Virtual travel to 'The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World'
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AT our second Zoom general assembly last Thursday, April 1, Dr Angela Chantry enthralled us with a virtual travel holiday to 'The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World' - following in the footsteps of intrepid tourists from Ancient Greece.
These ancient wonders were all located in the Mediterranean rim that was subsequently captured by Alexander The Great in his exploits to spread Greek civilisation to the ‘world’ as he knew it. This is an epic first package tour by foot, horse, camel, felucca and boat – with, as Angela advised, tourist guides, even in those days, willing to show you the sites in exchange for your money and street vendors along the route peddling their souvenirs!
We started our journey from Athens in the 2nd century BC, when Angela advised all seven ‘wonders’, or ‘things to be seen’ as they were originally called, all existed. We travel westward some 210 miles to the Peloponnesus and a site called Olympia for the season of the games, which first began in 776 BC, to visit the statue of Zeus in his temple.
We then take a merchant ship eastward 300 miles to the island of Rhodes, where the 30m-high metal clad statue of Colossus reportedly stood astride the entrance to the port for 56 years before it was destroyed by an earthquake. Modern archaeological research suggests the statue probably stood on a breakwater of the harbour, or perhaps at the Acropolis of Rhodes.
Another boat takes us north to Ephesus in Asia Minor (modern day Turkey), to the Temple of Artemis with its 127 columns protecting the Goddess of Fertility – symbolised by the spherical objects covering her lower chest, not female breasts as originally thought but rather the testicles of bulls.
Then southwards down the coast to Halicarnassus to visit the Mausoleum, the top of which formed a 24-step pyramid surmounted by a four-horse marble chariot. The Mausoleum stood above the city for 16 centuries before it was destroyed by a series of earthquakes and subsequently replaced with a Crusader fort known as Bodrum Castle or the Castle of Saint Peter.
Southwards across the Mediterranean brings us to Alexandria, where the Great Pharos (lighthouse) stood at the harbour, shining its light 35km out to sea to guide the ships safely to the port. This was also destroyed by earth tremors and quakes and now lies on the seabed just offshore.
A felucca (a traditional wooden sailing boat) then takes us up the river Nile, to the white limestone clad Great Giza pyramids. The pyramids were originally connected by covered causeways to mortuary temples in the valley below, with landing stages connected to the Nile by a canal. At some 48 storeys high it was the tallest structure in the world until Lincoln Cathedral was built many thousands of years later.
We return north, through Alexandria then by ship to Antioch, in ancient Syria, before taking a camel train to Babylon (now Iraq), near the confluence of the rivers Tigris and Euphrates. This city of fortresses and temples, reportedly contained immense statues of solid gold, and may also have been the home of the 91.5m-high Tower of Babel. The Hanging Gardens are not referenced by many authors and would have required mechanical lifting equipment to provide them with water. Saddam Hussein (or Nebuchadnezzar III as he liked to be known) began the reconstruction of the ancient city of Babylon, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
After sending the obligatory ‘Wish You Were Here’ post cards, the weary travellers returned to Greece – and for us, virtual tourists, to a coffee.
What an amazing journey, and our grateful thanks to Angela for sharing it via Zoom with her state-of-the-art presentation.
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