Ancient Wonders of the world

The Great Pyramid is only one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World that still stands.

It was built at the order of the Paraoh Cheops, who once ruled Egypt. More than 100, 000 slaves labored for twenty years to build it. They had no machines, not even carts-all the work was done by human strength alone. Yet each huge block was so well laid that the Pyramid has stood for 5, 000 years.

Near the Great Pyramid in Egypt stands a huge sculptured rock called the Sphynx. The face is that of a man, perhaps the Paraoh Kharfe who had it built almost 5, 000 years ago. But the body is that of a lion, and between its great stone paws is a small temple. Since no one knows exactly why is the Sphynx was built, it remains a symbol of mystery- a riddle.

In Babylon, one of the great cities of the Ancient World, there was a famous garden which amazed visitors for hundreds years. It was called the Hanging Gardens, because it was built along arches and towers and looked like a wall of flowers and green shrubs. The garden was kept alive by a hidden pool on the highest terrace, from which the water was drawn to appear in a series of fountains. The gardens were built by the King Nebuchodnozzor, who mentioned in the Bible as a cruel conqueror of Jerusalem.

The greatest god of the ancient Greeks was Zeus, for whom the Roman name was called Jupiter. The greatest statue of Zeus was at Olympia, where the famous Olympic Games were held in its honor. The statue was 40 feet high-about seven times a man’s height-and was made of marble, decorated with pure gold and ivory. After 1, 000 years, an earthquake tumbled it down.

The Temple of Artemis is one of the most famous temples of the ancient world. It stood for 600 years in Ephesus, a great city of Syria. The temple was sacred to Artemis, also called Diana, goodness of the moon. The finest sculptors and painters of Greece decorated this beautiful building, which was destroyed by the barbaric Goths. Only a few pieces of statues columns remained. Modern scientists dug them up.

Few remember the tiny kingdom of Caria, which once flourished in what is now southwestern Turkey. But the name of its king, Mausolus, is known of the world “mausoleum”- a massive tomb. The original Artemisia, was so magnificent that it was one of the Wonders of the Ancient World.

Rhodes, an island near Greece, was so magnificent that it was one of the Wonders of the Ancient World. Standing across the entrance to its big harbour, was a huge statue of the sun god Helios, famous as the Colossus of Rhodes. Although ships sailed beneath these of Liberty.

The most famous lighthouse in ancient times was the Pharos of Alexandria, the Great. It guarded the harbor of Alexandria, in Egypt, and light atop a high tower could be seen for sixty miles. To keep the beacon the powerful electric lamps behind glass lenses used in our lighthouses were not yet.

Great sphinx. From the 15^lh century AD European travellers carried home tales of the mysterious and amazing remains of the civilization of Egypt. One of its most remarkable monuments, which still evokes this sense of awe and might, is the Great Sphinx of Gizeh, the oldest surviving sphinx, dating from c2550 ВС, carved from a rock with the crouchingbody of a lion and a human face (74, 4 m. long, 20, 1 m. high, and 4, 2 m. broad, at its widest point; the head is 8, 7 m. high from chin to crown). The human head was the means of individualizing the sculpture, so that the Great Sphinx probably bears the idealized features of Khephren whose pyramid is nearby. The concept of the king as a powerful lion goes back into prehistoric times, and several ceremonial objects have survived which depict him in this guise, overthrowing his enemies. The sphinx was, therefore, a natural development, personifying the divine power of the king as a force protecting his land and repelling the power of evil. The Great Sphinx is one of the most distinctive and dominant of all the images of ancient Egypt, which is perhaps the source of the misconception that sphinxes are of central importance in Egyptian culture. However, those that have survived are among the most impressive as well as intriguing examples of Egyptian sculpture

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