Talk:Seven Wonders of the Ancient World/Archive 1

collosus at Rhodes
The collosus at Rhodes is a statue of Appollo not Zeus.


 * It is Helios, but not Zeus. You are probably right, since according to the Helios article "in later mythology Helios was conflated with Apollo, who thereby became the sun god". -- Cordyph 16:02 Mar 13, 2003 (UTC)

The Collosus at Rhodes is not Zeus or Apollo, it is Helios (Helos) the sun god.

ext link
There is a great deal of additional info available at The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Mention of the Euro-centric orientation of the list, and of the list of the Natural Wonders might be good, too. -- Brianiac 23:44 Mar 27, 2003 (UTC)

Modern wonders?
I have some problem understanding why some candidates of modern wonders exist and perhaps something would be gained by way of explanation? I don't want to pick a particular bad example so perhaps I'll start the ball by justifying one and see how other can support the case? Rjstott 04:55, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Questioning credibility
Did the list 'Wonders of the Medieval Mind' actually exist? (correct me if I'm wrong)


 * The original Wonders list was made in the early Middle Ages. The only other known list ever created before hand was done by the ancient Greeks and was destroyed with the library of Alexandria.
 * The wonders list that we know of (The Hanging Gardens, The Pyramids...) was created probably around 400 A.D., as the statue of Helios was destroyed in that century.

So who made this list? How was the already existing list of the Seven Wonders of the World changed so very quickly after it was made?Was it during the late Medieval era, maybe around 1000 A.D? But I ask you, does it even really exist?


 * Right, it has no reference -- see the talk page at Seven Wonders of the Medieval Mind. -- Stbalbach 23:11, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

wonders of the medieval mind
Where did the Seven Wonders of the Medieval Mind list come from? The begining of the medieval period is generally placed in the 4th or 5th century A.D. at the earliest, and even still these centuries are more often considered to be late antiquity. Roughly speaking, the 6th through 9th centuries constitute the early middle ages. As such, the Colosseum, built in the 1st century A.D., is most definately classical (i.e. ancient) and not medieval, and Stonehenge, built in the 3rd millenium B.C., is not even remotely close.

I am not certain, but I believe that when they were made has nothing to do with it. I believe that in the middle ages a group of scholars just came up with a new list of wonders that they knew about. So when they were made doesn't matter, but that they were around at that time.


 * Totally invented without recourse to history: Stonehenge! Stonehenge was utterly ignored in medieval times. Can we deep-six this bogus list? And the even more self-stimulatory "Underwater Wonders of the World"... A better medieval list is the "Nine Worthies". There is a reason why the medieval list is of male fighting aristocrats and not of technological marvels. --Wetman 05:31, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * I'm especially amazed that there were people in the Middle Ages than KNEW aboutr such different monuments as the Great Wall, Stonehenge and Borobudur. Not even Marco Polo travelled to those 3 places! Either someone provides a source for this list or I'm deleting it. Luis rib 21:07, 24 May 2005 (UTC)


 * I too think Stonehenge is incorrectly placed in the list of medievil wonders, as its construction dates back several 1000 years earlier than some of the buildings in the list of ancient wonders. --Abdull 29 June 2005 14:11 (UTC)


 * Yep I have to agree with everyone on this, the medieval list should be removed, as it serves no purpose. I doubt that people in the medieval times knew of all of the listed medieval wonders. And Stonehenge was pretty much ignored until very recently.

Stonehenge does not appear on the medieval list of "Wonders of the World" because (1) a "wonder," almost by definition, had to be Classical, and (2) Stonehenge wasn't regarded as "ancient." Until maybe the 17th century, it was generally thought by educated Brits to have been built by Druids shortly before the Roman occupation. And I think it very unlikely that any European in the 13th century would know of the existence of the Great Wall. In any case, there is -- TRADITIONALLY -- only the one list: Ancient Wonders. And that's what Wikipedia is reporting on. Otherwise, you could make up any list you like (Wonders of Coastal Louisiana, Wonders of the West End of London), and what would be the point? You would sliding off into Guinness-land. --Michael K. Smith 13:38, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Removed links
The following links don't really provide much valuable info, compared with the respective Wikipedia articles: Feel free to incorporate facts from these sites into Wikipedia, but most of it is already present here in some form. Paranoid 13:08, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * Ashmawy, Alaa K., "The seven wonders of the ancient world".  January 21, 2004.
 * Krystek, Lee, "The seven wonders of the ancient world". Museum of Unnatural Mystery.
 * "A virtual tour of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World". Cable News Network. 1997.

I also removed these two links from the "external links" section, replacing them with references in the text (like this: ) I am not sure it was a right way to do it, may be the references should rather be in the separate section in the end. If someone think I was wrong, please place these two links back there. Paranoid 13:16, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * Camp, Charles, "CIVL 1101 - Civil Engineering Measurements" . American Society of Civil Engineers. Department of Civil Engineering, University of Memphis. 1996.
 * "The Seven Natural Wonders of the World". Cable News Network. 1997.

"Alexander the Great" mislink
I removed to Discussion: This list is supposed to have been written by someone close to Alexander the Great, in order to emphasize the size of his empire: in fact, the seven wonders demarcate the territory Alexander had conquered. Even the Wikipedia article itself demonstrates now that this is hogwash. --Wetman 05:22, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Removed some buildings
I removed the Petronas Towers and World Trade Center (NY) from the modern candidates list as I don't believe there's anything particularly unique or noteworthy about these buildings other than they're pretty tall (and if this criteria is used then we would have to list the Sears Towers, the Taipei 101, and soon this list would look like a list of the world's tallest buildings)

Some questionable entries
I've don't believe these are particularly noteworthy, or don't know enough about them:

Ancient Candidates

 * Falak-ol-Aflak Castle (Persia)
 * Great Wall of Gorgan (Persia)
 * Persepolis (Persia)
 * Ziggurat of Ur (modern Iraq) (haven't heard of it, doesn't have an article)

Actually the Ziggurat of Ur is believed to have been (one of) the inspiration(s) for the Tower of Babylon. You have a picture of it on Ur. Luis rib 21:10, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

Modern Candidates

 * Rice terraces (Banaue, Philippines) (haven't heard of it, doesn't have an article)

The rice terraces of the Philippines are a World Heritage Site. So they are pretty important, but surely not a Modern Candidate for Wonders of the World. Luis rib 21:11, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

Suggestion.

 * How is Angkor Wat ancient by the way?

I think it would be a good idea to have a box for each wonder with the information about it and a little thumbnail image of it. It would just make the article prettier and show what they wonders were all on one page.  Hi  you could use that style box... or something better. Thoughts? gren 04:08, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * I like the idea of expanding the description of the wonders / including a (brief) description. The description could include who built the wonder / why it was built, the ultimate fate of the wonder, and why it was considered a "wonder".  I did a quick one for the Colossus of Rhodes. srs 00:58, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The Colossus of Rhodes was a statue of the god Helios, built on the island of Rhodes, by the sculptor Chares of Lindos. It was built to celebrate the successful defence of Rhodes from a siege led by Demetrius, and to honor the patron god of the Rhodians, Helios. It was completed in 282 BCE, after 12 years of construction, and stood at 34 meters (110 feet) tall- roughly the same size as the Statue of Liberty. However, after an earthquake struck Rhodes in 226 BCE, the statue snapped at the knees and fell over onto the land, having stood for only 56 years. Even in this state, the statue was still an impressive sight, and attracted travellers for over 800 years, until 654, when the remains were sold to a travelling salesman. There is currently an ongoing debate in Rhodes as to whether to rebuild the Colossus.
 * The main reason I think that's a bad idea is that the Colossus already has its own encyclopedia page. This page is already a long enough list without including extensive summaries of each item. I think the individual lists could use more introduction (and maybe some fuzziness, i.e. if there's no consensus, why pare it to seven? is Wikipedia intende d to be an authority here?). --Dhartung | Talk 18:03, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Protected.
I have protected this page, due to its use as a vandalism target.

James F. (talk) 20:58, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * Good you did, many people have been putting disturbing messages and deleting important text or changing it to gibberish.


 * Whats the point? i dont really get how u can protect it..cause is wikipedia.i want to learn to block other ppl
 * Thx

Now unprotected again.

James F. (talk) 18:14, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Erratum in Protected Page
In the first (summary) paragraph, second sentence, "Some of the wonders know today....", for "know" read "known" Alan Canon

The Issue around the Colossus in Rhodes
I believe that it is actually wrong, that the statue is of Zeus because there have been many finding that show that that is true and that the staue is not of Apollo. The statue has been made in honour of Zeus and has been permanently recorded.


 * The Colossus of Rhodes was definetely Helios. Helios was the patron God of the island of Rhodes and also appears on the island's coins. You are confusing with the statue of Zeus in Olympia, which was made by Phidias (I think) and was decorated with ivory and gold. Luis rib 7 July 2005 19:57 (UTC)

The Wonders of the World
If the C.N Tower in Toronto and the Empire State Building are both wonders then why aren't other tall buildings considered as wonders. How about the Sears Tower and the Twin Towers, aren't they almost as tall or even taller?

Whoever decides which bulding, statue, etc... is a wonder needs to do some studying, or add all the other tall buildings to this lists of wonders, or actually take out the tallest building and buildings from the list of wonders.

Like me, since I live in Toronto, I do not fancy that the C.N Tower is a wonder because I have been there many times. The CN Tower doesn't have much use and isn't any more special than any other tall building, except that it is in Toronto. The Empire State Bulding still maybe considered a wonder because it had been finished in 1931 and many famous films had been produced around or on the building, such as "King Kong"- in black (original) and in colour (edited version).

Many other people question the decisions of the world's wonders but it doesn't really bother us because it gives us no advantages for our country, people, and economy. The only thing wonders attract is tourism but after sometime wonders get ruined because of this.

By: Alex.K


 * Okay, let's make up a list of Wonders: How about Disney World? Or the world's largest railroad switching yard, somewhere in eastern Nebraska? Or Atlanta's Hartsfield International Airport, which is the busiest in the world? And I know a really terrific Tex-Mex restaurant in Dallas that ought to be included on any list of "wonders". . . . (Hmmm. This could get out of hand.) --Michael K. Smith 13:50, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

θαυματα/θεαματα
I have altered this point to demonstrate the similarity of the Greek words for "wonders" and "must-sees". However, this demonstrates nothing but that the thesis that one assimilated to the other is plausible. Ideally, whoever added the θεαματα suggestion in the first place should provide a source for this thesis. Phlogistomania 15:03, Jun 13, 2005 (UTC)

i have a report due on friday on this anyone want to like give me important facts?

Clean-up
I added the cleanup-tag since many issues mentioned here are still unresolved, especially some disputed entries on the various lists. --FlorianB 7 July 2005 15:13 (UTC)


 * Well done. I'm afraid that most of those lists were actually made up by some wikiuser long time ago. Since Wikipedia doesn't allow original research, we should delete them all, and try to find real attempts to create other lists of wonders (and cite sources for that!). An example could be the UNESCO World Heritage List, which tries to assemble the most important cultural and natural sites in the World. Luis rib 7 July 2005 20:00 (UTC)

Redirect from Seven *Natural* Wonders??
Seven Natural Wonders of the world redirect here, but I thought that was s different list entirely, including for example, the Grand Canyon...



This is such a great entry I don't want to mess it up, so I'm putting this minor tweak as a suggestion. It gets tricky since the "7 ancient wonders" & "7 world wonders" are nested inside each other, or not, depending on what search criteria used. My tweak is that, in Seven Ancient Wonders", it says, "Later lists include those for the Medieval World and the Modern World." Perhaps make "Medieval World" and "Modern World" link to the Wiki sections that cover these? Seems minor, but if you search on "seven wonders world" one can link to Seven Ancient Wonders, where the links would be especially nice. Especially since these two sections are so nice. (Seekers finding the inclusive 7 wonders obviously can scroll down to see these sections, but a Seven Ancient Wonders reader wouldn't see them, only other links that don't redirect to the inclusive 7 Wonders entries).

Great job, people! Trai dep 06:46, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Possibly plagiarized?
Most of the information on this page is taken word for word from http://ce.eng.usf.edu/pharos/wonders/list.html However, I don't know how to mark this article.


 * That text does appear to be copyvio. I will delete it altogether; which will leave us, I am afraid, a very short page. Worse still, all the useful work editors have done to those paragraphs will be lost. It is a real shame; but there's nothing else we can do. Doops | talk 06:29, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

Just a thought
Personally, I think Wikipedia, though not a physical, tangible construction, is a pretty astonishing collaborative effort. It's certainly one of the wonders of my (modern) world. If I could nominate it, I would. --StoneColdCrazy 23:30, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

Original Research
Many of the lists in this article seem to be the product of original research, in other words, people contributing their own lists of what they believe are notable wonders or changing lists to add wonders which they think are more important. There are only three lists which have any cited sources to them: I would like to delete all lists except these three and any others for which notable outside sources can be cited. –Shoaler (talk) 22:42, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
 * The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World
 * The Seven Wonders of the Natural World
 * The Seven Wonders of the Modern World (American Society of Civil Engineers)


 * There used to be a lot of those in the article, but aren't they all gone now? Doops | talk 22:47, 17 October 2005 (UTC)


 * Maybe the just need to have their sources cited. I don't see any source for Underwater Wonders.  Does anyone know where these came from? –Shoaler (talk) 23:56, 17 October 2005 (UTC)