The Seven Wonders, Ancient and New
The original seven wonders of the ancient world, which survives, the modern replacement list voted on in 2007, and the natural wonders people confuse with both.
There are at least three "seven wonders" lists in circulation, and quiz questions rarely say which one they mean. Here are all of them.
The seven wonders of the ancient world
| Wonder | Where | Fate |
|---|---|---|
| Great Pyramid of Giza | Egypt | Still standing |
| Hanging Gardens of Babylon | Iraq | Possibly never existed |
| Statue of Zeus at Olympia | Greece | Lost, probably to fire |
| Temple of Artemis at Ephesus | Turkey | Destroyed, rebuilt, destroyed again |
| Mausoleum at Halicarnassus | Turkey | Brought down by earthquakes |
| Colossus of Rhodes | Greece | Fell in an earthquake after 54 years |
| Lighthouse of Alexandria | Egypt | Toppled by earthquakes |
Only the Great Pyramid survives, and it is also the oldest of the seven by a very long way — around two thousand years older than any of the others.
Three things worth knowing
- The Hanging Gardens may be a myth. No Babylonian text mentions them, and no archaeological trace has been found. One theory is that the descriptions actually refer to gardens at Nineveh, a different city altogether.
- The Colossus did not straddle the harbour. That image comes from medieval illustrations. It stood on one side, and at around 33 metres it was roughly the height of the Statue of Liberty without her pedestal.
- "Mausoleum" is a word because of one of them. The tomb of Mausolus at Halicarnassus was so famous that his name became the general term for any grand tomb.
The new seven wonders, voted in 2007
| Wonder | Country |
|---|---|
| Great Wall of China | China |
| Petra | Jordan |
| Christ the Redeemer | Brazil |
| Machu Picchu | Peru |
| Chichén Itzá | Mexico |
| Colosseum | Italy |
| Taj Mahal | India |
The Great Pyramid was given honorary status rather than being made to compete, after Egypt objected to the whole exercise.
And the natural seven
There is no single agreed list, but the most commonly cited one runs: the Grand Canyon, the Great Barrier Reef, the Harbour of Rio de Janeiro, Mount Everest, the Northern Lights, Parícutin volcano and Victoria Falls.