.. upported by rows of arches connected them (15). They lined the terraces with lead in order to keep water in and covered them with earth from fields, which created a half dozen huge flowerbeds the size of tennis courts (15). These flowerbeds held exotic trees, shrubs, flowers, and creepers lay along the terrace (15). On top of the terrace was fountains, waterfalls, and streams which had the water raised by pumps from the Euphrates River worked by slaves (15).
Twenty -two years after Nebuchadnezzar’s death, the empire of Babylon was lost to the Persian Emporer Cyprus the Great, and today all that remains is on or two arches and a well (16). In 312 B.C. Rhodes joined King Ptolemy of Egypt in his war against Antigonous of Macedona (Grigson 14). Later the Macedonians returned for revenge on the Rhodes and besiged the city with a fast force of men and ships (14). The Rhodians managed to hold them back for a year until Ptolemy of Egypt finally cam to the rescui (14).
Among the defenders of Rhodes, was a sculptor, Chares of Lindus (14). To praise him, the Rhodians commissioned him to create a huge bronze statue in honor of the island’s patron, the sun god Helios or Apollo (14). The statue celabrated the unity of the Rhode’s three-city states (Ashmawy 1). The task to Chares took twelve years, from 292 B.C. to 280 B.C.
(Grigson 14). It was 105 feet high, 295 tons, and cast entirely from metal taken from the war engines abandoned by the Macedonians (14). The Colossus of Rhodes is hallow inside supported by interior stone and iron blocks (Ashmawy 1). The statue stood on a promontory overlooking the water and on some accounts, ships sailed between its legs, for it stood near the harbor of Rhodes, a Greek Island in the Aegean Sea (1). According to the story, when it was complete, Chares found a mistake in his calculations and killed himself (14.
The Colossus was one of the greatest pieces of self-criticism and hailed as the most perfect representation of a human form (14). In 224 B.C., and earthquake rocked the island snapping the statue at its knees, toppling across a whole city block (McLeish 5). The Rhodians left it lying there for another 900 years (5). The Colossus of Rhodes was to be the most short-lived of the world’s wonders (Grigson 15). Later, when Arabs captured Rhodes, the statue’s remains were sold to a Jewish merchant for scrap (15).
Over 3300 years ago, a boulder landed on the town of Apashash, just south of Izmir, Turkey, killing the king (McLeish 9). The superstitious people believed it was the goddess, Mother Earth, who was punishing the king for his wickedness he had shown as ruler (9). This town prospered after the king’s death and the Greek visitors changed the name of the town to Ephesus and the goddess’s name to Artemis (9). Artemis was worshipped greatly in Ephesus and so around 550 BC they built her a temple that by all accounts was the finest in the world (Grigson 23). The Lydian king, Croesus, sponsored the temple and Chersiphron, a Greek architect, designed it (Ashmawy 1).
It surpasses every structure raised by human hands (23). On the site cleared for the temple, 45,000 people could have stood (McLeish 10). The temple is rectangular in shape, made of marble, with a decorated faade overlooking a huge courtyard (Ashmawy 2). Marble steps lead up to a terrace that is 260 by 430 feet in size (2). One hundred twenty-seven columns, 60 feet high with Ionic capitals and carved circular sides, surround the platform of the temple (2). Every part of the temple was covered in paintings and carvings (McLeish 10).
The four bronze statues of amazons inside were sculpted by the most skilled artists of their time: Pheidias, Polyclietus, Kresilas, and Phradma (Ashmawy 1). For many years people visited the temple to share their profits with the goddess (1). Many people, such as kings and priests, deposited their wealth there and the temple was noted as a common treasury for all Asia (Grigson 24). Archeologists have found bracelets, earrings, and statuettes left from as far as Persia and India (Ashmawy 1). In an attempt to immortalize himself, Herostratus burnt down the temple in 365 BC (Grigson 23). The new temple, labeled temple E, was rebuilt in 323 BC and one of the greatest admirers was Alexander the Great, who by coincidence was born on the night of the old temples destruction (23). In 262 AD the Goths destroyed the temple E (Ashmawy 1). The Ephesians vowed to rebuild it, but by the fourteenth century they had mostly been converted to Christianity (1).
In 401 AD, the Temple of Artemis was completely torn down by St. John Chrysostom, and Ephesus was later deserted (1). In the city of Bodrum on the Aegean Sea, in southwest Turkey was the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus (Ashmawy 1). From 377 to 353 BC, the king Mausollos of Caria reigned, and he moved his capital to Halicarnassus to be closer to the Persian capital which had recently expanded its kingdom (1). Nothing is interesting about this king, Mausollos, except for his tomb (1). Artemisia, his wife and sister, conceived the project during his life time (1).
The Mausoleum, named after the king, was finished around 350 BC, three years after Mausollos’ death and one year after Artemesia’s (1). This building gave its name to all large tombs today (1). The Mausoleum is rectangular and 140 by 100 feet in size (2). There was a stepped podium, which was 60 feet, a 38-foot colonnade, a 22-foot pyramid, and a 20-foot chariot statue (2). The sides are completely decorated with tens of life size, under, and over life size statues of people, lions, horses, and other animals (2). These works were carved by Bryaxis, Leochares, Scopas, and Timotheus (2). Each sculptor was responsible for one side (2).
The burial chamber and sarcophagus of white alabaster is decorated with gold and located on the podium, surrounded by Ionic columns (2). The colonnade supported the pyramid roof, which was decorated with statues as well (2). A statue of a chariot pulled by four horses was on top of the tomb (2). The tomb survived sixteen centuries until an earthquake damaged the roof of the colonnade (1). In 1489,the Christians who had made Halicarnassus a stronghold against the Turks, took the stones of the base to build castle walls and broke the sculptures to use as mortar (McLeish 24).
The knights of St. John of Malta supposedly found gold stolen by pirates in the tomb chamber, but only a few gold ornaments survive today (24). By 1522 almost every block had been disassembled from the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus (Ashmawy 1). In 331 BC Alexander the Great captured Egypt and he planned to leave there in triumph on ship by one of the mouths of the river Nile (McLeish 29). All the Delta channels were too shallow, so he decided to build a new city with deep water harbors ideal for war-galleys and trading ships (29).
On this harbor of Alexandria, a lighthouse, otherwise called Pharos, was built (Ashmawy 1). Upon its completion in about 270 BC, it was estimated to be about 400 feet high (1). The Greek architect Sostratos designed the lighthouse, one of the tallest structures on Earth in its time, during the reign of the King Ptolemy II (1). From an Arab traveler’s notes from 1166, archeologists have deduced that the lighthouse was built in three sections (1). The bottom section was square, the middle eight sided, and the top circular (Donovan 325).
At the top, a mirror reflected sunlight during the day, and a fire guided soldiers at night (Ashmawy 1). The structure became so famous that pharos came to mean lighthouse in French, Italian, and Spanish (1). In November 1996, a team of divers claimed to find the ruins of the lighthouse in the Mediterranean Sea (2). History Essays.