[energetic music]
narrator: Thousands of years ago,
without cranes or computers,
ancient civilizations managed to conceive and construct
buildings that are impressive even for today.
These are the tops ten lost wonders of the ancient world.
[keyboard taps]
Like a 4,000-year-old director's cut,
historians and philosophers throughout antiquity
debated the existence of the lost labyrinth of Egypt.
Some claim they've seen it.
Others insisted it was a myth told through generations.
Supposedly, this 3,000-room temple filled with paintings,
statues, and hieroglyphics
had a roof carved from a single stone
and was built in tandem
with the Black Pyramid of Pharaoh Amenemhat III
around 1800 BCE.
According to legend,
it inspired Dedalus to create the Labyrinth of Crete,
but there was no evidence of it until 1889
when Egyptologist Flinders Petrie discovered
a stone plateau measuring 304x244 meters,
almost 14 football fields.
The secrecy of the labyrinth continues today.
In 2008,
a team of archaeologists performed a scan
over the stone that indicated there were rooms and objects
consistent with ancient descriptions
but were threatened with sanctions
by Egyptian officials
when they publicly reported their results.
Get Nic Cage or Harrison Ford
out there, stat.
[keyboard taps]
[soft dramatic music]
Up second is the Temple of Jerusalem,
aka Solomon's Temple, aka the temple of the Lord.
Built in ancient Jerusalem in 957 BCE,
this was the first house of worship built upon
what is now the epicenter of the Jewish religion
and one of the holiest places on Earth
even 3,000 years later.
According to Jewish scripture,
the temple was commissioned by God Himself
who ordered King Solomon
to build a permanent resting place
for the Arc of the Covenant
containing the Ten Commandments.
Construction began on the First Temple
in the tenth century BCE.
It was destroyed by the Babylonians
in the sixth century BCE.
A second Jewish temple
was built on the site a few decades later
and lasted until the Romans destroyed it in 70 CE.
One of the holiest cities on Earth
was inevitably the site of many conflicts
and the Temple Mount is now home to the Dome of the Rock
and the al-Aqsa Mosque,
one of Islam's holiest sites.
The Western Wall, which protected the Second Temple,
still stands and is one of the most visited sites
in the world.
Basically the Machu Picchu of Sri Lanka,
Sigiriya is a fortress built on top of an extinct volcano.
A monastery sat atop the 200-meter plateau
from 300 BCE to 477 CE
when King Kasyapa I made it his royal residence.
He didn't simply enjoy the 360-degree view.
After overthrowing his father
and usurping his brother for the throne,
he knew an attack was coming
and he wanted the higher ground.
The elaborately beautiful gardens, fountains,
and frescos made his stay enjoyable,
but the giant lion statue
straddling the stairway to the citadel
failed to scare his brother away.
After Kasyapa's death,
Sigiriya became a Buddhist monastery again
until being abandoned in the 1400s.
The site was overgrown when British soldiers
brought outside attention to it beginning in 1831.
It was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1981.
If you ever visit, listen closely.
You'll likely hear a corny dad whispering,
"This place rocks," to his kids.
By far the oldest wonder on this list,
making it that much more wondrous,
is the Great Ziggurat of Ur.
Ziggurats were massive stepped structures
built in ancient Mesopotamia
and a likely precursor to the pyramid.
The GZ of U-- That's gonna catch on--
was built in what is modern-day Iraq
in around 2050 BCE
by the Sumerian King, Ur-Nammu.
It was 210 feet long and may have been over 100 feet tall
using over 700,000 handmade bricks,
each weighing up to 33 pounds.
It is a truly staggering accomplishment.
It was built as a shrine to Nanna,
the Sumerian moon god,
and citizens believed the gods lived like humans.
The ziggurat included a bedchamber, kitchen,
and chambers for human servants.
Like many ancient structures, it was destroyed and restored
several times over in its four millennia in existence,
but it is in remarkably good condition today--
the Tom Brady of the ancient wonders.
The statue of Zeus in Olympia
was a fitting monument to the king of the gods.
At over 40 feet tall,
it is more than twice the height of Abraham Lincoln
in the Lincoln Memorial.
Zeus was built in 450 CE
by the master sculptor Phidias
who had previously designed the Parthenon
and its statue of Athena.
Zeus's skin was made of ivory,
his hair and beard clad in gold.
This version of him seated bare-chested on a throne
is how he was represented in art for centuries.
Most significantly,
it attracted thousands of visitors
to the opening dedication
of the Panhellenic Olympic games
during a time when competing games were held.
Imagine Michael Phelps winning gold at the Isthmian Games.
According to legend,
when Phidias completed the statue,
he asked Zeus for a sign approval.
The temple was struck by lightning soon after--
a thank you fit for the gods.
There were a few versions
of the temple of Artemis in the Greek city of Ephesus
with varying opinions on which was better--
the Van Halen debate of the ancient world.
Building on the original temple
began in 550 BCE by master architect
Chersiphron of Knossos and his son
and took about a decade to complete.
It took one night in 356 BCE
for his marvel to be burned down
by an arsonist seeking infamy.
Mission unfortunately accomplished.
[crowd boos]
Construction on the new version
began six years later on the exact same spot.
And while some claim it was slightly smaller,
it was built to look more imposing
and allegedly took 120 years to build.
Many regarded this temple
as the most impressive of the ancient wonders--
425 feet long,
225 feet wide,
with 127 60-foot columns.
It was twice as big as the Parthenon in Athens.
It was destroyed in the third century CE,
and the remains weren't discovered by archaeologists
until the 1860s.
You know you've built something impressive when
the type of building takes your name moving forward.
That's what happened when the wife of Mausolus
built such a grand monument and tomb for him after he died
that afterward, any building,
especially a larger, stately one to house tombs
was called a mausoleum.
Built in 353 BC in modern-day Turkey,
the mausoleum combined Lycian, Greek,
and Egyptian architectural styles
and consisted of three rectangular layers:
a 60-foot base of steps,
middle layer of 36 Ionic columns,
and a pyramid-shaped roof.
In addition to its size,
it was made entirely of a striking, white marble
and decorated with 100 ornate statues
and a 20-foot marble four-horse chariot on top.
[horse neighs]
The Colossus at Rhodes,
a bronze statue of the Greek sun god Helios,
earned its moniker towering at 108 feet tall.
The Statue of Liberty is 150 feet tall
and modeled after the Colossus.
The Rhodies-- not an official nickname--
built the statue in celebration
of winning a year-long siege against the Macedonians,
selling off or melting down the tools and weapons
the losers left behind to fund the project.
It was designed by Chares the sculptor
and was completed in 280 BCE after 12 years.
Sadly, it only stood for less than 60 years
before toppling during an earthquake.
There are no surviving visual records of the statue,
so nobody actually knows for sure what it looked like,
but it's highly doubtful
it was straddling the opening of the harbor
as seen in some popular culture.
In addition to the tallest statue in the ancient world,
it also just inspired me to say "colossus" more.
Colossus.
If you heard a sailor say,
"I can see the light!" in 270 BCE, he wasn't dying.
You were just cruising towards the Lighthouse of Alexandria.
The towering beacon at the entrance
to the northern Egyptian city's harbors
stood at at least 310 feet tall
and could be seen on the water from up to 30 miles away.
The second-tallest structure in the world
made by human hands next to the Pyramids of Giza,
it was commissioned by Ptolemy I Soter
and built on a small island off the coast of Alexandria.
It took 20 years to complete.
It wasn't always a lighthouse,
but later writers described throughout the night,
a sailor on the waves will see
a great fire blazing from its summit
and it used a bronze mirror to reflect sunlight,
making it visible from even further out.
It stood for 1,600 years
before being topped by earthquakes.
Scholars aren't positive
that the Hanging Gardens of Babylon actually existed,
but its ancient descriptions are so magnificent,
we prefer to believe they did.
The concept of gardens,
i.e. planting for pleasure and not for food production,
was invented close to where the ancient city of Babylon
was located, southern Iraq today.
Back then, a garden was called a paradise.
As the legend goes, the Gardens of Babylon
were built by King Nebuchadnezzar II
around 600 BCE for his homesick wife.
So even if the gardens are a myth,
this is the very real origin story
of guys buying their wives flowers after they mess up.
The gardens, consisting of flowers, bushes, and trees,
were planted on a huge, 75-foot brick terrace
and on stone columns
surrounding visitors with exotic colors and smells.
Paradise indeed.
♪ ♪
[sighs] Aren't you exhausted
just thinking about building these incredible structures?
Ironic they've been immortalized
on this tiny screen.
Think we missed a lost ancient wonder?
Let us know in the comments below.
♪ ♪