The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World (Hardcover)

Their names still echo down the ages: the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. The Colossus at Rhodes. The Lighthouse of Alexandria. The statue of Zeus at Olympia. The temple of Artemis. The mausoleum of Halicarnassus. The Seven Wonders of the World were staggeringly audacious impositions on our planet. But no monument could prove a match for the might of mother earth. In 1303 CE an earthquake shook the glittering, limestone casing stones loose from the Great Pyramid at Giza and brought the remains of the towering Pharos lighthouse crashing to the ground. Now only the pyramid remains. Yet the scale and majesty of these seven wonders still enthral us today. In a thrilling, colourful narrative enriched with the latest archaeological discoveries, bestselling historian Bettany Hughes tells the story of the ancient world through its legendary achievements in engineering technology, sophisticated planning and religious devotion. Each wonder is an adventures of the mind, a test case of the reaches of human imagination during antiquity and a demonstration of our awesome compulsion to make and modify the world in our image. Taking readers on a journey through landscapes of both ancient and modern, Hughes discovers why we wonder, why we create, and why we choose to remember the wonder of others.