The most ancient of the marvels is the monumental set of Gizeh's pyramids, in Egypt. The Egyptians initiated the construction of pyramids a lot of time ago, along his Old Kingdom: the most ancient have near FIVE THOUSAND years. However, from the Old Kingdom we preserve just eighty of them, distributed by the Lower Egypt. They have already near five thousand years until the present day, and the humanity still hasn't building anything similar. The smallest of three Gizeh's pyramids multiplies several times the weight of the major one of the modern constructions.
The King Nabucodonosor II was famous for being a great warrior and conqueror, also was known for his good endowments as builder, because he carried out numerous monumental constructions in the city of Babylonia, called Babel in the Bible. This city was flat, which was saddening his wife Amytis, who came from the mountains. For it, he starts the construction of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon with the shape of a hill, exuberant of trees, flowers, shrubs, etc. It took up a surface of 19.600 m2 and had a height estimated of 90 m, according to references of classic historians as Estrabón. It was built between 605 B.C. and 562 B.C.
Artemisa, Apollo’s sister, was the Greek goddess of the Moon, the nature and the fertility. The great Temple was dedicated to this goddess in Éfeso's city (Turkey) towards 550 B.C., using 120 years in his construction, but it was destroyed in an arson the same night that burn Alexander the Great, in 356 B.C. provoked by the demented beggar, Eróstrato. The reason for why he did it was that he wanted to be famous, he wanted that his name was remembered around the world for ever and the only way that he saw was burn the most beautiful of the buildings in the world, but the Ephesians were feeling so angered that tried that his name was disappearing of any record, nevertheless, he achieved his task because his name has arrived to our time thanks to the historian Estrabón.
In the original city of the Olympian Games, Olimpia, the most famous architect, painter and sculptor in the Ancient Greece, Fidias, built a majestic ivory’s statue of 13m high, which represented to the God for who were dedicated the Games every 4 years, Zeus. In present nobody knows the details of how it was because this was so big that the visitors were more capable to describe how the throne than the Zeus’ body and his facial features. Actually the proportions of the God weren’t accord to the Temple and if he had could stand up he had broken it because his head grazed the roof.
Mausolus was the most important Satrap of Caria and the owner of the most beautiful tomb ever seen. Mausolus was who re-founded Halicarnassus and this was the reason why the monumental tomb of white marble was built in that city, since in that epoch was habitual that the founder of a city was receiving the maximum honors and a tomb in his central square. But according to the historians, Mausolus’ life didn’t have anything prominently except the construction of his tomb. The project was conceived for Artemisia II of Caria, his wife and sister. The construction was begun during Mausolus’ government and was finished about 350 B.C., three years after Mausolus’ death and one year after Artemisia's death.
When Zeus decided to distribute islands and cities to the other gods he forgot to include to Heliums. Faced with this dilemma of having to begin everything again, Helium proposed that Zeus was giving him an island that he had observed to emerge of the sea, in the south of Asia Minor. When Rhodes emerged of the sea, Helium proclaimed it as his.
The Colossus of Rhodes, of 32m of height and 70 tons of weight, was built for 12 years after important warlike victories in honor of the god of the Sun and protector of the city. This marvel was the most ephemeral of all, since it was just 56 years risen because was knocked down for an earthquake. The inhabitants decided not reconstruct it product of what an oracle had said. Nevertheless, at present there is a project to construct a new Colossus in the island, which will be much bigger since it will measure between 60 and 100m.
Pharos' city was in front to Alexandria, famous city with a very important port in the Nile Delta zone, but it had a serious problem, this zone was very flat and therefore it didn’t had reference points for the navigators. For this reason in the year 290 B.C. the King Ptolemy II of Egypt decided to built a great tower that could be seen from the distance for the constant fluent of crafts that were going to Alexandria. The way it worked was by means of metallic mirrors to indicate its position reflecting the light of the Sun; and in the nights a bonfire was ignited. With more of 120m high, this tower was for a very long time the highest building in the world.
