Teotihuacan

Teotihuacan is a sacred archaeological site in the Basin of Mexico  about 30 miles northeast from Mexico City. The ancient city of Teotihuacan was built about AD 200. Teotihuacan is known for its large residential complexes, the Avenue of the Dead, and numerous colorful, well-preserved murals and as one of the seven wonders too.

It is considered that Teotihuacan is a multi-ethnic city as it has been occupied by Otomi, Maya, Mixtec,  Zapotec and Nahua peoples. Either the Totonacs or the Aztecs have always maintained that they were the ones who built it but it has not been corroborated by archaeological findings. Read more

Machu Picchu

The ancient city of Machu Picchu is  often referred to as the ‘lost city of the Incas’ situated on a mountain ridge some 8,000ft above sea level. Built around AD 1430 the site was abandoned by the Incas due to the Spanish conquest 100years later. In 1983 Machu Picchu also became a World Heritage Site.

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Colossus of Rhodes

The Colossus of Rhodes was a statue of the Greek god Helios, erected in the city of Rhodes on the Greek island of Rhodes by Chares of Lindos between 292 and 280 BC. It is considered one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. 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.

Taj Mahal

The Taj Mahal is a mausoleum located in Agra, India, built by Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal.

The Taj Mahal (also “the Taj”) is considered the finest example of Mughal architecture, a style that combines elements from Persian, Indian, and Islamic architectural styles. In 1983, the Taj Mahal became a UNESCO World Heritage Site and was cited as “the jewel of Muslim art in India and one of the universally admired masterpieces of the world’s heritage.” Read more

Temple of Artemis

The Temple of Artemis (Greek: Ἀρτεμίσιον Artemision), also known less precisely as Temple of Diana, was a Greek temple dedicated to Artemis completed— in its most famous phase— around 550 BCE at Ephesus (in present-day Turkey). Only foundations and sculptural fragments of the temple remain, the monument being one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. There were previous temples on its site, where evidence of a sanctuary dates as early as the Bronze Age.

The new temple antedated the Ionic immigration by many years. Callimachus, in his Hymn to Artemis, attributed the origin of the temenos at Ephesus to the Amazons, whose worship he imagines already centered upon an image (bretas). In the seventh century the old temple was destroyed by a flood. Around 550 BCE, they started to build the “new” temple, known as one of the wonders of the ancient world. It was a 120-year project, initially designed and constructed by the Cretan architect Chersiphron and his son Metagenes, at the expense of Croesus of Lydia. Read more

The Great Pyramids of Giza

The Great Pyramid of Giza (also called the Khufu’s Pyramid, Pyramid of Khufu, and Pyramid of Cheops) is the oldest and largest of the three pyramids in the Giza Necropolis bordering what is now Cairo, Egypt, and is the only one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World that survives substantially intact. It is believed the pyramid was built as a tomb for Fourth dynasty Egyptian King Khufu (Cheops in Greek) and constructed over a 20 year period concluding around 2560 BC. The Great Pyramid was the tallest man-made structure in the world for over 3,800 years. Read more

The statue of Zeus

The Statue of Zeus at Olympia was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. It was made by the Greek sculptor of the Classical period, Phidias, circa 432 BCE on the site where it was erected in the temple of Zeus, Olympia, Greece.

The seated statue, some 12 meters (39 feet) tall, occupied the whole 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 first century BCE, “he would unroof the temple.” 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 Roman coins and engraved gems.  A very detailed description of the sculpture and its throne was recorded by the traveller Pausanias, in the second century CE. The sculpture, was wreathed with shoots of olive 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. 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 Greek orator Dio Chrysostom declared that a single glimpse of the statue would make a man forget all his earthly troubles. Read more