Ancient 7 wonders of the world
So... whatever happened to the seven ancient wonders of the world?
The lighthouse of AlexandriaWith a height variously estimated at somewhere in-between 393 and 450 ft (120 and 140 m), it was for many centuries among the tallest man made structures on Earth. Pharos was a small island just off the coast of Alexandria. These are especially treacherous waters that spawned the legend that the islands inhabitants would destroy ships. It was linked to the mainland by a man made connection named the Heptastadion, which thus formed one side of the city's harbour. The tower erected there guided mariners at night, through its fire, as well as being a landmark by day.The lighthouse was completed in the 3rd century BC.
The fullest description of the lighthouse comes from the Arab traveller Abou Haggag Youssef Ibn el-Andaloussi, who visited the structure in 1165 AD. His description runs:
The Pharos rises at the end of the island. The building is square, about 8.5 metres (28 ft) each side. The sea surrounds the Pharos except on the east and south sides. This platform measures, along its sides, from the tip, down to the foot of the Pharos walls, 6.5 metres (21 ft) in height. However, on the sea side, it is larger because of the construction and is steeply inclined like the side of a mountain. As the height of the platform increases towards the walls of the Pharos its width narrows until it arrives at the measurements above. ... The doorway to the Pharos is high up. A ramp about 183 metres (600 ft) long used to lead up to it. This ramp rests on a series of curved arches; my companion got beneath one of the arches and stretched out his arms but he was not able to reach the sides. There are 16 of these arches, each gradually getting higher until the doorway is reached, the last one being especially high.
he tower was made up of three stages: a lower square section with a
central core, a middle octagonal section, and, at the top, a circular
section. At its apex was positioned a mirror which reflected sunlight
during the day; a fire was lit at night. Extant Roman coins struck by
the Alexandrian mint show that a statue of a Triton was positioned on each of the building's four corners.
The Pharos' masonry blocks were interlocked, sealed together using molten lead, to withstand the pounding of the waves.
The lighthouse was badly damaged in the earthquake of 956, then again in
1303 and 1323. The two earthquakes in 1303 and 1323 damaged the
lighthouse to the extent that the Arab traveler
Ibn Battuta reported no longer being able to enter the ruin. Even the stubby remnant disappeared in 1480, when the then-Sultan of Egypt,
Qaitbay, built a
mediæval fort on the former location of the building using some of the fallen stone.
More recently there has been archeological activity including treacherous excavations in the waters surrounding the island. Led by French archeologist
Jean-Yves Empereur They discovered remains of the lighthouse in late 1994 on the floor of
Alexandria's Eastern Harbour. Some of these remains were brought up and
were lying at the harbour on public view at the end of 1995.
Nova program on TV showed the results of the archeological investigation and the work involved in making it happen.
Nova program is found here - http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sunken/
The Great Pyramid of GizaIs still standing of course. On 11/11/11 they closed it down amid protests that people thought rituals would be held there (to which I say - so what if they wanted to let them) It is the oldest and largest of the three
pyramids in the
Giza Necropolis bordering what is now El Giza,
Egypt. OMSI's recent pyramids exhibit from 2011 was worth seeing BTW.
Egyptologists believe that the pyramid was built as a tomb for
fourth dynasty Egyptian Pharaoh
Khufu(Cheops in Greek) over an approximately 20 year period concluding
around 2560 BC. Initially at 146.5 metres (480.6 ft), the Great Pyramid
was the
tallest man-made structurein the world for over 3,800 years, the longest period of time ever held
for such a record. Originally, the Great Pyramid was covered by casing
stones that formed a smooth outer surface; what is seen today is the
underlying core structure. Some of the casing stones that once covered
the structure can still be seen around the base.
There are three known chambers inside the Great Pyramid. The lowest
chamber is cut into the bedrock upon which the pyramid was built and was
unfinished. The so-called
[1]Queen's Chamber and King's Chamber are higher up within the pyramid
structure. The Great Pyramid of Giza is the only pyramid in Egypt known
to contain both ascending and descending passages. The main part of the
Giza complex is a setting of buildings that included two
mortuary templesin honor of Khufu (one close to the pyramid and one near the Nile),
three smaller pyramids for Khufu's wives, an even smaller "satellite"
pyramid, a raised causeway connecting the two temples, and small
mastaba tombs surrounding the pyramid for nobles.
Many of the casing stones and inner chamber blocks of the Great Pyramid
were fit together with extremely high precision. Based on measurements
taken on the north eastern casing stones, the mean opening of the joints
is only 0.5 millimetres wide (1/50th of an inch)
.The accuracy of the pyramid's workmanship is such that the four sides of
the base have an average error of only 58 millimetres in length.
The base is horizontal and flat to within 21 mm.
The sides of the square base are closely aligned to the four cardinal compass points (within 4
minutes of arc) based on True North rather than magnetic north. and the finished base was squared to a mean corner error of only 12
seconds of arc.
The book 'The Geometry of Art and Life' has some great analysis of the pyramids and their sacred geometry alignments.
Hanging Gardens of BabylonIt is purported that this was the greatest of the seven wonders. Also that it might not have actually existed but only been legend. Descriptions paint an interesting picture of early gardens built on top of structures.
They were purportedly built in the ancient
city-state of
Babylon, near present-day
Al Hillah,
Babil, in
Iraq. more recent theory proposes that the gardens were actually constructed under the orders of
Sennacherib, who took the throne of
Assyria in 705 BC, reigning until 681 BC. During new studies of the location of
Nineveh (Located on the eastern bank of the
Tigris in ancient
Assyria) his gardens were placed close to the entrance of his palace, on the bank of the
river Tigris.
It is possible that in the intervening centuries, the two sites became
confused, and the hanging gardens were attributed to Babylon.
The
gardens were supposedly built by the
Neo-Babylonian Empire king
Nebuchadnezzar II around 601 BC. He is reported to have constructed the gardens to please his homesick wife,
Amytis of
Media, who longed for the trees and fragrant plants of her homeland. he gardens were said to have been destroyed by several earthquakes after the 2nd century BC.
The lush Hanging Gardens are extensively documented by
Greek historians such as
Strabo and
Diodorus Siculus. Through the ages, the location may have been confused with gardens that existed at
Nineveh, since tablets from there clearly show gardens. Writings on these tablets describe the possible use of something similar to an
Archimedes screw as a process of raising the water to the required height. Nebuchadnezzar II is also reported to have used massive slabs of stone,
which was unheard of in Babylon, to prevent the water from eroding the ground.
"Babylon, too, lies in a plain; and the circuit of its wall is three hundred and eighty-five
stadia. The thickness of its wall is thirty-two feet; the height thereof between the towers is fifty
cubits; that of the towers is sixty cubits; the passage on top of the wall is such that four-horse
chariotscan easily pass one another; and it is on this account that this and
the hanging garden are called one of the Seven Wonders of the World. The
garden is
quadrangular in shape, and each side is four
plethra in length. It consists of
arched vaults,
which are situated, one after another, on checkered, cube-like
foundations. The checkered foundations, which are hollowed out, are
covered so deep with earth that they admit of the largest of trees,
having been constructed of baked brick and
asphalt — the foundations themselves and the vaults and the arches. The ascent to the uppermost
terrace-roofs
is made by a stairway; and alongside these stairs there were screws,
through which the water was continually conducted up into the garden
from the
Euphratesby those appointed for this purpose. For the river, a stadium in width,
flows through the middle of the city; and the garden is on the bank of
the river." from the Geographies of Strabo - book16
"The Garden was 100 feet (30 m) long by 100 ft wide and built up in
tiers so that it resembled a theatre. Vaults had been constructed under
the ascending terraces which carried the entire weight of the planted
garden; the uppermost vault, which was seventy-five feet high, was the
highest part of the garden, which, at this point, was on the same level
as the city walls. The roofs of the vaults which supported the garden
were constructed of stone beams some sixteen feet long, and over these
were laid first a layer of reeds set in thick tar, then two courses of
baked brick bonded by cement, and finally a covering of lead to prevent
the moisture in the soil penetrating the roof. On top of this roof
enough topsoil was heaped to allow the biggest trees to take root. The
earth was levelled off and thickly planted with every kind of tree. And
since the galleries projected one beyond the other, where they were
sunlit, they contained conduits for the water which was raised by pumps
in great abundance from the river, though no one outside could see it
being done." http://www.plinia.net/wonders/gardens/hg
4diodorus.html (Wellard, 1972, pp. 156)
[Wellard, James. 1972. Babylon. New York, NY. Saturday Review Press.]"And then there were the Hanging Gardens. Paracleisos going up to the
top is like climbing a mountain. Each terrace rises up from the last
like the
syrinx,
the pipes of pan, which are made of several tubes of unequal length.
This gives the appearance of a theater. It was flanked by perfectly
constructed walls twenty-six feet thick. The galleries were roofed with
stone
balconies. Above these there was the first of a bed of
reeds with a great quantity of
bitumen, then a double layer of baked bricks set in
gypsum,
then over that a covering of lead so that moisture from the soil heaped
above it would not seep through. The earth was deep enough to contain
the roots of the many varieties of trees which fascinated the beholder
with their great size and their beauty. There was also a passage which
had pipes leading up to the highest level and machinery for raising
water through which great quantities of water were drawn from the river,
with none of the process being visible from the outside."
C. W. Müller,
Scriptores Rerum Alexandrii Magni, in the Didot edition of
Arrian, 1846, 137
Temple of Artemis at Ephesusalso known less precisely as the Temple of Diana, was a Greek Temple dedicated to a goddess Greeks identified as Artemis. It was silocated near the ancient city of Ephesus (near the edge of the modern town of
Selçuk ) about 50 km south from the modern port city of
İzmir, in modern Turkey. It was completely rebuilt three times before its eventual destruction. Only foundations and sculptural fragments of the latest of the temples at the site remain.
The first sanctuary (
temenos) antedated the Ionic immigration by many years, and dates to the
Bronze Age.
Callimachus, in his
Hymn to Artemis, attributed it to the
Amazons. In the 7th century the old temple was destroyed by a flood. Its reconstruction began around 550 BC, under the Cretan
architect Chersiphron and his son
Metagenes, at the expense of
Croesus of
Lydia: the project took 10 years to complete, only to be destroyed in an act of arson by a young
arsonist seeking fame named
Herostratus. It was later rebuilt.
Antipater of Sidon, who compiled the list of the Seven Wonders, describes the finished temple:
" 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"
The sacred site (temenos) at Ephesus was far older than the Artemision itself. Pausanias[3] was certain that it antedated the Ionic immigration by many years, being older even than the oracular shrine of Apollo at Didyma. He said that the pre-Ionic inhabitants of the city were Leleges and Lydians. Callimachus, in his Hymn to Artemis, attributed the earliest temenos at Ephesus to the Amazons, whose worship he imagines already centered upon an image (bretas) of Artemis, their patron goddess.
Modern archaeology cannot confirm Pausanias' Amazons, but his account
of the site's antiquity seems well-founded. Before World War I, site
excavations by David George Hogarth[4] identified three successive temple buildings. Re-excavations in 1987-88[5] confirmed that the site was occupied as early as the Bronze Age, with a sequence of pottery finds that extend forward to Middle Geometric times, when the clay-floored peripteral temple was constructed, in the second half of the 8th century BC.[6] The peripteral
temple at Ephesus offers the earliest example of a peripteral type on
the coast of Asia Minor, and perhaps the earliest Greek temple
surrounded by colonnades anywhere.
In the 7th century, a flood[7]
destroyed the temple, depositing over half a meter of sand and flotsam
over a floor of hard-packed clay. Among the flood debris were the
remains of a carved ivory plaque of a griffin and the Tree of Life,
apparently North Syrian, and a number of drilled tear-shaped amber
drops of elliptical cross-section. These probably once dressed a wooden
effigy (xoanon)
of the Lady of Ephesus, which must have been destroyed or recovered
from the flood. Bammer notes that though the site was prone to flooding,
and raised by silt deposits about two metres between the eighth and 6th
centuries, and a further 2.4 m between the sixth and the fourth, its
continued use "indicates that maintaining the identity of the actual
location played an important role in the sacred organization".
The new temple was sponsored at least in part by Croesus, who founded Lydia's empire and was overlord of Ephesus,[9] and was designed and constructed from around 550 BC by the Cretan architect Chersiphron and his son Metagenes. It was some 377' long and 180' wide, supposedly the first Greek temple built of marble. Its peripteral columns stood some 40 feet high, in double rows that formed a wide ceremonial passage around the cella
that housed the goddess' cult image. Thirty-six of these columns were,
according to Pliny, decorated by carvings in relief. A new ebony or
blackened grapewood cult statue was sculpted by Endoios,[10] and a naiskos to house it was erected east of the open-air altar.
A rich foundation deposit from this era yielded more than a thousand
items, including what may be the earliest coins made from the
silver-gold alloy electrum.
Fragments of bas-relief on the lowest drums of the temple, preserved in
the British Museum, show that the enriched columns of the later temple,
of which a few survive were versions of this earlier feature. Pliny the Elder,
seemingly unaware of the ancient continuity of the sacred site, claims
that the new temple's architects chose to build it on marshy ground as a
precaution against earthquakes. The temple became an important
attraction, visited by merchants, kings, and sightseers, many of whom
paid homage to Artemis in the form of jewelry
and various goods. It also offered sanctuary to those fleeing
persecution or punishment, a tradition linked in myth to the Amazons who
twice fled there seeking the goddess' protection from punishment,
firstly by Dionysus and later, by Heracles.
The "Croesus" Temple was destroyed on July 21, 356 BC, probably very
soon after its completion, in a vainglorious act of arson: one Herostratus set fire to the roof-beams, seeking fame at any cost, thus the term herostratic fame.
The Ephesians tactfully refused Alexander's offer to pay for the
temple's rebuilding, and eventually rebuilt it after his death, at their
own expense. Work started in 323 BC and continued for many years. The
third temple was larger than the second; 450' long by 225' wide and 60
feet high, with more than 127 columns. Athenagoras of Athens names Endoeus, a pupil of Daedalus, as sculptor of Artemis' main cult image. Pausanias (c. 2nd century AD) reports another image and altar in the Temple, dedicated to Artemis Protothronia (Artemis "of the first seat") and a gallery of images above this altar, including an ancient figure of Nyx (the primordial goddess of Night) by the sculptor Rhoecus
(6th century BC). Pliny describes images of Amazons, the legendary
founders of Ephesus and Ephesian Artemis' original proteges, carved by Scopas.
Literary sources describe the temple's adornment by paintings, gilded
columns of gold and silver, and religious works of renowned Greek
sculptors Polyclitus, Pheidias, Cresilas, and Phradmon.
This reconstruction survived some 600 years, and appears multiple times in early Christian accounts of Ephesus. According to the New Testament, the appearance of the first Christian missionary in Ephesus caused locals to fear for the temple's dishonor.[15] The 2nd-century Acts of John includes an apocryphal
tale of the temple's destruction: the apostle John prayed publicly in
the Temple of Artemis, exorcising its demons and "of a sudden the altar
of Artemis split in many pieces... and half the temple fell down,"
instantly converting the Ephesians, who wept, prayed or took flight.[16] Against this, a Roman edict of 162 AD acknowledges the importance of Artemesion,
the annual Ephesian festival to Artemis, and officially extends it from
a few holy days over March–April to a whole month, "one of the largest
and most magnificent religious festivals in Ephesus' liturgical
calendar".[17]
In 268 AD, the Temple was destroyed or damaged in a raid by the Goths, an East Germanic tribe.[18] in the time of emperor Gallienus: "Respa, Veduc and Thuruar,[19]
leaders of the Goths, took ship and sailed across the strait of the
Hellespont to Asia. There they laid waste many populous cities and set
fire to the renowned temple of Diana at Ephesus," reported Jordanes in Getica.[20]
Thereafter it may have been rebuilt, or repaired but this is
uncertain, as its later history is highly unclear and the torching of
the temple by the Goths may have brought it to a final end. At least
some of the stones from the temple were used in construction of other
buildings.[21] Some of the columns in Hagia Sophia originally belonged to the temple of Artemis,[22] and the Parastaseis syntomoi chronikai records the re-use of several statues and other decorative elements throughout Constantinople.
After sixty years of searching, the site of the temple was rediscovered in 1869 by an expedition led by John Turtle Wood and sponsored by the British Museum. These excavations continued until 1874.[23] A few further fragments of sculpture were found during the 1904-06 excavations directed by David George Hogarth.
The recovered sculptured fragments of the 4th-century rebuilding and a
few from the earlier temple, which had been used in the rubble fill for
the rebuilding, were assembled and displayed in the "Ephesus Room" of
the British Museum.[24]
Today the site of the temple, which lies just outside Selçuk, is marked by a single column constructed of dissociated fragments discovered on the site.
Statue of Zeus at Olympia
The Statue of Zeus at Olympia was made by the Greek sculptor Phidias, circa 432 BC on the site where it was erected in the Temple of Zeus, Olympia, Greece. The seated statue, some 12 meters (43 feet) tall, occupied half of the
width of the aisle of the temple built to house it. "It seems that if Zeus were to stand up," the geographer Strabo noted early in the 1st century BC, "he would unroof the temple."[2] The Zeus was a chryselephantine sculpture,
made of ivory and gold-plated bronze. No copy in marble or bronze has
survived, though there are recognizable but approximate versions on
coins of nearby Elis and on Roman coins and engraved gems.[3] A very detailed description of the sculpture and its throne was recorded by the traveler Pausanias, in the 2nd century AD. The sculpture was wreathed with shoots of olive worked in gold and seated on a magnificent throne of cedarwood, inlaid with ivory, gold, ebony, and precious stones. In Zeus' right hand there was a small statue of crowned Nike, goddess of victory, also chryselephantine, and in his left hand, a sceptre inlaid with gold, on which an eagle perched.[4] Plutarch, in his Life of the Roman general Aemilius Paulus, records that the victor over Macedon,
when he beheld the statue, “was moved to his soul, as if he had seen
the god in person,” while the 1st century AD Greek orator Dio Chrysostom declared that a single glimpse of the statue would make a man forget all his earthly troubles.[5]
The date of the statue, in the third quarter of the 5th century BC,
long a subject of debate, was confirmed archaeologically by the
rediscovery and excavation of Phidias' workshop in 1954–1958 The excavation of
the workshop at Olympia where Phidias created the statue revealed tools, terracotta moulds and a cup inscribed "I belong to Pheidias" were found here, just where the traveler Pausanias said the Zeus was constructed.
According to a legend, when Phidias was asked what inspired him—whether he climbed
Mount Olympusto see Zeus, or whether Zeus came down from Olympus so that Pheidias
could see him—the artist answered that he portrayed Zeus according to
Book One, verses 528 – 530 of
Homer's
Iliad:
- He spoke, the son of Kronos, and nodded his head with the dark brows,
- and the immortally anointed hair of the great god
- swept from his divine head, and all Olympos was shaken.
Disagreement exist on the destruction of the statue. One is that it was destroyed by order of Caligula. Others say it was carried off to Constantinople where it was destroyed in the great fire there. Still others say it was destroyed when the temple burned. The best account however would seem to be by Lucian of Samosata's dialogue Timon the Misanthrope in the later 2nd century, "they have laid hands on your person at
Olympia, my lord High-Thunderer, and you had not the energy to wake the
dogs or call in the neighbours; surely they might have come to the
rescue and caught the fellows before they had finished packing up the
swag."
Colossus or Rhoedes
The Colossus of Rhodes was a statue of the Greek Titan Helios, erected in the city of Rhodes on the Greek island of Rhodes by Chares of Lindos between 292 and 280 BC. It was constructed to celebrate Rhodes' victory over the ruler of Cyprus, Antigonus I Monophthalmus, who unsuccessfully besieged Rhodes in 305 BC. Before its destruction, the Colossus of Rhodes stood over 30 meters (107 ft) high, making it one of the tallest statues of the ancient world. It was a huge statue depicting their patron god Helios.
Construction was left to the direction of Chares, a native of Lindos in Rhodes, who had been involved with large-scale statues before. His teacher, the sculptor Lysippos, had constructed a 22 meter (70 ft) high[3] bronze statue of Zeus at Tarentum.
Ancient accounts, which differ to some degree, describe the structure as being built with iron
tie bars to which brass plates were fixed to form the skin. The
interior of the structure, which stood on a 15-meter- (50-foot-) high
white marble pedestal near the Mandraki harbor entrance, was then filled with stone blocks as construction progressed.[4]
Other sources place the Colossus on a breakwater in the harbor. The
statue itself was over 30 meters (107 ft) tall. Much of the iron and bronze was reforged
from the various weapons Demetrius's army left behind, and the
abandoned second siege tower was used for scaffolding around the lower
levels during construction. Upper portions were built with the use of a
large earthen ramp. During the building, workers would pile mounds of
dirt on the sides of the colossus. Upon completion all of the dirt was
removed and the colossus was left to stand alone. After twelve years, in
280 BC, the statue was completed. Preserved in Greek anthologies of
poetry is what is believed to be the genuine dedication text for the
Colossus.[5]
To you, o Sun, the people of Dorian Rhodes set up this bronze statue
reaching to Olympus, when they had pacified the waves of war and crowned
their city with the spoils taken from the enemy. Not only over the seas
but also on land did they kindle the lovely torch of freedom and
independence. For to the descendants of Herakles belongs dominion over
sea and land.
Possible construction method - Modern engineers have put forward a plausible hypothesis for the
statue construction, based on the technology of those days (which was
not based on the modern principles of earthquake engineering), and the accounts of Philo and Pliny who both saw and described the remains.[6]
The harbor-straddling Colossus was a figment of medieval imaginations based on the dedication text's mention of "over land and sea" twice. Many older illustrations (above) show the statue with one foot on either side of the harbor mouth with ships passing under it: "...the brazen giant of Greek fame, with conquering limbs astride from land to land...
the mechanics of the situation reveal that the Colossus could not have straddled the harbor as described in Lemprière's Classical Dictionary.
If the completed statue straddled the harbor, the entire mouth of the
harbor would have been effectively closed during the entirety of the
construction; nor would the ancient Rhodians have had the means to
dredge and re-open the harbor after construction. The statue fell in 224
BC: if it straddled the harbor mouth, it would have entirely blocked
the harbor. Also, since the ancients would not have had the ability to
remove the entire statue from the harbor, it would not have remained
visible on land for the next 800 years, as discussed above. Even
neglecting these objections, the statue was made of bronze and it could not have been built with its legs apart without collapsing from its own weight.
theory published in an article in 2008 by Ursula Vedder suggests that the Colossus was never in the port, but rather was part of the Acropolis of Rhodes,
on a hill today named Monte Smith, which overlooks the port area. The
temple on top of Monte Smith has traditionally thought to have been
devoted to Apollo, but according to Vedder, it would have been a Helios
sanctuary. The enormous stone foundations at the temple site, the
function of which is not definitively known by modern scholars, are
proposed by Vedder to have been the supporting platform of the Colossus.
The base pedestal was at least 60 feet (18 m) in diameter and either
circular or octagonal. The feet were carved in stone and covered with
thin bronze plates riveted together. Eight forged iron bars set in a
radiating horizontal position formed the ankles and turned up to follow
the lines of the legs while becoming progressively smaller. Individually
cast curved bronze plates 60 inches (1,500 mm) square with turned in
edges were joined together by rivets through holes formed during casting
to form a series of rings. The lower plates were 1-inch (25 mm) in
thickness to the knee and 3/4 inch thick from knee to abdomen, while the
upper plates were 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick except where additional
strength was required at joints such as the shoulder, neck, etc. The
legs would need to be filled at least to the knees with stones for
stability. Accounts described earthen mounds used to aid construction;
however, to reach the top of the statue would have required a mound 300
feet (91 m) in diameter, which exceeded the available land area, so
modern engineers have proposed that the abandoned siege towers stripped
down would have made efficient scaffolding.
A computer simulation of this construction indicated that an earthquake would have caused a cascading failure
of the rivets, causing the statue to break up at the joints while still
standing instead of breaking after falling to the ground, as described
in second hand accounts. The arms would have been first to separate,
followed by the legs. The knees were less likely to break and the
ankles' survival would have depended on the quality of the workmanship.
The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus or Tomb of Mausolus
The Masusoleum at Halicarnassus was a tomb built between 353 and 350 BC at Halicarnassus (present Bodrum, Turkey) for Mausolus, a satrap in the Persian Empire, and Artemisia II of Caria, his wife and sister. The structure was designed by the Greek architects Satyros and Pythius of Priene.
The Mausoleum stood approximately 45 m (148 ft) in height, and each of the four sides was adorned with sculptural reliefs created by each one of four Greek sculptors — Leochares, Bryaxis, Scopas of Paros and Timotheus.[4] The finished structure was considered to be such an aesthetic triumph that Antipater of Sidon identified it as one of his Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
Mausolus decided to build a new capital; a city as safe from capture
as it was magnificent to be seen. He chose the city of Halicarnassus. If
Mausolus' ships blocked a small channel, they could keep all enemy warships out. His workmen deepened the city's harbor and used the dragged sand to make protecting breakwaters in front of the channel[citation needed]. On land they paved streets and squares,
and built houses for ordinary citizens. And on one side of the harbor
they built a massive fortified palace for Mausolus, positioned to have
clear views out to sea and inland to the hills — places from where
enemies could attack.
On land, the workmen also built walls and watchtowers, a Greek–style theatre and a temple to Ares — the Greek god of war.
Artemisia and Mausolus spent huge amounts of tax money to embellish
the city. They commissioned statues, temples and buildings of gleaming marble.
On a hill overlooking the city Artemisia planned to place a resting
place for her body, and her husband's, after their death. It would be a
tomb that would forever show how rich they were.
In 353 BC Mausolus died, leaving Artemisia to rule alone. As a
tribute to him, she decided to build him a tomb so famous that
Mausolus's name is now the
eponym for all stately tombs, in the word
mausoleum.
Artemisia lived for only two years after the death of her husband. The urns with their ashes were placed in the yet unfinished tomb. As a form of sacrifice ritual
the bodies of a large number of dead animals were placed on the stairs
leading to the tomb, and then the stairs were filled with stones and
rubble, sealing the access. According to the historian Pliny the Elder, the craftsmen decided to stay and finish the work after the death of their patron "considering that it was at once a memorial of his own fame and of the sculptor's art."
Artemisia spared no expense in building the tomb. She sent messengers
to Greece to find the most talented artists of the time. These included
Scopas, the man who had supervised the rebuilding of the temple of Artemis at Ephesus. The famous sculptors were (in the Vitruvius order) Leochares, Bryaxis, Scopas and Timotheus, as well as hundreds of other craftsmen.
The tomb was erected on a hill overlooking the city. The whole structure sat in an enclosed
courtyard.
At the center of the courtyard was a stone platform on which the tomb
sat. A stairway flanked by stone lions led to the top of the platform,
which bore along its outer walls many statues of gods and goddess. At
each corner, stone warriors mounted on horseback guarded the tomb. At
the center of the platform, the marble tomb rose as a square tapering
block to one-third of the Mausoleum's 45 m (148 ft) height. This section
was covered with bas-reliefs showing action scenes, including the battle of the centaurs with the lapiths and Greeks in combat with the Amazons, a race of warrior women.
On the top of this section of the tomb thirty-six slim columns, ten
per side, with each corner sharing one column between two sides; rose
for another third of the height. Standing between each [pair of]
column[s] was a statue. Behind the columns was a solid cella-like
block that carried the weight of the tomb's massive roof. The roof,
which comprised most of the final third of the height, was pyramidal. Perched on the top was a quadriga: four massive horses pulling a chariot in which rode images of Mausolus and Artemisia.
According to Roman Architect Vitruvius, it was built by Satyros and
Pytheus who wrote a treatise about it, this treatise is now lost.
It is unknown exactly when and how the Mausoleum came to ruin but
according to Eustathius in the 12th century on his commentary of the
Iliad; ”it was and is a wonder.”
The Mausoleum overlooked the city of Halicarnassus for many years. It was untouched when the city fell to Alexander the Great in 334 BC and still undamaged after attacks by pirates
in 62 and 58 BC. It stood above the city's ruins for sixteen centuries.
Then a series of earthquakes shattered the columns and sent the bronze
chariot crashing to the ground. By 1404 AD only the very base of the
Mausoleum was still recognizable.
We are therefore led to believe that
the building was likely ruined between this period and 1402 when the
Knights of St. John arrived, likely by an earthquake.
In 1846 Lord Stratford de Redcliffe obtained permission to remove
bassi-rilievi from the Budrum. This piece was originally part of the
Mausoleum of Halicarnassus but was removed by St. Johns Knights.[9]
An expedition was sent by the British government after Mr. Charles
newton discovered the site where the mausoleum was located. This site
was originally indicated by professor Donaldson. The expedition lasted 3
years and ended in the sending of the marbles.[10]
All that remained by the 19th century were the foundations and some
broken sculptures. Many of the stones from the mausoleum were sacked and
used by the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem to fortify their castle of
Bodrum. Much of the marble was burned into lime. The underground burial
chamber was broken into and destroyed by grave robbers; however in 1972
there was still enough remaining to create a layout of the chambers
when being excavated.
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