*Maerten van Heemskerck - Panorama with the Abduction of Helen Amidst the Wonders of the Ancient World (1535)*

The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World is the original viral list. It has captured the imagination of history nerds and travelers for thousands of years. Greek scholars and writers gained greater access to the far-reaching kingdoms of Egypt and Mesopotamia after Alexander the Great conquered most of the known world in the 4th century BC. Some of them traveled to these places and documented the most impressive structures they saw along the way. The list of Seven Wonders is really a list of “things to be seen”, according to early translations. It’s the closest thing the Greeks had to a cultural bucket list.

The traditional list of Seven Wonders includes the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Great Pyramid of Giza, the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, the Statue of Zeus at Olympia, the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, the Colossus of Rhodes, and the Lighthouse of Alexandria.

What about the Colosseum? The Great Wall of China? The Library of Alexandria?

The Colosseum in Rome is the largest amphitheater ever built. The Great Wall of China was over twenty-one thousand kilometers long. The Library of Alexandria may have had up to 400,000 scrolls on its shelves. How could the ancients have left these wonders off their list?

The answers are simple. In the Library's case, we don’t have reason to think it was particularly impressive from an architectural or engineering standpoint. It may have been among the most important centers of learning in the ancient world, but it wasn’t necessarily a great tourist attraction.

The Colosseum, meanwhile, was built hundreds of years after the latest of the Seven Wonders was. The Great Wall of China was also, for the most part, constructed much later. It is also far outside the Mediterranean and Middle Eastern regions that comprised the “known world” for the Greeks who created the list.

The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World are not a modern assessment of all the ancient structures ever built. They are a list that originally comes to us from the Hellenistic Era of Greek history and represents a specific geographical region (cultures known to the Greek/Mediterranean world). Now let’s get to the rankings.

7. Hanging Gardens of Babylon

The so-called “Hanging Gardens of Babylon”, more accurately described as the “Terraced Gardens of Babylon”, may not have even been located in Babylon at all. In fact, there is not a consensus on whether the Gardens even existed at all. Some scholars believe it is more likely the Gardens were actually in the Assyrian city of Nineveh.

*Hanging gardens of Semiramis, by H. Waldeck (turn of the 19th-20th century)*

Ancient descriptions tell us the Gardens spanned 120 meters on each side, ascending in levels similar to that of an amphitheater. According to Diodorus Siculus, a Syrian king had them constructed to impress one of his mistresses, who longed for the lush landscape of her homeland. The water needed to keep such an elaborate garden of its size thriving in Babylon or Nineveh would have called for an advanced immigration system.

The Gardens, if they existed, were quite spectacular. But given their location, far-removed from Greece, we simply have little verifiable information about them. For that reason, I rank them seven on the list.

*Olympian Zeus in the sculptured antique art of Quatremère de Quincy (1815)*

6. Statue of Zeus at Olympia

This famous depiction of the King of the Olympian gods was housed in a temple dedicated to Zeus at the sanctuary of Olympia, home of the Olympic Games. The statue reached thirteen meters in height and was layered with ivory, gold, and precious stones. The statue’s glittering presence, designed to invoke the spender and scale of the gods, left visitors in awe.

The Statue of Zeus of Olympia was stunning. However, not everyone was impressed. Some ancient travelers criticized the scale of the statue compared to the temple itself. They noticed that, were Zeus to stand up from his throne, his head would smash into the building’s roof. The Statue of Zeus is also the smallest of the Seven Wonders by considerable measure.

5. Colossus of Rhodes

*The colossus of Rhodes, according to 19th century engraving.*

The Colossus was a giant bronze statue of sun god Helios, the patron saint of the Greek island of Rhodes. Chares of Lindos, a pupil of Alexander the Great’s personal sculptor, designed it. At about thirty-three meters high, the Colossus was a similar size to Lady Liberty of New York City’s Statue of Liberty. Like New York’s famous icon, the Colossus also stood somewhere near the harbor of ancient Rhodes, although its exact location has never been determined. Although the statue had an imposing presence, it also had a short-lived one. Erected in 280 BC, the Colossus collapsed from an earthquake less than sixty years later.

4. Mausoleum at Halicarnassus

The Mausoleum was an elevated, temple-like building constructed in the 4th century BC to be the tomb of Mausolus, a powerful regional governor of the Persian Empire. The rectangular tomb was made primarily of volcanic rock and marble and stood approximately forty-five meters high. Perhaps its most impressive feature was its sculptures - over four hundred marble figures, crafted by a “dream team” of Greek sculptors, decorated the outside levels of the tomb. The Mausoleum stood for around 1,500 years. A series of earthquakes destroyed it sometime after the 12th century AD.

*Plastic of the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus at the Bodrum Museum of Underwater Archaeology*

3. Lighthouse of Alexandria

At a peak height of more than a hundred meters, the Lighthouse of Alexandria was the second-tallest of the Wonders behind the Great Pyramid of Giza. It was one of the longest surviving of the Seven Wonders as well, standing (in one form or another) from the 3rd century BC to as late as the 15th century AD. The Lighthouse of Alexandria (also called the Pharos) was the only Wonder on the list with a practical, strategic use.

However, it was also the last of the Wonders to be added to the list of seven. Some versions leave it out altogether, including instead the Walls of Babylon. This may be because of the fact the Pharos was built last, or possibly because it did not represent the creative or artistic achievement of the other Wonders.

*3D reconstruction of the Lighthouse of Alexandria.*

2. Temple of Artemis at Ephesus

The largest Greek-style temple in the ancient world, the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus was an incredible sight to behold. It was made of white marble, stood eighteen meters high, and had a footprint approximately four times the size of the Parthenon in Athens. But the most compelling testament of the Temple’s magnificence comes from eyewitness testimony. Writing around 140 BC, Antipator of Sidon compared it directly to the other wonders:

“I have set eyes on the wall of lofty Babylon on which is a road for chariots, and the statue of Zeus by the Alpheus, and the hanging gardens, and the colossus of the Sun, and the huge labor of the high pyramids, and the vast tomb of Mausolus; but when I saw the house of Artemis that mounted to the clouds, those other marvels lost their brilliancy, and I said, ‘Lo, apart from Olympus, the Sun never looked on aught so grand’.”

*This model of the Temple of Artemis, at Miniatürk Park, Istanbul, Turkey. Photo: Zee Prime*

1. Great Pyramid of Giza

The easiest Wonder to rank is the Great Pyramid of Giza. Built around 2570 BC as a tomb for the pharaoh Khufu, the Great Pyramid is the oldest of all the Seven Wonders by nearly two thousand years. Amazingly, given its age, it is also the only Wonder which is still more or less intact. It is by far the largest of the Seven Wonders as well, originally standing 146 meters tall. It was the tallest man-made structure in the world until the completion of Old St Paul’s Cathedral in London in the 13th century AD. Unknown compartments continue to be discovered in the massive Great Pyramid of Giza.

Ranking the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World