The seven wonders – old, modern and new

The Great Pyramid of Giza is the only one of the Seven Wonders of the World that still survives. Can you name the other six wonders?

They are:

1) The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, which were built on the banks of the Euphrates river by King Nebuchadnezzar II.

2) The gigantic gold statue of Zeus was built by the sculptor Pheidias at Olympia.

3) The temple of Artemis was erected in the Asia Minor city of Ephesus in honor of the Greek goddess of hunting and wild nature.

4) The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus was a huge tomb constructed for King Maussollos, Persian satrap of Caria.

5) The Colossus of Rhodes was a massive statue erected by the Greeks in honor of Helios the sun-god.

6) The Lighthouse of Alexandria was built by the Ptolemies on the island of Pharos.

The Great Pyramid of Giza was built near the ancient city of Memphis for Pharaoh Khufu in the period of the Fourth Dynasty, between 2613 and 2494BC. The Greeks referred to it as the Pyramid of Cheops. A true wonder, it is immense: according to Mysteries of the Unknown, it covers a ground area of 13.1 acres (32,4 hectares), composed of some 2.3 million limestone blocks average two-and-a-half tonnes each, enough stone to build a wall of foot-square cubes two-thirds around the globe at the equator, a distance of 16,600 miles (26 500km).

The oldest statue in the world is the Great Sphinx of Egypt. Carved out of limestone, it stands 65 ft (19,8 metres) high and is 240 ft (73 metres) long.

Modern Wonders

A list of the seven wonders of the modern world was compiled after World War One (after 1918). The motorcar was omitted from the list, instead naming:

(1) the radio;

(2) the telephone;

(3) the airplane;

(4) radium;

(5) anaesthetics and antitoxins;

(6) spectrum analysis;

(7) X rays.

An updated list undoubtedly will include the car, television, computer, nuclear energy and nanotechnology.

New Seven Wonders

At a declaration on 07/07/07 in Lisbon, Portugal, after worldwide online polling, SMS and telephone voting the New Seven Wonders were declared as being:

1) The Great Wall, China

2) Petra, Jordan

3) Christ Redeemer, Brazil

4) Machu Picchu, Peru

5) Chichén Itzá, Mexico

6) The Roman Colosseum, Italy

7) The Taj Mahal, India