No one knows today
what six of the ancient
Seven Wonders looked like

All the paintings and drawings we see today stem from the imaginations of artists who lived long after those six wonders perished. The ones I use on my web pages for the seven individual wonders are perhaps the best. Lowell Thomas, whom I knew and admired, personally gave them to me in the form of literature promoting his 1956 "Seven Wonders of the World" Cinerama movie.

No one knows for certain
who created the ancient
Seven Wonder list that
we accept today as
the "official" version

Various scholars have nominated different creators. Some experts speculate that it was occasionally bastardized - perhaps as recently as the Middle Ages.

Striking
anachronism

The oldest known reference to a 7 wonder listing was written in the 5th century BC by Herodotus, the famous Greek historian. This was two centuries before the Colossus of Rhodes and the Lighthouse of Alexandria were built.

Julius Caesar and
the Library of Alexandria

Likely some lists were kept in the Library of Alexandria, the world's greatest repository of important ancient manuscripts. Sadly, in 48 BC, a devastating fire in Alexandria caused by Julius Caesar inadvertently spread to the library, and destroyed it. The library's nearly half million irreplaceable scrolls documenting ancient history were lost to mankind forever.

Learn More

for the continuation
of my 10 Amazing Fact list

Learn my other
Seven Wonders tips & insights

Colossus of Rhodes
Hanging Gardens
Lighthouse of Alexandria
Mausoleum of Halicarnassus
Pyramid of Khufu
Statue of Zeus
Temple of Artemis

Pyramids of Egypt -1
Great Wall of China - 2
Taj Mahal -3
Serengeti Migration -4
Galapagos Islands -5
Grand Canyon -6
Machu Picchu -7

The 5 major ancient list flaws
10 amazing facts

 

World's Top 100 Wonders
World's Top 1000 Wonders

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