The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World

The Great Pyramid of Giza, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Statue of Zeus at Olympia, the Temple of Artemis at Ephesos, the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, the Colossus of Rhodes and the Pharos at Alexandria. More than just an answer to a trivia question these constructions were the fruit of that pre Roman Greek period when the western world flirted with genuine greatness, when Aristarcus measured the circumfrance of the Earth and Archimedes created a calculus of sorts...developments that, were they logically followed up may well have put us on the moon fifteen centuries earlier than we actually arrived there. Though now all but the Great Pyramid are lost, this book does the best to revive them and permit the reader to see what they may have been like. In some cases, the job is harder. For example, the Colossus of Rhodes fell over twenty two centuries ago and its remains were carted off into oblivion fourteen centuries ago. In other cases, the reader is left grieving over the what might have beens. One great example of this is with the Mausoleum which was actually dismantled down to its foundations in the fifteen hundreds. Sadly they even found and removed the actual burial itself. What wonders were lost in that plunder we truly can never know. In still other cases we are left wondering how honest the ancients were with us about the supposed wonder itself. A great example of this are the Hanging Gardens of Babylon for which responsible scholarship suggests that they were not as grand as reported. But as with all things we have to appreciate what remains...for six of the wonders perhaps just the memories and for the seventh, the oldest of them all, the Great Pyramid itself.

The Seven Wonders of The Ancient World is one of the most complete and illustrative books that I have ever read on the subject. Even the 1990 reprint, going on 13 years without a revision, is still accurate. Each chapter explains in detail one of these seven ancient monuments, starting with it's history, location, purpose, construction and description; and ending in a vivid account on how they came to be no more or the way the sites still stand today. The images included within the text also show us, besides conceptual pictures of the monuments through the ages, a glimpse of the way that archaeology reconstructed the pieces to the puzzling appearance of some of these monuments and the way archaeologists interpreted ancient accounts of people that lived to see these wonders in their heyday. The book also contains two chapters in which the authors describe other lists of ancient wonders and the way those lists that we know today came to be created. The task of the authors in putting together in one book all the information of these seven wonders is a remarkable work of scholarship, mostly given to the fact that six of these seven monuments no longer exist and the great number of different accounts that survived to our day instead. This is a must-read book for all of those interested in archaeology, history or ancient civilizations. --Reviewed by Maritza Volmar

This book should enjoy wide appeal, and particularly interest the armchair archaeologist lurking in all of us. Everyone has heard that there are 7 wonders of the world, although fewer know what they were and fewer know anything about them. This book is a great starting point to jump into the subject, combining the few documents describing the wonders with commentary, modern archaeological evidence, illustrations, and even some speculation. A very good introduction for someone with a sense of wonder, the love of travel, and a fascination with the past.

The chapters in this book describe the seven wonders of the ancient world - the Great Pyramids at Giza, the Hanging Gardens at Babylon, the Statue of Zeus at Olympia, the Temple of Artemis at Ephesos, the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, the Colossus of Rhodes and the Pharos (Lighthouse) at Alexandria. Their history, location, purpose, building and description are provided along with many illustrations and drawings. The last chapter gives a list of other monuments which could be considered wonders, and tells why the actual seven wonders of the ancient world were chosen. Recommended reading for all interested in history.

The Seven Wonders of The Ancient World is one of the most complete and illustrative books that I have ever read on the subject. Each chapter explains in detail one of these seven ancient monuments, starting with it's history, location, purpose, building and description; and ending in how they came to be no more or the way the sites still stand in our day. The pictures included within the text also tell us, besides the description of the monument, a little bit about the way that archaeology reconstructed the pieces to the puzzling appearance of some of these monuments and the way archaeologists interpreted ancient accounts of people that lived to see these wonders in their heyday. The book also contains two chapters in which the authors describe others lists of seven wonders and the way the lists that we know today came to be chosen. The task of the authors in putting together in one book all the information of these seven wonders is a remarkable work of scholarship given to the fact that six of these seven monuments no longer exist and the great number of different accounts that do and shouldn't, but don't exist. This is a must-read book for all of those interested in archaeology, history or ancient civilizations.