Surviving Great Wonders (aside from the Pyramids)

The Seven Great Wonders, even if its basically an Ancient Greek travel guide, represents some of Western Antiquity's greatest architectural and artistic achievements. But as my title implies, the only one still standing is the Pyramids. So assuming we can have as few butterflies as possible, how many of these can survive as long as possible, and how?

I'll list and describe:

1. Great Pyramid (Giza) -- Still exists, as much as ISIS wishes they could destroy it.
2. Hanging Gardens (Babylon) -- Likely never existed, probably was the earliest to be destroyed if it ever did exist. Likely the hardest to save (since that might very well require it to be built to begin with).
3. Temple of Artemis (Ephesus) -- Ignoring the more famous destruction by Herostratus, the rebuilt temple was destroyed by the Goths in the late 3rd century. If it survived, it would face an uncertain future in an increasingly Christian Roman Empire, but maybe it could be converted into a church like the Parthenon and enjoy a similar history instead of total destruction?
4. Statue of Zeus (Olympia) -- One hell of a statue, but it faces a lot of the same challenges as the Temple of Artemis, and actually survived long enough to face them. It needs to be converted into a church, and the statue needs to somehow survive. The building surviving is much easier than the statue surviving, of course. However, there is the off-chance that if the building survives, a nice replica may be built somewhere else in time, using the example of the Parthenon replica in Nashville, Tennessee.
5. The Colossus (Rhodes) -- It's not gonna survive standing up. Some earthquake will knock it down since it's in an earthquake zone after all. Someone needs to rebuild it with better engineering, but even that might be difficult to save it from a future earthquake. And at some point, wouldn't someone want to melt it down, be it Christians, invading Muslims, anyone?
6. Mausoleum of Mausolus (Halicarnassus) -- Very likely to survive. A less chaotic Medieval Anatolia could help the building survive, although it seems like it would need many repairs by the early modern age and be much like the Parthenon.
7. Great Lighthouse of Alexandria. -- The most likely to survive of the destroyed Wonders. Earthquakes damaged it, but it wasn't finished off until the Mamluks rebuilt the remnants into a fortress after another major earthquake. If kept repaired, and with an Egypt more or less stable from internal and external threats for most of history, the Great Lighthouse could survive, and keep its original use for most of history, even if the "modern" Lighthouse looks different than the version from Antiquity thanks to centuries of rebuilding. Perhaps the saddest loss of the Great Wonders.

Thoughts on this list? Effects on future tourism, architecture, development of nations? The Great Lighthouse could be one hell of a tourist attraction on Egypt, and possibly symbolic enough to put on the flag since the building looks so damn cool.

With as few butterflies as possible, I think we can have the Pyramids and the Great Lighthouse survive more or less intact, while the Mausoleum, Temple of Artemis, and Statue of Zeus (the building) survive but as very impressive ruins (like the Colosseum or Parthenon). The country controlling Rhodes rebuilds the Colossus to attract tourism (an OTL plan). And hell, maybe we can have whoever controls Babylon or a nearby city (Ctesiphon, Baghdad?) build a recreation of the Hanging Gardens in response to Rhodes. I wouldn't be surprised if OTL Saddam Hussein ever thought it would be a good idea to (re)build them, so why not another ruler of Mesopotamia?

Overall thoughts?
 
The Colosseum was partially cannibalized as a handy source of high quality stonework and marble in the middle ages and the Parthenon suffered a powerful explosion after the Ottomans decided to use it as gunpowder storage on the basis that 'the Venetians wouldn't fire on that' and were subsequently proven wrong on that point. That it survived the resulting explosion is a testament to the ancient Athenians' build quality.

Perhaps an earlier ruler (re)builds the Hanging gardens - perhaps a Persian shah who wishes to make a grand gesture towards the Mesopotamians after being on shaky ground after a succession war and believes that pumping money into restoring Babylon would be just the ticket.
 
The Colosseum was partially cannibalized as a handy source of high quality stonework and marble in the middle ages and the Parthenon suffered a powerful explosion after the Ottomans decided to use it as gunpowder storage on the basis that 'the Venetians wouldn't fire on that' and were subsequently proven wrong on that point. That it survived the resulting explosion is a testament to the ancient Athenians' build quality.

Certainly, it's all nice architecture, and it suggests some of those buildings must've went through hell to not survive in any real form.
 
The Hanging Gardens always seemed to me to be temples with window boxes!
Perhaps best way to have it or copies survive would be to enjoin priests and perhaps followers to maintain gardens themselves even if only window boxes.
Would have a dramatic effect on the health and size of cities and citizens!
 

PhilippeO

Banned
They might be not that impressive to modern eye.

Hanging Garden (if exist) is simply ziggurat with garden at balcony. with many skyscraper, ziggurat would look rather low height to Modern eye.
and with plant gone, it would similar to others ruined ziggurat.

LightHouse of Alexandria would likely eclipsed by dozen others lighthouse during 18th century. Due to change of shoreline, it might even not located anywhere near sea. It would just be not very tall stone tower in city suburb.

Archeologist and his5orian might not even certain that they is THE Hanging Garden or THE Lighthouse of Alexandria. There are dozens of ziggurat in Mesopotamia, and Alexandria would likely have dozens lighthouse during its 2000th years history.
 
They might be not that impressive to modern eye.

Hanging Garden (if exist) is simply ziggurat with garden at balcony. with many skyscraper, ziggurat would look rather low height to Modern eye.
and with plant gone, it would similar to others ruined ziggurat.

LightHouse of Alexandria would likely eclipsed by dozen others lighthouse during 18th century. Due to change of shoreline, it might even not located anywhere near sea. It would just be not very tall stone tower in city suburb.

Archeologist and his5orian might not even certain that they is THE Hanging Garden or THE Lighthouse of Alexandria. There are dozens of ziggurat in Mesopotamia, and Alexandria would likely have dozens lighthouse during its 2000th years history.

I've never heard the theory that the Great Lighthouse never existed. If it didn't, whatever was regarded as the Great Lighthouse was obviously Alexandria's most impressive lighthouse throughout the centuries. All the reconstructions I've seen would certainly look impressive to the modern eye, although there's always the feel of "overrated" many viewers might get since it could easily be a tourist trap.

And human nature has a knack for making unimpressive monuments and other artwork, manmade and natural, impressive based on the reputation they have, going by my own visit to Niagara Falls, and accounts I've heard of places like Stonehenge, viewings of the Mona Lisa, etc. The reputation alone of "This is over 2,000 years old and still this impressive" would be more than enough to offset any complaint. And that goes for the other wonders too, especially the ones tied to Ancient Greek religion and culture and not something more enduring on its scale alone, like the Pyramids, the Pharos, and the Colossus.

Also, it's definitely by the sea, since there's chunks of the Great Lighthouse in Alexandria's harbour and the final site of the Lighthouse is known to be very close to the sea. Even if it falls out of use, I think a sympathetic government in the early modern era could find a good use for the still impressive building, since it would be the tallest building there, assuming they rebuild it instead of plundering it for stone. And it would still be one of the tallest buildings in modern Alexandria, if Alexandria builds few tall buildings as OTL Alexandria or indeed, many Mediterannean cities.

It is likely a reconstruction of the Great Lighthouse would occur at some point, judging by the work done on other such monuments. It would probably end up like what happened with the Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacan--an overdramatic renovation of the original work.

The Hanging Gardens you may be right--that's a theory I've heard as well. It would be sad if we could know the exact ziggurat which inspired the legend of the Hanging Gardens, but everyone would rather go see some crazy replica based on the wildest legends created by some ruler who probably has too much oil money to spend.
 
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2. Hanging Gardens (Babylon) -- Likely never existed, probably was the earliest to be destroyed if it ever did exist. Likely the hardest to save (since that might very well require it to be built to begin with).

I've seen a theory that the Gardens were actually at Nineveh to the north, which makes sense because (a) Assyrian inscriptions show that Nineveh did indeed have a set of very impressive gardens, and (b) ancient Greek and Roman historians tended to be a bit hazy on the difference between Assyria and Babylonia, making it quite plausible that a monument in one country could get mistakenly assigned to the other.
 
2. Hanging Gardens (Babylon) -- Likely never existed, probably was the earliest to be destroyed if it ever did exist. Likely the hardest to save (since that might very well require it to be built to begin with).

I may be mistaken but weren't the Walls of Babylon one of the wonders? It would be quite more reasonable to expect them to survive than the supposed Gardens.
 
I've seen a theory that the Gardens were actually at Nineveh to the north, which makes sense because (a) Assyrian inscriptions show that Nineveh did indeed have a set of very impressive gardens, and (b) ancient Greek and Roman historians tended to be a bit hazy on the difference between Assyria and Babylonia, making it quite plausible that a monument in one country could get mistakenly assigned to the other.

Another theory, but unfortunately Nineveh didn't have too good a run of things after the end of the Assyrian period. I'm pretty sure they were already doing archaeology there in Antiquity, and the successor Mosul wasn't particularly impressive until the Islamic period.

Honestly, I don't see they can survive, since in all likelihood--Nineveh or Babylon--they were destroyed before any of the other five wonders were built.

I may be mistaken but weren't the Walls of Babylon one of the wonders? It would be quite more reasonable to expect them to survive than the supposed Gardens.

There's multiple versions of the Seven Wonders of Antiquity list, but the Wonders I've listed seem to be the "canonical" ones from everything I've read.
 
Another theory, but unfortunately Nineveh didn't have too good a run of things after the end of the Assyrian period. I'm pretty sure they were already doing archaeology there in Antiquity, and the successor Mosul wasn't particularly impressive until the Islamic period.

Honestly, I don't see they can survive, since in all likelihood--Nineveh or Babylon--they were destroyed before any of the other five wonders were built.



There's multiple versions of the Seven Wonders of Antiquity list, but the Wonders I've listed seem to be the "canonical" ones from everything I've read.

Well it may be a better case for hanging gardens to be constructed in Elam. They certainly are in a better position, had they not fooled around with Assyria, to weather the tide of destruction Assyria and Babylonia would face.

The least likely to last in my opinion is the Colossus of Rhodes. After it collapses several times, they will simply build elsewhere.

Mind you, almost all of these with the exception of the Colossus of Rhodes and the Hanging Gardens, would survive to some extent in a continued Eastern Roman Empire with a servile and preferably eastward focused Iranian power. Perhaps, Iran becomes focused in on conquered large portions of India while simultaneously defending itself from Turkic nomads.
 
Yeah, but a stronger Elam would mean butterflies which could have prevented the other five monuments from being constructed. I think that's why the best option for the Hanging Gardens is going the inauthentic route and having an oil-rich dictator/nationalist build their own version of the Hanging Gardens long after Antiquity, which would no doubt excite the eye (and award a lot of acclaim to whichever architect designed it). Would've been interesting if Saddam had ever gotten as far as drafting plans for a new "Hanging Gardens" (it's feasible he might've gotten that far if he had better priorities than OTL), let alone actually get around to building them.

Definitely, the Colossus has too many issues. And India is an obvious route for a Persian empire to expand into due to its wealth.
 
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