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The Seven Wonders

Ancient monuments and cultural value

Clara Bosak-Schroeder

Associate Professor

Department of Classics

University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

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Map of the canonical seven wonders. Source

New 7 Wonders of the World. Source

Now, the list of seven wonders as you have probably encountered it goes like this (in chronological order): The Great Pyramid at Giza, The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, The Statue of Zeus at Olympia, The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, The Colossus of Rhodes, and the Lighthouse at Alexandria. Of these, only the Great Pyramid remains.

The seven wonders form a canon, an authoritative list of what Greek and Roman authors considered the most impressive architecture of all time. But this canon, this authoritative list, was not stable until the European Renaissance, around 1600 CE. While seven was a popular number, different authors put forward different monuments: the walls of Babylon, the Roman Colosseum, and Jewish artifacts like Noah’s Ark, among others. And these lists continue to change.

In 2000 a private company led a haphazard but ultimately successful effort to name a “new seven” wonders of the world, both the New and the Old: The Great Wall of China, Chichén Itza in Mexico, Machu Picchu in Peru, the statue of Christ the Redeemer in Brazil, the Roman Colosseum, Petra in Jordan, and the Taj Mahal in India.

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What do the seven wonders tell us?

Greek and Roman writers defined cultural value through wonder
They looked for wonders across the entire Mediterranean and Middle East
“Wonderful” monuments are often enormous and highly decorated

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Reconstruction of the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus. Source

Fragment of the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus. Source

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Italian mss (1457-58) showing Pliny the Elder at work. Source

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Pliny the Elder on the Colossus of Rhodes

Ante omnes autem in admiratione fuit Solis colossus Rhodi, quem fecerat Chares Lindius, Lysippi supra dicti discipulus. lxx cubitorum altitudinis fuit hoc simulacrum, post lxvi annum terrae motu prostratum, sed iacens quoque miraculo est. pauci pollicem eius amplectuntur, maiores sunt digiti quam pleraeque statuae. vasti specus hiant defractis membris; spectantur intus magnae molis saxa, quorum pondere stabiliverat eum constituens.

But calling for admiration before all others was the colossal statue of the Sun at Rhodes made by Chares of Lindus, the pupil of Lysippus mentioned above. This statue was 105 ft. high; and, 66 years after its erection, was overthrown by an earthquake, but even lying on the ground it is a marvel. Few people can make their arms meet round the thumb of the figure, and the fingers are larger than most statues; and where the limbs have been broken off enormous cavities yawn, while inside are seen great masses of rock with the weight of which the artist steadied it when he erected it.

Natural History, 34.41-42, translated by Harris Rackham

Here’s an example from the thirty-fourth book of theNatural History that describes the Colossus of Rhodes, an enormous statue of the Sun god Helios. Pliny has just been discussing other large-scale sculptures and the famous artists who made them.

But calling for admiration before all others was the colossal statue of the Sun at Rhodes made by Chares of Lindus, the pupil of Lysippus mentioned above. This statue was 105 ft. high; and, 66 years after its erection, was overthrown by an earthquake, but even lying on the ground it is a marvel. Few people can make their arms meet round the thumb of the figure, and the fingers are larger than most statues; and where the limbs have been broken off enormous cavities yawn, while inside are seen great masses of rock with the weight of which the artist steadied it when he erected it.

In this passage we can see Pliny’s interest in both the scale of the enormous statue and how that scale was achieved. Pliny seems to think that Chares of Lindus fashioned a bronze exterior over a stone core. Scholars now think this is unlikely, though the process Pliny imagines is quite similar to how the Statue of Liberty, which has links to the Colossus of Rhodes, was constructed.

We can also see how important wonder is to Pliny’s judgment of the colossus. He starts off by saying that it is more to be admired than any sculpture previously, using a word, admiratio, that can mean both wonder and admiration. The colossus deserves wonder. And it remains wonderful (miraculo) even in Pliny’s time, after it has been damaged by an earthquake and lies fallen. In fact, the colossus’ ruination allows Pliny, and readers of his text, to wonder further at the masses of rocks that lay hidden within the statue.