Were there only SIX Wonders of the World? Historian Bettany Hughes 調査するs the continued fascination the 古代の mysteries 持つ／拘留する for us?

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The Seven Wonders Of The 古代の World

by Bettany Hughes (W&N £25, 416pp)

Aproto-science fiction story by the 2nd century AD Greek writer Lucian of Samosata has its hero travelling to the Moon. Looking 負かす／撃墜する, he can recognise the Earth only when he 位置／汚点／見つけ出すs two of the Seven Wonders of the World ― the Colossus of Rhodes and the Pharos Lighthouse.

にもかかわらず the fact that only one Wonder ― the 広大な／多数の／重要な Pyramid at Giza ― 生き残るs more or いっそう少なく 損なわれていない, they still mean something today. In this 深く，強烈に 研究d 調書をとる／予約する, the historian and TV 文書の 製造者 Bettany Hughes 調査するs the fascination these ‘brilliant adventures of the mind’ continue to 持つ／拘留する for us.

Over the centuries there have been さまざまな, わずかに different 名簿（に載せる）／表（にあげる）s, but Hughes’s 調書をとる／予約する 焦点（を合わせる）s on what might be called the canonical seven, the ones most frequently 特記する／引用するd. The first, and the oldest, is the 広大な／多数の／重要な Pyramid, built as a tomb for the Egyptian pharaoh Khufu in the 26th century BC. Those working on it had to raise one 石灰岩 封鎖する every two to three minutes, ten hours a day, for at least 24 years.

The 伝説の Colossus of Rhodes, one of the Seven Wonders, was a lighthouse in the form of a statue of the god Helios

And how magnificent, she 推測するs, would have been the treasures buried with Khufu. All long since 消えるd, 略奪するd by tomb-robbers, but they must have far outshone what was 設立する in the burial 議会 of Tutankhamun, a 比較して insignificant pharaoh.

The second of the Wonders may not have even 存在するd. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon 保持する their fame today, but there is very little 証拠 to 証明する they were real. Neither Xenophon nor Herodotus, two 古代の Greek historians who almost certainly visited Babylon, について言及する them. Some scholars now argue that, if they did 存在する, they were 位置を示すd not in Babylon but in Nineveh, the 資本／首都 of the Assyrian Empire.

There is no 疑問 about the reality of the other Wonders. ‘The sun has never shone on anything that can compare to this,’ one 訪問者 to the 寺 of Artemis at Ephesus wrote. 報道によれば the largest building in the 古代の world, twice the size of the Parthenon, it was destroyed and rebuilt several times.

One of its patrons was Croesus, a man so rich his 指名する is still a byword for fabulous wealth.

It remained a tourist attraction for nearly a millennium. 訪問者s could buy 小型の 寺s of Artemis, just as today you can get 小型の Big Bens in London.

Size 事柄d to the 古代のs. The statue of Zeus at Olympia, the only Wonder on 本土／大陸 Greece, was as big as a three-storey house.?

Its creator, Pheidias, is 報告（する）／憶測d to have asked the king of the gods for his 是認 when it was finished. Zeus sent 負かす／撃墜する a thunderbolt. (How he would have 答える／応じるd 異なって if he had disapproved isn’t （疑いを）晴らす.)

Pheidias may also have used the statue to 自白する his infatuation with a famous 競技者. ‘Pantarkes is beautiful’ was said to be inscribed on Zeus’s finger.

Only one Wonder ― the 広大な／多数の／重要な Pyramid at Giza ― 生き残るs more or いっそう少なく 損なわれていない

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon 保持する their fame today, but there is very little 証拠 to 証明する they were real

The tomb of Mausolus, 支配者 of Karia in what is now south-west Turkey, was so impressive it 長所d 名簿（に載せる）／表（にあげる）ing as a Wonder. It was 再開するd and 略奪するd within a few years of the man’s death in 353 BC, but his 指名する lives on. We still 言及する to a grand piece of funerary architecture as a ‘霊廟’.

Another of the Wonders, the Colossus of Rhodes, was, in Hughes’s words, ‘伝説の within weeks of its 完成’.?

More than 100ft tall, with a 骸骨／概要 of アイロンをかける and a 肌 of bronze, it stood sentinel over the island for only 60 years before it was 倒れるd by an 地震. An 地震 also did for the final Wonder, the Pharos Lighthouse at Alexandria, for a long time the second tallest structure in the world. It finally fell in AD1303, の近くに to 1,500 years after it was built.

Hughes has written a richly 詳細（に述べる）d guidebook, 供給するing a host of insights into what the Wonders meant to the people of the classical world, and what they can and do still mean to us today.