|
The Seven Wonders of the World (or the Seven
Wonders of the Ancient World) is a widely-known list of
seven remarkable constructions of classical antiquity. The
earliest known version of the list was compiled in the 2nd
century BC by Antipater of Sidon; it appears to be based on
the guide-books popular among Hellenic sight-seers and only
includes works located around the Mediterranean rim.
Listed in order of their construction, the seven wonders
are....
1.the Great Pyramid of Giza
2.the Hanging Gardens of Babylon
3. the Statue of Zeus at Olympia
4.the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus (The
site is 2
Hours from BODRUM)
5. the Mausoleum of Maussollos at Halicarnassus
(BODRUM
Location Halicarnassus)
6. the Colossus of Rhodes
7. the Lighthouse of Alexandria
Of these, the only one which has survived to the present
day is the oldest—the Great Pyramid at Giza. The Great
Pyramid was built by the ancient Egyptians, the Hanging
Gardens by the Babylonians, and the Maussollos Mausoleum by
the Hellenized Carians; the Lighthouse of Alexandria and the
Colossus of Rhodes by Hellenistic civilization; the others
were built by the ancient Greeks. Interestingly, two of the
wonders, the Temple of Artemis and the Statue of Zeus, were
destroyed by fire, and three of the other wonders, the
Lighthouse of Alexandria, Colossus, and Mausoleum of
Maussollos, were destroyed by earthquakes.
The
Temple of Artemis at Ephesus TURKEY
The first shrine to the Goddess
Artemis was probably built around 800 B.C. on a marshy strip
near the river at Ephesus. The Ephesus Goddess Artemis,
sometimes called Diana, is not the same figure as the
Artemis worshipped in Greece. The Greek Artemis is the
goddess of the hunt. The Ephesus Artemis was a goddess of
fertility and was often pictured as draped with eggs, or
multiple breasts, symbols of fertility, from her waist to
her shoulders.
The shrine was destroyed and rebuilt several times over the
next few hundred years. By 600 B.C., the city of Ephesus had
become a major port of trade and an architect named
Chersiphron was engaged to build a new large temple. He
designed it with high stone columns. Concerned that carts
carrying the columns might get marred in the swampy ground
around the site, Chersiphron laid the columns on their sides
and had them rolled to where they would be erected. This
temple didn't last long. In 550 B.C. King Croesus of Lydia
conquered Ephesus and the other Greek cities of Asia Minor.
During the fighting, the temple was destroyed. Croesus
proved himself a gracious winner, though, by contributing
generously to the building of a new temple. This was next to
the last of the great temples to Artemis in Ephesus and it
dwarfed those that had come before.
The architect is thought to be a man named Theodorus.
Theodorus's temple was 300 feet in length and 150 feet wide
with an area four times the size of the temple before it.
More than one hundred stone columns supported a massive
roof. The new temple was the pride of Ephesus until 356 B.C.
when a tragedy, by name of Herostratus, struck.
Herostratus was a young Ephesian who would stop at no cost
to have his name go down in history. He managed this by
burning the temple to the ground. The citizens of Ephesus
were so appalled at this act they issued a decree that
anyone who spoke of Herostratus would be put to death.
Shortly after this horrible deed, a new temple was
commissioned.
The architect was Scopas of Paros, one of the most famous
sculptors of his day. Ephesus was one of the greatest cities
in Asia Minor at this point and no expense was spared in the
construction. According to Piny the Elder, a Roman
historian, the temple was a "wonderful monument of Grecian
magnificence, and one that merits our genuine admiration."
The temple was built in the same marshy place as before. To
prepare the ground, Piny recorded that "layers of trodden
charcoal were placed beneath, with fleeces covered with wool
upon the top of them."
The building is thought to be the first completely
constructed with marble and one of its must unusual features
were 36 columns whose lower portions were carved with
figures in high-relief (above).
The temple also housed many works of art including four
bronze statues of Amazon women. Piny recorded the length of
this new temple at 425 feet and the width at 225 feet. Some
127 columns, 60 feet in height, supported the roof. In
comparison the Parthenon, the remains of which stand on the
acropolis in Athens today, was only 230 feet long, 100 feet
wide and had 58 columns. According to Piny, construction
took 120 years, though some experts suspect it may have only
taken half that time.
We do know that when Alexander the Great came to Ephesus in
333 B.C., the temple was still under construction. He
offered to finance the completion of the temple if the city
would credit him as the builder. The city fathers didn't
want Alexander's name carved on the temple, but didn't want
to tell him that. They finally gave the tactful response:
"It is not fitting that one god should build a temple for
another god" and Alexander didn't press the matter .
Piny reported that earthen ramps were employed to get the
heavy stone beams perched on top of the columns. This method
seemed to work well until one of the largest beams was put
into position above the door. It went down crookedly and the
architect could find no way to get it to lie flat. He was
beside himself with worry about this until he had a dream
one night in which the Goddess herself appeared to him
saying that he should not be concerned. She herself had
moved the stone in the proper position. The next morning the
architect found that the dream was true. During the night
the beam had settled into its proper place.
The city continued to prosper over the next few hundred
years and was the destination for many pilgrims coming to
view the temple. A souvenir business in miniature Artemis
idols, perhaps similar to a statue of her in the temple,
grew up around the shrine. It was one of these business
proprietors, a man named Demetrius, that gave St. Paul a
difficult time when he visited the city in 57 A.D.
St. Paul came to the city to win converts to the then new
religion of Christianity. He was so successful that
Demetrius feared the people would turn away from Artemis and
he would lose his livelihood. He called others of his trade
together with him and gave a rousing speech ending with
"Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!" They then seized two of
Paul's companions and a near riot followed. Eventually the
city was quieted, the men released, and Paul left for
Macedonia. It was Paul's Christianity that won out in the
end, though.
By the time the great Temple of Artemis was destroyed during
a raid by the Goths in 262 A.D., both the city and the
religion of Artemis were in decline. When the Roman Emperor
Constantine rebuilt much of Ephesus a century later, he
declined to restore the temple. He had become a Christian
and had little interest in pagan temples.
Despite Constantine's efforts, Ephesus declined in its
importance as a crossroads of trade. The bay where ships
docked disappeared as silt from the river filled it. In the
end what was left of the city was miles from the sea, and
many of the inhabitants left swampy lowland to live in the
surrounding hills. Those that remained used the ruins of the
temple as a source of building materials. Many of the fine
sculptures were pounded into powder to make lime for wall
plaster.
In 1863 the British Museum sent John Turtle Wood, an
architect, to search for the temple. Wood met with many
obstacles. The region was infested with bandits. Workers
were hard to find. His budget was too small. Perhaps the
biggest difficulty was that he had no idea where the temple
was located. He searched for the temple for six years. Each
year the British Museum threatened to cut off his funding
unless he found something significant, and each year he
convinced them to fund him for just one more season.
Wood kept returning to the site each year many despite
hardships. During his first season he was thrown from a
horse, breaking his collar bone. Two years later he was
stabbed within an inch of his heart during an assassination
attempt upon the British Consul in Smyrna.
Finally in 1869, at the bottom of a muddy twenty-foot deep
test pit, his crew struck the base of the great temple. Wood
then excavated the whole foundation removing 132,000 cubic
yards of the swamp to leave a hole some 300 feet wide and
500 feet long. The remains of some of the sculptured
portions were found and shipped the to British Museum where
they can be viewed even today.
In 1904 another British Museum expedition under the
leadership of D.G. Hograth continued the excavation. Hograth
found evidence of five temples on the site, each constructed
on top of the other.
Today the site of the temple is a marshy field. A single
column is erect to remind visitors that once there stood in
that place one of the wonders of the ancient world.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Maussoleum at Halicarnassus,
Bodrum TURKEY
In 377 B.C., the city of
Halicarnassus was the capitol of a small kingdom along
the Mediterranean coast of Asia Minor. It was in that year
the ruler of this land, Hecatomnus of Mylasa, died
and left control of the kingdom to his son, Mausolus.
Hecatomnus, a local satrap to the Persians, had been
ambitious and had taken control of several of the
neighbouring cities and districts. Mausolus in his
time, extended the territory even further so that it finally
included most of southwestern Asia Minor.
Mausolus, with his queen
Artemisia, ruled over Halicarnassus and the
surrounding territory for 24 years. Mausolus, though
he was descended from the local people, spoke Greek and
admired the Greek way of life and government. He founded
many cities of Greek design along the coast and encouraged
Greek democratic traditions.
Then in 353 B.C. Mausolus
died, leaving his queen Artemisia, who was also his
sister (It was the custom in Caria for rulers to marry their
own sisters), broken-hearted. As a tribute to him, she
decided to build him the most splendid tomb in the known
world. It became a structure so famous that Mausolus's
name is now associated with all stately tombs through our
modern word mausoleum. The building was also so beautiful
and unique it became one of the Seven Wonders of the
Ancient World.
Soon after construction of the
tomb started Artemisia found herself in a crisis.
Rhodes, an island in the Aegean Sea between Greece and
Asia Minor, had been conquered by Mausolus. When the
Rhodians heard of his death they rebelled and sent a fleet
of ships to capture the city of Halicarnassus.
Knowing that the Rhodian fleet was on the way, Artemisa
hid her own ships at a secret location at the east end of
the city's harbour.
After troops from the Rhodian
fleet disembarked to attack, Artemisia's fleet made a
surprise raid, captured the Rhodian fleet, and towed it out
to sea. Artemisa put her own soldiers on the invading
ships and sailed them back to Rhodes. Fooled into
thinking that the returning ships were their own victorious
navy, the Rhodians failed to put up a defense and the city
was easily captured quelling the rebellion.
The Mausoleum overlooked
the city of Halicarnassus for many centuries. It was
untouched when the city fell to Alexander the Great
in 334 B.C. and still undamaged after attacks by pirates in
62 and 58 B.C.. It stood above the city ruins for some 17
centuries.
Then a series of earthquakes
shattered the columns and sent the stone chariot crashing to
the ground. By 1404 A.D. only the very base of the
Mausoleum was still recognizable. Crusaders, who had
occupied the city from the thirteen century onward, recycled
the broken stone into their own buildings. In 1522 rumours
of a Turkish invasion caused Crusaders to strengthen the
castle at Halicarnassus (which was by then known as
Bodrum) and much of the remaining portions of the
tomb was broken up and used within the castle walls. Indeed
sections of polished marble from the tomb can still be seen
there today.
In 1846 the Museum sent the
archaeologist Charles Thomas Newton to search for
more remains of the Mausoleum. He had a difficult job.
He didn't know the exact location of the tomb and the cost
of buying up all the small parcels of land in the area to
look for it would have been astronomical. Instead Newton
studied the accounts of ancient writers like Pliny to
obtain the approximate size and location of the memorial,
then bought a plot of land in the most likely location.
Digging down, Newton
explored the surrounding area through tunnels he dug under
the surrounding plots. He was able to locate some walls, a
staircase, and finally three of the corners of the
foundation. With this knowledge, Newton was able to
figure out which plots of land he needed to buy.
Newton then excavated the
site and found sections of the reliefs that decorated the
wall of the building and portions of the stepped roof. Also
a broken stone chariot wheel, some seven feet in diameter,
from the sculpture on the roof was discovered. Finally, he
found the statues of Mausolus and Artemisia
that had stood at the pinnacle of the building.
Today these works of art stand in the Mausoleum Room at
the British Museum. There the images of Mausolus and his
queen forever watch over the few broken remains of the
beautiful tomb she built for him.
|
