| The Seven Wonders of the World (also called the Seven wonders of the Ancient World) is a well-known list of the most famous places of interest in ancient culture.
Evolution of the list:
The first list of wonders of the world is attributed to Herodotus. The list appeared in Ancient Greece. All the wonders were on the island Samos. This enlisting consisted of three wonders of the world:
* The aqueduct in the form of a tunnel;
* The dam in the port on the island;
* The temple of the Goddess Hera.
Subsequent lists extended up to seven wonders. The new list of seven wonders appeared in the III BC. Historians consider the small poem of authorship Antipater of Sidon (English) as the source of the list (also there is a version that it was written by Antipater of Thessalonica (English)):
1. Statue of Zeus at Olympia;
2. Colossus of Rhodes;
3. Hanging gardens of Babylon (Hanging Gardens of Semiramis);
4. Pyramids of Egypt;
5. Mausoleum of Maussollos at Halicarnassus;
6. Temple of Artemis at Ephesus;
7. Walls of Babylon
The classical list and its subsequent interpretations:
Historians relate this list to the Empire of Alexander the Great. In some sources, Philo of Byzantium (Philo of Alexandria) is considered as the author of the final list. At present, the following are included in the list of seven wonders:
* Pyramid of Cheops, Great pyramid of Giza (Egypt); ‘
* Hanging gardens of Babylon (Hanging Gardens of Semiramis);
* Temple of Artemis at Ephesus;
* Statue of Zeus at Olympia;
* Lighthouse of Alexandria;
* Colossus of Rhodes;
* Mausoleum of Maussollos at Halicarnassus;
To date, only the Pyramid of Cheops is fully preserved and the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus and the Mausoleum of Maussollos at Halicarnassus are partially preserved.
In subsequent times, numerous attempts were made to create various lists of places of interests on the basis of the previously available list. Roman poet Martial included the Colosseum, which was recently constructed, into the list. Later, in the VI century, Christian theologian Gregory of Tours included Noah’s Ark and Solomon’s Temple in the list.
Philo of Alexandria, who lived in the IV century B.C could not have imaged that his name would be remembered in centuries to come for such an interesting reason. He, being a mathematician, mechanic and geodesist, contrived the idea of making the first list of Seven wonders.
It is not known, why he stopped on seven objects. Explanation, which is popular today: seven was considered as magic number, which was mentioned even by ancient Egyptians in their studies. For example, seven colours of rainbow, seven heavenly bodies in Solar system...
In his work “Seven Wonders of the world”, Philo included:
* Lighthouse of Alexandria;
* Hanging Gardens of Babylon;
* Mausoleum of Maussollos at Halicarnassus;
* Pyramids of Giza (Egypt);
* Colossus of Rhodes;
* Statue of Zeus at Olympia;
* Temple of Artemis at Ephesus.
Unfortunately, except for the pyramids, these sublime structures could not be preserved. But, the idea of Philo was pleasant to descendants and as a consequence, many scientists and historians enlisted their variants of the wonders. The modern list of new wonders was made on the basis of the results of a survey, done over the telephone and Internet. Popular film director Bernard Weber has come up with the idea of conducting the poll over telephone and internet. The list included 77 existing structures and any person could vote for the 7 most worthy by voting on site n7w.com or over the phone. Voting lines were closed on the magic date - on July 7, 2007: 7.07.07.
Approximately 100 million people participated in the voting process. The final list of seven wonders is as follows:
* Great Wall of China;
* City Machu Picchu in Peru;
* City Petra in Jordan;
* City Chichen Itza on Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico;
* Roman Colosseum, Italy;
* Taj Mahal, India;
* Christ the Redeemer, Rio (de) Janeiro, Brazil. |
Kids traveling abroad with their parents often can't remember the correct names of the places they visited. Neither can the foreign tourists coming from the countries with very different language (Japanese visiting the USA, German tourists visiting China, etc.). E.g. Chinese tourists who never spoke English may pronounce "The Eiffel Tower" as "The Eiffel ToweL" , and the "Tower of Pisa" as "The Towel of Pizza".
