The Seven Wonders of the World
A pyramid, gardens, a temple, a statue, a tomb, a colossus and a lighthouse: the seven works the Greeks admired, where they stood, how they fell and which one survives today.
The globe flies from place to place and the timeline from year to year. Every step has its own link — handy for showing it in class.
Tour steps
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2560 BC The Great Pyramid
The oldest wonder and the only one still standing. Khufu's pyramid, about 146 metres tall, was built two thousand years before the other six.
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600 BC The Hanging Gardens
Legend says Nebuchadnezzar II laid out the terraced gardens of Babylon for a wife who missed her mountains. They are the most mysterious wonder: Babylonian texts are silent about them and archaeologists have never found them.
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435 BC Zeus at Olympia
At Olympia, home of the Games, Phidias made a seated Zeus of gold and ivory about 12 metres tall. The statue outlived antiquity itself and was lost in the 5th century AD.
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356 BC The Temple of Artemis
Ephesus had a huge marble temple of Artemis, built with money from the Lydian king Croesus. In 356 BC Herostratus burned it down for fame; it was rebuilt even grander, but the Goths sacked it in the 3rd century AD.
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351 BC The Mausoleum
At Halicarnassus the widow of King Mausolus completed his tomb, about 45 metres tall, with a colonnade and a chariot on top. His name gave us the word mausoleum, and the Knights Hospitaller later built its stones into their castle.
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292 BC–280 BC The Colossus of Rhodes
The Rhodians marked their victory over the besieging Demetrius with a bronze Helios about 33 metres tall. It was the shortest-lived wonder: an earthquake toppled it 54 years after it was finished.
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280 BC The Lighthouse of Alexandria
The seventh and last wonder was the lighthouse on the island of Pharos, at least 100 metres tall. It guided ships for over fifteen centuries. Of all seven wonders, only the oldest, the Great Pyramid, survives today.