The Seven Wonders of the World

Saturday, 11 July 2015 - 01:00 pm (CET/MEZ) Berlin | Author/Destination:
Category/Kategorie: General, Museums, Exhibitions, UNESCO World Heritage
Reading Time:  10 minutes

Seven Wonders of the World © Slof/cc-by-sa-3.0

Seven Wonders of the World © Slof/cc-by-sa-3.0

Various lists of the Wonders of the World have been compiled from antiquity to the present day, to catalogue the world’s most spectacular natural wonders and manmade structures. The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World is the first known list of the most remarkable creations of classical antiquity; it was based on guidebooks popular among Hellenic sightseers and only includes works located around the Mediterranean rim. The number seven was chosen because the Greeks believed it represented perfection and plenty, and because it was the number of the five planets known anciently, plus the sun and moon. Many similar lists have been made.

Seven Wonders of the Ancient World
The historian Herodotus (484 – ca. 425 BCE), and the scholar Callimachus of Cyrene (ca. 305 – 240 BCE) at the Museum of Alexandria, made early lists of seven wonders. Their writings have not survived, except as references. The classic seven wonders were:

The only ancient world wonder that still exists is the Great Pyramid of Giza.



Lists from other eras
In the 19th and early 20th centuries, some writers wrote their own lists with names such as Wonders of the Middle Ages, Seven Wonders of the Middle Ages, Seven Wonders of the Medieval Mind, and Architectural Wonders of the Middle Ages. However it is unlikely that these lists originated in the Middle Ages because the word medieval was not invented until the Enlightenment-era, and the concept of a Middle Age did not become popular until the 16th century. Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable refers to them as “later list[s]” suggesting the lists were created after the Middle Ages. Many of the structures on these lists were built much earlier than the Medieval Ages, but were well known. Typically representative are:

Other sites sometimes included on such lists:

  • Taj Mahal – White marble mausoleum located in Agra, Uttar Pradesh Province, India. It was built by Mughal emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his third wife, Mumtaz Mahal. The Taj Mahal is widely recognized as “the jewel of Muslim art in India and one of the universally admired masterpieces of the world’s heritage”.
  • Saladin Citadel of Cairo – Medieval Islamic fortification on Mokattam hill in Cairo, Egypt
  • The Cathedral Church of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Ely – Principal church of the Diocese of Ely, Cambridgeshire, England, United Kingdom
  • Cluny Abbey – Dedicated to St Peter, it is a former Benedictine monastery in Cluny, Saône-et-Loire department, France. It was built in the Romanesque style, with three churches built in succession from the 10th to the early 12th centuries

Following in the tradition of the classical list, modern people and organisations have made their own lists of wonderful things ancient and modern. Some of the most notable lists are presented below.

American Society of Civil Engineers
In 1994, the American Society of Civil Engineers compiled a list of Seven Wonders of the Modern World, paying tribute to the “greatest civil engineering achievements of the 20th century”:

New7Wonders Foundation
In 2001 an initiative was started by the Swiss corporation New7Wonders Foundation to choose the New7Wonders of the World from a selection of 200 existing monuments. Twenty-one finalists were announced January 1, 2006. Egyptians were not happy that the only surviving original wonder, the Great Pyramid of Giza, would have to compete with the likes of the Statue of Liberty, the Sydney Opera House, and other landmarks, calling the project absurd. The Great Pyramid of Giza was named an honorary Candidate. The results were announced on July 7, 2007, in Lisbon, Portugal:

New7Wonders of Nature
New7Wonders of Nature (2007–11), a contemporary effort to create a list of seven natural wonders chosen through a global poll, was organized by the same group as the New7Wonders of the World campaign.

Seven Wonders of the Underwater World
The Seven Underwater Wonders of the World was a list drawn up by CEDAM International, an American-based non-profit group for divers, dedicated to ocean preservation and research. In 1989 CEDAM brought together a panel of marine scientists, including Dr. Eugenie Clark, to pick underwater areas which they considered to be worthy of protection. The results were announced at The National Aquarium in Washington DC.

Seven Wonders of the Industrial World
British author Deborah Cadbury wrote Seven Wonders of the Industrial World, a book telling the stories of seven great feats of engineering of the 19th and early 20th centuries. In 2003 the BBC made a seven-part documentary series on the book, with each episode dramatising the construction of one of the wonders. The seven industrial wonders are:

  • SS Great Eastern – Sailing steam ship. Passenger, cable-laying and floating music hall
  • Bell Rock Lighthouse – Off the coast of Angus, Scotland
  • Brooklyn Bridge – Cable-stayed/suspension bridge in New York City
  • London sewerage system – Water infrastructure serving Greater London
  • First Transcontinental Railroad – Across the western United States to connect the Pacific coast at San Francisco Bay with the existing Eastern U.S. rail network at Council Bluffs, Iowa, on the Missouri River.
  • Panama Canal – Ship canal in Panama that connects the Atlantic Ocean (via the Caribbean Sea) to the Pacific Ocean
  • Hoover Dam – Hoover Dam, once known as Boulder Dam, is a concrete arch-gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, on the border between the U.S. states of Arizona and Nevada. It was constructed between 1931 and 1936 during the Great Depression and was dedicated on September 30, 1935, by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Since about 1900, the Black Canyon and nearby Boulder Canyon had been investigated for their potential to support a dam that would control floods, provide irrigation water and produce hydroelectric power. In 1928, Congress authorized the project.

Read more on history.com – Seven Wonders of the Ancient World and Wikipedia Wonders of the World.  (Smart Traveler App by U.S. Department of State - Weather report by weather.com - Global Passport Power Rank - Travel Risk Map - Democracy Index - GDP according to IMF, UN, and World Bank - Global Competitiveness Report - Corruption Perceptions Index - Press Freedom Index - World Justice Project - Rule of Law Index - UN Human Development Index - Global Peace Index - Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index). Photos by Wikimedia Commons. If you have a suggestion, critique, review or comment to this blog entry, we are looking forward to receive your e-mail at comment@wingsch.net. Please name the headline of the blog post to which your e-mail refers to in the subject line.


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