152 TAMPA BAY MAGAZINE | MAY/JUNE 2017
COMMAERNTTARY
The 7 Wonders
of the World
By Aaron R. Fodiman
As I was growing up, I always
wondered why only one of the
Seven Dwarfs was “Happy,” but
I never questioned why there
were seven wonders of the world. I later
learned that the original seven wonders
were proclaimed to be so by a Byzantine
mathematician named Philon, who after
traveling around the civilized western
world before the birth of Christ, declared
that these man-made monuments were
indeed wondrous and should be known
by all. Only one of the ancient wonders
still stands today, the Great Pyramid of
Giza in Egypt. Built in 2,600 B.C., this royal
tomb is believed to have more than two
million stone blocks.
The ancient wonders that are no more
include the Hanging Gardens of Babylon
that were built in 600 B.C. and disappeared
in the first century A.D. In Greece, the
40-foot-tall Statue of Zeus that was carved
in 430 B.C. was destroyed in the second
century A.D. The Temple of Artemis at
Ephesus, built in 350 B.C. in the area that is
now Turkey, was torn down by the Goths
in 262 A.D. Also in Turkey and built at
the same time as the Temple of Artemis
was the Tomb of King Mausolus at
Halicarnassus, but an earthquake leveled
it in 1550. A similar fate ended the life of
the next wonder, the 120-foot-tall Colossus
of Rhodes that was built on that Greek
Island in 292 B.C. The last of the ancient
wonders was the lighthouse on the isle
of Pharos near Alexandria, Egypt, which
soared 400 feet above sea level and whose
fires could be seen from 300 miles away.
Built in 200 B.C., it was partially destroyed
by invaders until an earthquake ended it
completely in 375 A.D.
Since only the Great Pyramid of Giza
from the original list of ancient wonders
still exists, several other man-made
monuments have been suggested to
fill out this list such as Chichén Itza on
the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico built
by the Mayans; the Statue of Christ the
Redeemer on the top of Mount Corcovado
in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; the Colosseum in
Rome, Italy; the 42-acre Taj Mahal marble
mausoleum complex in Agra, India; the
Great Wall of China that is 4,500 miles long
if you put all the sections together; the
Ruins of Petra in Jordan, which is known
as the city in the rock; and Machu Picchu
in Peru, a city that was built in the clouds
in the 15th century by the Incas above
7,000 feet in elevation, which is probably
why it wasn’t rediscovered until 1911 by
a professor from Yale University.
There is no official list to replace the
ancient seven sites, and as time goes on,
someone is bound to suggest Disney World
as one of them. However, whichever you
may put on your personal list, they are
all incredible tributes to what man can
conceive and build. 9