We consider that the Pyramid of Khufu was built near 2800 BC but the uncertainty concerning this date remains important. This pyramid would have been drawn by Imhotep, Egyptian architect of the third dynasty of ancient Egypt. The Egyptians reached the perfection by building this edifice that was raised by the Pharaoh Khufu and that we know nowadys with the name of the Great Pyramid of Giza. Indeed, he wished for himself a grave able to endure the time. A gigantic, inviolable grave which would preserve its divine slough for the eternity... This pyramid is exceptional looking at its dimensions: 232 m (761 feet) wide and 146 m (480 feet) height, and its internal arrangements: not less than three chambers, among two ones directly built in the stone block. To reach the king's room, a long gallery of 47 m (154 feet) and 8.50 m (28 feet) height was imagined. To proceed to the construction of its monumental ambition, Khufu even order to bring stones extracted from the mountains of Arabia which were loaded on boats to go down the Nile until Gizeh. This set of pyramids were raised by thousands of persons chosen among the Egyptian population. By these constructions, they proved their power that we can even recognize nowadays by observing these pyramids in Gizeh.
The gardens were located on east the bank of the river Euphrates, in the city of Babylon (50 km from Bagdad) and may have been built in 600 bc. No Greek historian have seen them, it just consists in stories told by soldats, which is a quite doubtful source of informations. According to the legend king Nebuchadnezzar II (604-562 BC) would have made build the famous hanging gardens of Babylon for his wife Sémiramis to remind her the vegetation of the moutains from her natal country : Media (actual Iran). These gardens were composed of several floors, each was a terrace of 120 m² supported by vaults and pillars of brick. An immense staircase, made of marble, connected the terraces, where water was brought from the river Euphrates by a system of hydraulic screws. It was a real botanical garden where was cultivated plants and trees of Mesopotamia and of Media. On the first eight meters height terrace were planted big trees : plane trees, palm trees - date palms, pines and cedars. On the second thirteen meters height terrace were located the cypresses and quantity of fruit trees. And even heigher, on the two last terraces, less vast than the others, we could find the anemones and the tulips, the lilies and the irises… without forgetting the roses, so appreciated from the beautiful Sémiramis.
This statue was located on the west coast of Greece at Olympia. In the antiquity, this city was a place of cult which contained numerous treasures of the Greek art: temples, monuments, altars, theaters, statues and marble or bronze votive offerings. It was realized with golden and ivory, measured 12 m (39 feet) height and was placed on a base of 2 m (7 feet). The base of the statue was 6 m (21 feet) wide and 1 m height. The statue's perimeter was 13 m (43 feet). This work touched almost the ceiling of the temple. On the other hand, the throne was decorated with precious stones, ivory, ebony and gold. Zeus, in sat position, holds, in its right hand, the goddess of Victory, Nike, and, in the left hand, a scepter surmounted by an eagle. The throne was decorated with relief sculptured mythological scenes, notably evoking the murder of the sons of Niobe, the queen of Thebes.
It was located in Turkey, in the ancient city of Ephesus which is nowadays called Selcuk, and which is located 50 km in the South of Izmir. This temple was set up from the middle of the eighth century to the middle of the third century BC It has the peculiarity to have been demolished seven times in ten centuries. The first temple was primitive (8 columns on 4), however king Croesus ordered to destroy it in order to raise a new much larger one. With a base of 155 m (508 feet) on 60 (197 feet), the new sanctuary possessed 127 columns with sculptured reliefs. But it was destroyed again to leave place to the new temple drawn by the Greek architect called Chersiphron, even more gigantic than the precedent: its Ionic columns, adorned with gold, raised at more than 18 m height and contained scenes with mythological symbols sculptured by the lost famous sculptors and the Greek architects such as Scopas, Praxiteles, Phidias and Polyclitus. This last sanctuary sheltered the statues of Artemis and Zeus where these gods were worshipped by the Greek population. Nowadays, we can find some reproductions of the statue of this goddess in the museums of Naples, the Vatican and the Louvre. Finally, during the night of 21st of July in 356 BC, a person called Herostratus set on fire the temple so that its name is immortalized. It is done. Stones were doubtless reused to build churches.
It is very likely that Artemis, sister and woman of the satrap of Carie began the construction of this edifice in 353 BC, three years after the death of king, to honour him. The mausoleum was ended one year after the death of this woman. With a total height of around 43 m (141 feet), it was sustained with thirty six columns and surmounted by a pyramid decorated of one quadriga2 with marble. The funeral chamber doubtless contained the graves of Mausole and Artemis. We could also observe a valuable frieze represented a fight of the Greeks against the Amazon and the Centaurs. This monument was partly destroyed, by an earthquake, at around fourteenth century. A short time later, the knights of Malta decided to build a fortress: they used the stones of the mausoleum and in 1522, no one remained. Nowadays, we can again observe this fortress in Bodrum.
The colossus of Rhodes was located in the wearing of Rhodes in Greece, probably at the end of the current Saint-Nicolas Day mole, where some marble blocks have been found and could have been used to build the base of the statue.The colossus of Rhodes was set up between 303 and 291 BC, so it took twelve years of hard work to totaly finish it. Made of bronze and based on marble block, the statue was 32 meters (105 feet) heigh from the top of the head to the feets, that is to say 14 meters (46 feet) less than the statue of liberty in New York. The heigh enabled the statue to be visible by the ships approching to the port. In his raised arm, the sun god held a torch while his other arm was pressed on a lance. Contrary to the illustrations we usually find, ships were not passing under the colossesus's legs to enter in the wearing of Rhodes. It was technically impossible that the statue had its legs split. The statue had been partialy destroyed in 225 BC after a earthquake. Then, in 653 AC, all the material (more than 13 tons of bronze and nearly 7 tons of iron, according to Philon) is taken by an arab expedition to be sold to a jewish merchant of Ephesea. The statue has been raised at the entry of the port for only 65 years
The Lighthouse is located in Egypt on the island of Pharaos (which gave the french word «phare ») in front of the city of Alexandria. During the centuries, this island was connected with the continent by the alluviums of the Nile, on which we built a road and a bridge. The lighthouse, built on the island, was begun under Ptolemy II Philadelphus and ended around 280 BC by Sostratus of Cnidus. The lighthouse counted three floors: the first one was squared, the second was octagonal and the third cylindrical. The white marble whole measured approximately 135 m (440 feet) height from where we could see ships located 100 miles far away. Angles were decorated with bronze tritons which was used either to warn of the approach of the enemy by terrifying sounds, but also to carry mirrors which, durung the night, reflected the light of a fire. In the daytime, the smoke indicated to the boats the entrance of the port.
