Onederful

Yes, the Pyramid Is Out of Bounds

I LOOKED around the green as I lined up my putt. There was nothing particularly interesting or unusual about the course itself. What got my attention was the looming figure a few hundred yards behind it: the Pyramid of Cheops…

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Wonders of the Medieval World: Stonehenge

The famous large stone structure north of Salisbury, England was likely built over hundreds of years starting as early as 3000 BC and ending as late as 1600 BC, each phase placing a new concentric ring of stones. Though much of Stonehenge remains a mystery, recently discovered cremated remains suggest the structure was dedicated to the Pagan dead.

Early work on the structure essentially involved uprooting trees and digging holes, similar to other structures found throughout Scandinavia. Stone first came to the monument around 2600, coming from as far away as 160 miles away. Timber circles were placed in and around the stones, all of which were placed specifically to bisect the midsummer and midwinter sunlight.

Pagans celebrated the seasons, so theories about the monument’s use often highlight this. Often much more modern ideas of Druidism and Paganism are associated with the monument, a historic inaccuracy.

Truth is: early Pagans had no written language so many of the facts perpetuated about Stonehenge are often false. Among them is the idea that they could not have moved the stones without unknown technology or the supernatural. Known Neolithic technology would have sufficed to move the massive stones, if only just barely. But, if you believe King Arthur’s story, the stones where brought from Africa, placed on a mountain in Ireland before Merlin moved the monument to England.

After its construction Stonehenge was utilized throughout England’s history, including by invading Romans. I am shocked more of it was not destroyed by these Christian conquerors. After King Henry VIII acquired the land in the 16th century, the land became property of various lords before the last heir died fighting in the World War I. After an auction, a local businessman bought the land and later donated it to England. The public can now view the stones up close, but are barred from touching and walking between the monumental stones.

Sadly, I have viewed only two World Wonders, but this is one of them. (The other is of dubious wonderment: The Brooklyn Bridge, of “The Seven Wonders of the Industrial World.”)

Google’s new(?) service: Constructing a timeline of relevance for a particular search term. The Lighthouse of Alexandria has strong blips around the time it was built, destroyed and in modern times, probably to reflect the publishing dates of news and scientific articles. Cool.

(via hellonewworld)

The Original Seven — #7: The Lighthouse of Alexandria

This Lighthouse was born with a reputation to uphold. Alexandria, Egypt was one of the grandest cities in the Greek-ruled world. Named after its founder, Alexander the Great, the city had two deep sea harbors and was the capital of Egypt for one thousand years.

Alexander died shortly after its founding, but Ptolemy – the Greek Pharaoh who helped build the Colossus of Rhodes by defeating the invading Macedonians at sea – saw to it that the great city had a great monument to mark it. The great sea port needed a beacon to the sea, and the Lighthouse idea was born.

Built on Pharos Island, it stood 450 feet high and looked more like an early sky scraper than a modern lighthouse. Atop the 450 feet stood Poseidon, god of the sea. The light, or smoke from the fire that created the light, was said to be visible 100 miles away. Fables say that the lighthouse mirror could concentrate sunlight to create a weapon against invaders. The TV show Mythbusters disproved that, based on available technology of the day.

Then the world’s second tallest building, it stood until 1326 when multiple earthquakes took their toll. History also suggests that Constantine rulers spread rumors of buried treasure under the building to encourage the masses to destroy the tower’s base. True or false, the Lighthouse stood another 200 years.

Fun fact: The designer of the Lighthouse, a man named Sostrates, was denied the right to put his name on the monument by Ptolemy II. So he put his inscription and name on the wall, coved it in plaster, and chiseled Ptolemy’s name into the plaster, knowing the plaster would slowly fall away. The Lighthouse bore his name for hundreds of years.

The Original Seven — #6: The Colossus of Rhodes

The Colossus of Rhodes was one of the shortest lived World Wonders, standing only 56 years before falling in an earthquake.

The large Greek island, positioned less than 100 miles south of the Mausoleum, was dragged into regional battles after the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC. The political landscape put the well-fortified island in alliance with a Greek-ruled Egypt, and against the mainland Macedonian armies. Invading forces tried and failed spectacularly to invade Rhodes, eventually leaving behind the modern day equivalent of $360 million. It was this fund that island leaders put to building a giant tribute to their patron god Helios, god of the sun.

To invade the high-walled city of Rhodes, Macedonians built huge towers on boats and land. Those on boats capsized in a storm and those on land were stopped easily after Rhodian armies flooded a ditch in front of their city.

Iron from the defeated army’s towers made up the interior of the bronze plated, marble footed 60 to 100-foot-high statue of a naked man on a giant pedestal. The Colossus is often depicted straddling the entrance to the city’s harbor. Though this is a figment of medieval imagination, it adds to the lore of the statue. More plausibly it was built slightly inland or on a breakwater and stood more like the Statue of Liberty (modeled on the Colossus) does today. The glint from the sun would have been especially impressive, especially right before dawn.

Given how short-lived Helios’s face looked on the city, most Greek tourists would never have seen it in action. More likely, they marveled at its remains, which remained impressive enough to draw tourism for more than 800 years. Arab conquerors are said to have sold the bronze for scrap in the seventh century. The exact position of the statue has not been definitively rediscovered as of today.

Ancient Rhodes debated rebuilding, but feared they had angered Helios. Modern Rhodes continues to debate plans to build a tribute to the statue. Rebuilding entirely would cost nearly as much as the original, and has yet to gain traction.

The Original Seven — #5: The Mausoleum of Maussollos

The Mausoleum of Maussollos was built for Carian Satrap Maussollos in Halicarnassus around 350 BC.

In plain English, it was a massive tomb for a ruler of a small section of eastern Turkey. The Mausoleum was built in Maussollos’s capital Halicarnassus, modern day Bodrum, Turkey (180 miles west of Anatolia, Turkey). The title is far afield of what the ancients would have called it: the modern term Mausoleum is a variation on the name Maussollos.

Impressive in size and design for its time, the Mausoleum stood 145 feet high with relief works by all of Greece’s top classical artists on the walls. At the top stood a bronze chariot pulled by four horses. Maussollos was buried there with his sister, who was also his heartbroken widow. Incest was a common practice intended to protect the royal bloodline.

Unlike the other ancient wonders, this one stood for years through raids and complete decimation of the town. But earthquakes brought the structure down slowly until it was a pile of rubble in the 1400s. And – queue Christian interference – the Knights Hospitaller, then based out of Malta, built a castle with the remaining stone. The castle still stands, with bits of polished marble visible in the walls. The site was discovered by British explorers around 1850.

As with the other ancients, the Mausoleum has inspired current great works. The Masonic House of the Temple of the Scottish Rite in Washington, DC is modeled on the Turkish tomb. Grant’s tomb in New York City and the Indiana War Memorial in Indianapolis drew inspiration from the Mausoleum.

(If you can’t tell, I find this the most boring of the Seven Ancient Wonders. I’m excited to move out of Greece and on to more modern wonders, but the upcoming Colossus and Lighthouse are also interesting.)

The Original Seven — #4: The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus

The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus celebrated Artemis, the goddess of fertility to the Turks, goddess of the hunt to the Greeks and, later renamed Diana, moon goddess to the Romans. At its best, the temple had more than 125 columns and rose 425 feet into the air in the great port of Ephesus, a Greek town in western Turkey.

The Temple was built and destroyed many times in its history. Invasions by Persians and, as always, Christian rulers were hard on the temple and the town. This did not diminish the temple, as conquerors and liberators alike rebuilt the temple. Construction would sometimes take decades and no expense was spared.

One night in 356 BC, a fame seeker burnt the temple and proudly claimed responsibility, hoping to land his name in the record books. He was condemned to death, and his name was not to be mentioned under penalty of death. The rulers at the time hoped his name would be forgotten. His name was Herostratus, and his story lives on.

Artemis was said to be too busy to protect her temple from Herostratus at the time, watching over the birth of Alexander the Great – born that very night.

Artemis’ temple is believed to be the first building made solely of marble after its reconstruction around 300 BC. Antipater of Sidon, who compiled the definitive list of the Seven Wonders, preferred the temple to all the other wonders he saw:

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 labour 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”.

Ephesus prospered with its temple as a shipping port and travel destination. Many great works of the time were housed in the temple, including those of Phidias who built the Statue of Zeus at Olympia. Like many of the Seven Wonders of the World, religion would deliver a blow the Temple could not recover from.

St. Paul arrived to proselytize, which angered merchants in the Artemis Idol-making business. They whipped the city into a near riot and drove him out of town. Christians would have the last word though. According to Acts of John, John the Apostle’s prayers in the temple caused half of the temple to fall down right then and there. Christianity had many Ephesian converts that night.

The temple was completely destroyed, again, this time by the Goths in 262 AD. Constantine, a Christian, rebuilt Ephesus without the great temple. Silt filled the city’s ports and its importance faded away. By the time visitors sought the temple in 1100 AD locals had completely forgotten its existence.

Much of the great marble had been used for other buildings, and the Hagia Sophia, which I will cover later, owes some of its columns to the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus.