Pre-History - The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World

Have you heard of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World? These are seven impressive objects built between the years 3000 B.C.E. and 200 B.C.E. The ancient Greeks were the first to make a list of these wonders. They were known for making lists of things they thought were impressive. From the Greeks, this list has been passed down through the centuries.

Starting with the oldest, here are the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World and some facts about each one.

1. The Great Pyramid of Giza

Where is it?

The Great Pyramid is located in Giza, Egypt.

When was it built?

It was built around 2600 B.C.E.

Facts:

The Great Pyramid stands at 450 feet high. The base covers 13 acres. This is the only one of the ancient wonders that is still standing. You could visit it today!

2. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon

Where were they?

The Hanging Gardens were located in Babylon, an ancient city in what is now Iraq.

When were they built?

They were built around 600 B.C.E.

Facts:

The Hanging Gardens are the only ancient wonder on this list that might not have been real. It is said that the gardens were built by King Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylonia. The story is that he built them to comfort his wife. The gardens hung in the air from an elaborate stone building. Some parts might have been 75 feet high. Unfortunately, no trace of the gardens exists today.

3. The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus

Where was it?

The Temple of Artemis was located in Ephesus, which is now a part of Turkey.

When was it built?

It was built in 550 B.C.E.

Facts:

This temple, dedicated to the Greek goddess Artemis, was one of the biggest temples of the ancient world. It was made out of marble. It had over 100 columns. It was destroyed once by fire and then rebuilt around 350 B.C.E. The temple was destroyed again in 262 C.E.

4. The Statue of Zeus

Where was it?

The Statue of Zeus was located in Olympia, Greece.

When was it built?

It was built around 457 B.C.E.

Facts:

Zeus was the Greek ruler of the gods. This statue of him was one of the most famous statues in the ancient world. Made out of ivory and gold, it was an impressive 40 feet high. A fire destroyed the statue around 450 C.E.

5. The Mausoleum of Halicarnassus

Where was it?

The Mausoleum of Halicarnassus was located in what is now the country of Turkey.

When was it built?

It was built around 353 B.C.E.

Facts:

The word "mausoleum" comes from this huge white marble tomb. The tomb held the remains of Mausolus, a ruler of the Persian Empire. It stood 135 feet high. Its base had 36 columns. Today, some ruins from the mausoleum are in the British Museum.

6. The Colossus of Rhodes

Where was it?

The Colossus of Rhodes was located in Rhodes, an island in what is now Greece.

When was it built?

It was built sometime between 292 and 280 B.C.E.

Facts:

The Colossus was a statue of the Greek sun god Helios. It stood at the entrance to the harbor at Rhodes. The statue was made of bronze, and it took 12 years to build. It stood 100 feet tall, about as big as the Statue of Liberty. An earthquake destroyed the Colossus in 226 B.C.E.

7. The Pharos Lighthouse of Alexandria

Where was it?

The Pharos Lighthouse was located in Alexandria, Egypt.

When was it built?

It was built around 280 B.C.E.

Facts:

This lighthouse stood around 400 feet tall in Alexandria’s harbor. The light that guided ships at night was actually a huge fire burning at the very top. An earthquake destroyed the lighthouse over 500 years ago. Then, in 1994, divers found what they believed were the remains of the lighthouse in Alexandria’s harbor.

Learning the Fan Dance

Ava rushed home from school. She couldn’t wait to tell her parents the news.

“Umma!” she called as she opened the door and kicked off her shoes. “The International Fair is in two weeks! Can we make dumplings again?”

But Ava was startled when she reached the kitchen. Her aunt, Sunny, was sitting at the table!

“Eeeeemo!” she cried. “I’m so excited that you are here!”

“And I’m thrilled to see you, Ava! Tell me about the fair.”

“It’s really cool! Last year, we had tables with food from all these different countries like Mexico, India, and China. I saw tons of souvenirs and pictures and other stuff from all around the world. And there were kids who sang songs and performed dances!”

“That sounds like great fun,” her aunt said. “Wait… did you say dances?”

Ava nodded, remembering that Sunny Eemo was a professional dancer. She was part of a troupe that went around the world performing traditional Korean music and dance. Ava had watched many videos of Eemo’s beautiful performances over the years. Ava always admired Eemo’s grace, and even wished she knew how to move the same way.

Eemo smiled and said, “Ava, what if I teach you and some friends how to do a traditional fan dance?”

“That’s a great idea, Eemo!”

The next day, Ava invited five friends to her home for a dance lesson. Her aunt brought out a big bag of folding fans made of white fabric. The fans were painted with bright pink and green flowers. They had wooden handles and pink feathers on the edges.

“Wow!” Ava’s friend Djamila exclaimed as she opened her fan slowly. “This is so pretty!”

“Yes, and this is how you open it,” Sunny Eemo said, with a quick flick of her wrist.

The girls practiced flicking the fans open. It wasn’t easy! They kept trying, laughing as they went along. Soon, everyone was able to open and close the fans with a satisfying “snap.”

Next, Sunny Eemo turned on music. Then she demonstrated some slow, graceful steps across the room. As she turned, she opened and closed the fans she was holding.

“The patterns you will make as you dance will look like ocean waves, or flowers, or a butterfly,” she told the girls. “It is like you are welcoming good spirits and shooing away bad luck.”

Sunny Eemo showed the girls how to move and position the fans in front of their faces. Sometimes they would spin and raise their arms high over their heads, with the fans open, and then suddenly close the fans and spin faster.

After they had practiced for a week, the day of the fair arrived. Carmen, Brianna, Djamila, CeCe, Taneisha, and Ava pulled their hair back into braids. Then they put on Korean dresses, called hanboks. Sunny Eemo placed small gold crown headpieces on their heads and positioned them onstage.

When the curtains opened, the audience gasped. The girls stood in a circle. Two crouched low in front, while the others stood at the back. Slowly, they turned as a circle. With their fans open, the girls looked like a smooth, rolling wave that shimmered with the beat of the music.

The audience loved their dance! Ava smiled at her friends as they opened and closed their fans, and danced close to, then away from, each other.

They had learned so much in just a few days!

Hawaii's Traditional Hula Dance

The Hula is a traditional Hawaiian dance. It is known partly for its smooth and graceful movements of the arms, hands, and hips. Hula dancers often mimic movements from nature. Their movements may look like trees in the wind or waves in the water. The dancers also tell a story with their movements. Chants, or mele, go along with the movements to help tell the story.

There are many beliefs as to how the hula dance originated. One Hawaiian religious story says that Pele, the volcano goddess, danced the first hula dance. According to this belief, Pele was running from her sister, the goddess of the oceans. She was trying to find a place where she couldn’t be touched by the ocean waves. She finally found such a place. It was a chain of craters on the island of Hawaii. There, Pele danced the first hula to show that she had beaten her sister!

Although people today dance the hula freely, the dance was actually banned during part of the 1800s. It was banned by Christian missionaries who arrived in Hawaii in 1820. Before then, the hula was used in religious ceremonies. But the missionaries did not approve of the religious ceremonies the people of Hawaii were holding, or the dancing that went with them. After it was banned, the dance continued to be taught and danced secretly. But as more Hawaiians started becoming Christians, the dance became a dying part of Hawaiian culture.

All of this changed during the reign of Hawaii’s last king, David Kalakaua. He was the king from 1874 to 1891. He encouraged hula dancing to come back out into the open. As a result, the dance resurfaced, now with new movements, costumes, and song. Today, the hula tradition lives on in Hawaii.