Ed Ranks the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World

Antipater of Sidon, Philo of Byzantium, Strabo, Herodotus, and Diodoros of Sicily are a bunch of dead ancient people who put together lists of amazing "Wonders of the World" that existed. Their lists differed slightly, but beginning in the middle ages, we came to accept these seven below as "the" Seven Ancient Wonders of the World. They were not all equally wonderful, as you will see.

7. Temple of Artemis at Ephesus

This is how it probably looked. Boring.

They must have been really hard up for a seventh wonder to fill out their list of some stupid temple to Artemis made the cut. Antipater of Sidon was especially impressed with it and thought it was better than all of the others. Although it's exact appearance isn't known for sure, recreations of it pretty much look like every other standard Greek building with columns. Why was this so special? Artemis wasn't even a top-tier goddess. She was just some daughter of Zeus and Leto that liked to go hunting. And maybe she wasn't even the version of Artemis that the temple was dedicated to. It's quite likely that the temple was actually dedicated to some archaic many-booked fertility goddess that looked like the chick from Total Recall. And the Temple was actually three temples - the first one was destroyed by a flood, the second one was destroyed by a fire, and the third (and final) one was destroyed in a raid by the Goths. This was before Goths had malls with Hot Topics in them, so they had little else to do other than raid temples.

6. Statue of Zeus at Olympia

Zeus is a lot more important than Artemis... but surely we could have done a lot better than just a statue, huh? I guess it was a pretty big statue. It was designed by the same guy who created the Athena statue at the Parthenon, and was apparently so large that if it could hypothetically stand up it would have broken through the roof of the temple it was in. Big deal. Nobody knows exactly what the statue looked like for sure, but geographer and traveler Pausanias gave a detailed description, stating that it was gaudy as hell and decked out with ebony, ivory, gold, lillies and precious stones. They apparently used to rub olive oil all over it too, because that's just what Greeks did. Eventually people just stopped giving a shit about Zeus though, and the temple of the statue fell into disuse. Nobody is even sure when this ancient wonder was destroyed. Some say it was carted away to Constantinople and burned in a fire there. Others think it was destroyed in a fire at Olympus. Whatever.

5. Hanging Gardens of Babylon

Awesome..ly never existed.

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon sound so totally cool, I wish I could rank them higher. Unfortunately, there is a good chance that this Wonder of the World never actually existed. So I guess that's not really helping it out. The Gardens were hypothetically the second oldest of the Wonders, being created around 600 BC.  They were supposedly a remarkable feat of engineering, with an ascending series of tiered gardens containing all kinds of different trees, shrubs, vines, flowers and whatnot. They were so large they resembled a beautiful green mountain, and according to legend were put in place by King Nebuchadnezzar II as a gift to his Median wife who missed her green homeland. There are lots of descriptions of the gardens by Classic authors - including by Josephus, Diodorus Siculus, Quintus Curtius Rufus, Strabo and Philo of Byzantium. Unfortunately, none of these writers actually claimed to have seen the gardens themselves, and all just cited earlier writings which are all apparently lost. The lack of any documentation or actual Babylonian sources for the Gardens means that a lot of people just think they were made up by the Greeks as some exotic and poetic creation to romanticize the lands out to the east. Even more damning - absolutely no archeological evidence exists to show that any such gardens existed in Babylon. The most likely truth is that the legends of Babylonian Gardens were likely just based on gardens constructed by the Assyrian king Sennacherib for his palace at Nineveh (for which there is ample archeological evidence for), and over time the places got confused.

4. Lighthouse of Alexandria

Yep. It looks like a lighthouse.

The Lighthouse (aka Pharos) was the youngest of the Wonders of the Ancient World. A lot of people who talk about the wonders describe the list of the seven wonders as being created by Herodotus. Well, Herodotus sure as hell wouldn't have been able to include the Lighthouse on his list because construction on it didn't even begin until 145 years after he died.  It actually survived a super long time as well, being the third-longest surviving of the Wonders - not finally being destroyed until 1480 (although three earthquakes between 956 and 1323 damaged it greatly). Still, it's somewhat amazing to think that this Wonder that we associate with ancient Greek civilization still existed (even if in a somewhat ruined state) until twelve years before Christopher Columbus stumbled his ass upon Hispaniola.  It pretty much set the gold standard for what lighthouses should look like - and future lighthouses were modeled on it. It had three tiers and at the top there was supposedly a statue of a little guy that held a mirror that reflected light in the day and that could be lit up via a torch at night to guide ships. Very practical. But all good things come to an end and finally, Sultan Qaitbay of Egypt decided to put the damn thing out of its ruined misery in the late 15th Century. The stones that the Lighthouse were made from still exist though - the Sultan used them to build a fortress in the exact same place where the Wonder once stood. The Citadel of Qaitbay still exists today, so in a way the Lighthouse still kind of does. Sort of.

3. Mausoleum at Halicarnassus

The Mausoleum was the second longest-lasting of the Wonders, existing from 351 BC to 1494 AD.  Satrap (essentially a King) Mausolus probably decided to start building this giant tomb even before he died - which isn't that crazy because it's the kind of things the Egyptians did with their Pyramids too. The world "Mausoleum" itself comes from Mausolus, so obviously he had some lasting impact. After he died, his wife (who was also his sister) missed him so much that she spared no expense at trying to make her brother/husband's tomb the most crazy/elaborate monument ever. She assembled some of the greatest artists living to work on the Mausoleum, including the man who had supervised the building of the other (lame) Wonder, the Temple of Artemis. As with the case of many other of the lost Wonders, the exact look of the Mausoleum isn't precisely known - although descriptions of it state that it was a giant structure in a courtyard, sitting on a stone platform, with 36 columns, stairways, stone lions, stone warriors, stone mounted horsemen, bas-reliefs, a tapered roof, and so on. The Masonic House of the Temple of the Scottish Rite and the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne are both designed to resemble the Mausoleum - but look different and thus show different interpretations of the descriptions left behind. There is a mini-version in Istanbul that, again, looks different as well. As with the Lighthouse, the Mausoleum was in ruins at the end of the 15th Century and the stones from the Wonder were used to create a new structure - Bodrum Castle. A number of the ruins from the Mausoleum can be seen in the British Museum now.

2. Colossus of Rhodes

Cool picture, but nope. It didn't look like this at all.

The Colossus of Rhodes, alas, isn't as awesome as you probably think it might have been. Still, I'm going to give it #2 despite that fact. Chances are that if you know anything about the Colossus of Rhodes, it's that it was a giant statue that was around the harbor of Rhodes - and that it's legs were spread open so that ships coming into the harbor sailed under it. It's obviously where the inspiration for the Titan of Bravos from Game of Thrones came from.  Well, unfortunately that legend is complete bullshit and the Colossus wasn't really spread eagle across the harbor. In fact, the giant statue might not have actually at the harbor at all - and could have been inland or on a hill. The whole harbor spread legs thing was an invention in medieval times that ignored the known facts, including that the statue had eventually topped over in an earthquake and laid there (on land) for about another 800 years still as a tourist attraction before finally being broken up and melted. Despite confusion over what the statue actually looked like and where it was (neither as epic as we'd hope for) - it was still an impressive feat of engineering for ancient times. It was honestly probably a lot like the Statue of Liberty - both in terms of its stance (legs probably together), the fact that it was on a pedestal (making it seem taller), and its actual height (108 feet tall - the Statue of Liberty is 151feet tall). And being able to create something a lot like the Statue of Liberty between 292 and 280 BC--almost 2200 years before the Statue of Liberty--is quite frankly amazing. Of course, making earthquake-proof construction was not a technological feat which existed in 280 BC, and the second youngest of the Ancient Wonders of the world was also the shortest lasting of the wonders - standing for a mere 54 years after its completion before it was toppled by an earthquake (because Poseidon the Earth-Shaker was obviously angry it wasn't dedicated to him). As I noted before, according to legend after it toppled it did last about another 800 years and was viewed by people such as Pliny the Elder who talked about it before finally being melted down for its bronze and sold off.

1. Great Pyramid of Giza

When this picture was taken, the pyramid was a young 4470 years old

The Great Pyramid of Giza (also known as the Pyramid of Khufu or the Pyramid of Cheops) is by far and away the winner of the greatest Ancient Wonder of the World, for a number of reasons. First off, it's the oldest. And not by a little bit. The second oldest wonder, the Gardens of Babylon (which might not have actually even existed) were said to have been created around 600 BC. The construction of the Great Pyramid can be fairly accurately dated to 2585 BC - a full 2000 years before the Gardens. The Pyramids were almost as old to the people who built the other six Wonders of the World as the other six wonders of the world are to us today in 2016. The Great Pyramid of Giza is damn ancient. When you think of the Pyramids and Cleopatra as being "from Ancient Egypt" like they're from the same time period - just think about the fact that right now you're living in an age closer to the birth of Cleopatra (in 69 BC - 2085 years ago) than Cleopatra lived in to the creation of the Great Pyramid (2516 years before her birth). People 400 years from now will still live in a closer time period to Cleopatra than Cleopatra did to the construction of the Great Pyramid. The "ancient" writers who created the concept of the Seven Wonders of the World also live in a time closer to us now than they did to the construction of the Great Pyramid. Another reason the Great Pyramid is the indisputable best is because it's the longest lasting of the Ancient Wonders - as verified by the fact that it's the only one that still actually exists! The damn Colossus of Rhodes didn't even last 60 years before falling down. All the others eventually were lost to time as well. The Great Pyramid has been around 4600 years! It was also the world's tallest structure for over 3800 of those years - only being overtaken in 1300 AD by the spire at Lincoln Cathedral (a spire which collapsed 250 years later, obviously not being as well built as the pyramids). And while the facade of the Great Pyramid is gone now (it was originally covered in casing stones that gave it a smooth surface rather than the "step" shape that we associate with it) - it's still holding up pretty well after all these years, all things considered. We can't even make roads these days that don't get potholes in them in three months. If you think anything we build now will last 4600 years then you're crazy. The fucking Atlanta Braves cried and got a new baseball stadium to replace the one they just got after the Olympics 20 years ago.