Seven Wonders of the Ancient World

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. Their writings have not survived, except as references.

The classic seven wonders were:

• Great Pyramid of Giza

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

• Hanging Gardens of Babylon

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

• Statue of Zeus at Olympia

A fanciful reconstruction of Phidias'statue of Zeus, in an engraving made byPhilippe Galle in 1572, from a drawing byMaarten van Heemskerck

• Temple of Artemis at Ephesus

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

• Mausoleum at Halicarnassus

                                                         The site of the Mausoleum lies in ruins today

• Colossus of Rhodes

                                 An artist's impression of the Colossus of Rhodes from the Grolier Society's 1911 Book of Knowledge.

• Lighthouse of Alexandria

                                                      Drawing by archaeologist Hermann Thiersch (1909).