: “Press 4916 and vote for Christ. It’s free!” The same pitch had been popping up all over the city since late January—flashing across an electronic screen every time city-dwellers swiped their transit cards on city buses and echoing on TV infomercials that featured a reality-show celebrity posing next to the city’s trademark Christ the Redeemer statue.^[3]

”

According to an article in Newsweek, around 10 million Brazilians had voted in the contest by early July.^[3] This number is estimated as the New7Wonders Foundation never released such details about the campaign.

Peru

An aggressive campaign led by the Peruvian Ministry of Commerce and Tourism in Peru had a great impact in the media and consequently Peruvian people voted massively for its national wonder despite lack of internet connection in many Peruvian homes. The announcement of the new World Wonders generated great expectation and the election of Machu Picchu was celebrated nationwide, especially in Cusco´s main square and in Lima where President Alan Garcia hosted a ceremony.

Chile

The Chilean representative for the Easter Island Moais Alberto Hotus said that the organizer Bernard Weber gave him a letter saying that the Moais had finished eighth and were morally one of the New Seven Wonders. Hotus said he was the only participant to receive such an apology.^[25]

Jordan

Queen Rania Al-Abdullah of Jordan joined the campaign to back Petra, Jordan's national treasure.^[3] Despite Jordan only having a population of under 7 million people, it has been claimed that over 14 million votes were made from the country.^[3] This number is estimated as the New7Wonders Foundation never released such details about the campaign.

India

A campaign to publicize the campaign in India gathered speed and it reached a climax in July 2007 with news channels, radio stations, and many celebrities asking people to vote. Some mobile companies also made the messaging free for the last few days of voting.

Mexico

There was a campaign on the news programs to encourage people to vote for Chichen Itzá, although over 70% of Mexico's population did not have proper access to internet at the time.

Other finalists

The other 13 finalists,^[26] listed alphabetically, were:

Wonder	Location	Image
Acropolis of Athens	Athens, Greece
Alhambra	Granada, Spain
Angkor Wat	Angkor, Cambodia
Eiffel Tower	Paris, France
Hagia Sophia	İstanbul, Turkey
Kiyomizu-dera	Kyoto, Japan
Moai	Easter Island, Chile
Red Square	Moscow, Russia
Neuschwanstein	Füssen, Germany
Statue of Liberty	New York, USA
Stonehenge	Amesbury, United Kingdom
Sydney Opera House	Sydney, Australia
Timbuktu	Timbuktu, Mali

References

^ The project founder Bernard Weber - A Short History
^ The New7Wonders Foundation & Campaign
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j ^k Dwoskin, Elizabeth (2007-07-09), "Vote for Christ", Newsweek, ISSN 0028-9604
^ Band's Seven Wonders honour, Dorset Echo, 2007-07-14
^ ^a ^b ^c The Seven Wonders of the World, 2.0, Los Angeles Times, 2007-07-07]
^ New7Wonders and UNESCO - separate organizations supporting common goals - new7wonders.com
^ ^a ^b UNESCO confirms that it is not involved in the “New7Wonders of the World” campaign, UNESCO.org, 2007-06-07
^ new7wonders.com: "Cristiano Ronaldo supports the New7Wonders campaign"
^ ^a ^b Questions & Answers by Bernard Weber on www.new7wonders.com
^ Oh Taj! 7 wonders won’t get campaign money, indianexpress.com, 2007-07-22
^ ^a ^b BBC News: "More than a one-hit wonder?" Retrieved 2007-7-21
^ "New Seven Wonders named amid controversy". http://www.merinews.com/catFull.jsp?articleID=125582. Retrieved 2007-09-07.
^ http://www.new7wonders.com/classic/en/about_us/milestones/ New7Wonders Milestone page
^ BBC News Article 2 Jan 2006
^ New7Wonders Team
^ ^a ^b http://www.new7wonders.com/classic/en/n7w/finalists/c/PyramidsofGiza/ NWOC Pyramids of Giza
^ Opera House fading in race to be new wonder - Travel - smh.com.au
^ "Madrid 2004". http://www.new7wonders.com/index.php?id=43. Retrieved 2007-07-07.
^ "UNESCO is not involved". http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=38482&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html. Retrieved 2007-07-07.
^ How New7Wonders has created Global Memory
^ The New Yorker: "Buddhas for Bamiyan" Retrieved 2007-7-16
^ New Seven Wonders: "The New7Wonders Foundation" Retrieved on 2007-7-18
^ http://www.un.org/partnerships/YNewsNew7Wonders.htm United Nations Office for Partnerships: "World Votes for New Seven Wonders"
^ "Sete Maravilhas: Brasil comemora eleição de Cristo Redentor" (in Portuguese). http://diariodigital.sapo.pt/news.asp?section_id=4&id_news=284917. Retrieved 2007-07-10.
^ "Líder pascuense furioso porque le dieron a la isla un triunfo moral" Las Últimas Noticias July 10, 2007
^ Finalist Page

new-seven-wonders-of-the-world

EPHESUS

Ephesus

Contents

History

Neolithic age

Bronze age

Dark age

Archaic period

Classical period

Hellenistic period

Roman period

Byzantine era (395-1071)

Turkish era

Ephesus and Christianity

Main sites

Seven sleepers

Archaeology

Notable persons

See also

References

Contents

Conquest

Halicarnassus

Construction of the Mausoleum

Medieval and modern times

Notes

Further reading

STATUE OF ZEUS AT OLYMPIA

Statue of Zeus at Olympia

Contents

References

Notes

Bibliography

COLOSSUS OF RHODES

Colossus of Rhodes

Contents

Siege of Rhodes

Construction

Possible construction method

Destruction

Posture

Location of the ruins

Statue of Liberty

Rebuilding

Popular culture

See also

References

Notes

HANGING GARDENS OF BABYLON

Hanging Gardens of Babylon

Contents

Greek references

Other references

Controversy

See also

References

GREAT PYRAMID OF GIZA

Great Pyramid of Giza

Contents

Building of the Great pyramid of Giza

Materials

Casing stones

Construction theories

Interior

Entrance

King's Chamber and the Golden Mean

Pyramid complex

Thieves, tourists and excavators

See also

References

Notes

Contents

History

Construction and destruction

Recent archaeological research

Significance

Pharos in culture

In architecture

In books