When were the pyramids built?

How
high is the great pyramid? Whose
tomb is it? Why are the pyramids
different from all the other wonders?
Who were
the Hanging
Gardens built
for? Did
they really
2 'hang'? How
were the
plants
watered in
such as hot,
dry place?
What was
the
Mausoleum?
Who was was
3 it built for?
Who built it?
What was on
top of the
Mausoleum?
What was
the Colossus
of Rhodes
made of?
Who did it
represent?
4
How long was
it standing?
What do
archeologists
think it
looked like?
 What was
the Pharos?
How tall was
it? Who built
it? What
material was
5
it made of?
What
purpose did a
concave
mirror
serve?
Who was
Artemis?
Where did
the stone to
build the
temple come
6
from? What
was inside
the temple?
What
surrounded
it?
7 Who was the
sculptor of
the Statue
of Zeus?
What was
the statue
made of?
What was
Zeus holding
in his hands?
What would
ancient
 Olympic
athletes do
before an
event?

The Colossus of Rhodes was a huge bronze statue

reinforced with iron. It was a statue of the sun god
Helios. It stood 32m tall on the mouth of Rhodes harbour
on a stone column. It was built in 304 BC after the
people of Rhodes survived a year-long siege by a large
force of Macedonians. It took 12 years to build. Today
scientists believe that only 66 years after it was
completed it was broken by a violent earthquake and fell
into the sea in 238 BC. Archaeologists believe that the
Colossus didn't straddle the harbour (as in the picture
above) so that the vessels sailed between its legs. It stood
with its legs together (as in the picture below)
overlooking the harbour. Divers still look for the
Colossus today but nobody has found it yet.

The Statue of Zeus, found in his temple at Olympia in

Greece, was built in 430 BC. It was the work of the great
sculptor Phidias of Athens. It was about 12m tall and
made of ivory and gold. The eyes on the statue were
huge jewels. The father of the gods sat on a magnificent
ivory throne. In his right hand he held a figure of Nike,
the goddess of Victory. In his left hand he held a solid
gold king's rod with an eagle sitting on the top.
Competitors in the ancient Olympic Games would
worship the god before taking part in the events. The
statue was destroyed in 426 AD.
The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus (in what is now
Turkey) was built in about 500 BC by the King of Lydia.
It was more than 300 feet long and 150 feet wide. There
were about 120 sixty feet high columns supporting the
roof. It was made from limestone and marble which
workman quarried in nearby hills. Inside the temple was
a statue of Artemis, the goddess of the moon and
protector of animals and young girls. The Roman name
for the goddess was Diana. Great works of art  
decorated the inside as well as the outside. The temple
was surrounded by a park which was 'sanctuary', a place
where anyone could be safe from his or her enemies.  
The Temple of Artemis was destroyed in 262 AD by
invading Goths from Eastern Europe.
The Pharos of Alexandria in Egypt was a three story
lighthouse, more than 134 metres high, that stood on an
island at the entrance to the harbour of Alexandria. The
three story structure tapered towards the top. The bottom
section was rectangular. The second section was
octagonal. The third section was cylindrical. It was built
by Ptolemy II in 280 BC. It was made of white marble.
There was a fire that burned at the top of the Pharos as a
signal to ships on the Mediterranean Sea. The light of
the fire was reflected out to sea by an enormous concave
mirror. The fire at the top of the lighthouse was said to
be "A pillar of fire by night, and of smoke by day". It was
the world's first important lighthouse. It guided ships
into the city's harbour for 1500 years before being
toppled by an earthquake.
The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus was a huge marble
tomb built for  Mausolus, King of Caria, in Asia Minor
(in what we now know as Turkey). It was built by some of
the most famous Greek sculptors and architects at the
request of his wife, Artemisia, in 353 BC. It’s walls went
straight up to form a platform supported by 36 columns
with a pyramid on top.  On top of this was a statue of a
chariot drawn by four horses being driven by Mausolus
and his wife. It was destroyed by an earthquake some
time before the fifteenth century AD. We think that some
of the stones have been used for other buildings because
little remains of it. Some of the stones are at the British
Museum.
The Hanging Gardens of Babylon were built for King
Nebuchadnezzar's wife, Amyhia, because she was so
homesick. They were built to remind her of the hill
country in Media were she grew up. These beautiful
gardens were not really hanging of course. A series of
stone terraces, rising one above the other, were built to
height of 300 feet. Trees, shrubs and flowers were
planted on a thick layer of soil on each terrace. The
gardens were irrigated by water from the nearby River
Euphrates. Nothing remains of the gardens today.
The pyramids at Giza were built in 2500BC. The largest
one, the Great Pyramid,  is the tomb of Khufu and there
is one each side of it. They are of Khafra and Menkaura.
Khufu’s pyramid is 147m tall and 230m square. The
pyramids had white sloping sides built of white limestone
when they were constructed 4500 years ago. Now all the
limestone has fallen off and you can see the brick base
underneath. They have lots of passages and chambers in
and it would be quite easy to get lost in them. The
pyramids are the oldest of the Seven Wonders and they
are the only ones standing today.