Great Pyramid

Colossus

Hanging Gardens

Mausoleum

Zeus

Lighthouse

Artemis

References

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After Alexander the Great died in 336 BC, his generals began arguing over who would rule his empire. They sided with Ptolemy, the general who controlled Egypt. At once Ptolemy"s rival, Antigonus, who controlled Greece, sent his son, Demetrius, to destroy Rhodes. Demetrius failed and he and his men sailed away.

As soon as Demetrius was gone, the Rhodians decided to thank Helios, the sun god, for protecting them by building the biggest statue anyone had ever seen. It would be a handsome prince with a cloak in his left hand (the cloak of darkness which the sun's light sweeps from the sky each morning.) His right hand would be raised to his eyes to direct their light beams out across the world. It came to be known as the Colossus because it was so huge.

The sculptor, Chares, set up a marble platform for the statue to stand on. Then they mounted the statue's huge bronze, hollow feet on it. After that, they built from the legs up, piece by piece. They shaped each new limb or joint in the workshop, carried it to the building site, and bolted it into place. Inside each metal leg was a marble pillar to keep it from falling over. As soon as each hollow section was in place, they filled it with a mixture of rubble and stones. The statue was eighteen times human size and it took twelve years to finish. When they finished the statue, they polished it until it shone like the sun. The Colossus probably acted like our Statue of Liberty, welcoming visitors into a new country.

The statue stood for fifty-six years until, in 224 BC, it fell in an earthquake. The superstitious Rhodians left it laying there for no less than 900 years. No one even thought of stripping the valuable metal from the giant until in 654 AD, when a Syrian prince named Muswiyah captured Rhodes. He took the bronze, dumped the rubble in the harbor, and converted the valuable metal into bronze coins.