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Why was the Taj Mahal built? How was the Golden Gate Bridge constructed? What were the ‘hanging gardens’? What is the world’s tallest building? If you want to know all about the wonders of the world, then you’ll find the answers to almost all the questions you can think of – and many more – inside this exciting book. There are 64 pages of bite-sized facts, brilliant illustrations and diagrams to tell you all about these incredible structures. No question is too tough to tackle, and no answer too difficult to explain. Focus On titles are the ultimate in addictive reading!
Citation preview
PHAR
AOH
THE
TITL
EOF
THE
ANCI
ENT
EGYP
TIAN
KING
S
SKYSCRAPER
A VERY TALL MULTI-STOREY BUILDING
ZEUST
GOD
OFTHE
ANCIEN
TGREEKS
Wondersof the World
Copyright © 2010 Top That! Publishing plcTide Mill Way, Woodbridge, Suffolk, IP12 1AP, UK
www.topthatpublishing.comTop That! is a trademark of Top That! Publishing plc
All rights reserved
2
The Pyramids ofGizaPages 4–5
The Statue ofZeus at OlympiaPages 6–7
The HangingGardens of BabylonPages 8–10
The Temple ofArtemisPages 11–13
The Mausoleum ofHalicarnassusPages 14–15
The Colossus ofRhodesPages 16–17
The Lighthouse ofAlexandriaPages 18–19
The Grand CanyonPages 20–22
The Northern LightsPages 23-25
The Volcano ofParicutinPages 26–28
Mount EverestPages 29–31
CONTENTS
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CONTENTSThe Colosseum inRomePages 32–33
The Great Wallof ChinaPages 34–36
The Taj MahalPages 37–39
The Masai MaraPages 46–47
The Petronas TowersPages 48–50
The Empire StateBuildingPages 57–59
The Golden GateBridgePages 60–61
TeotihuacanPages 43–45
The Panama CanalPages 51–53
The Itaipu DamPages 54–56
Machu PicchuPages 40–42
The Great Pyramid took twenty years to build duringPharaoh Khufu’s reign, around 2560 BC. Thousands ofslaves carved and carried two million stone blocks,each weighing over 1,814 kg (2 tons). Ramps wereused to drag the blocks into place. The pyramid wascovered in smooth stone – bits of which can still beseen near the top of Khefre’s pyramid.
4
The Great Pyramid of Khufu, or Cheops, was the tallest structure on Earthfor 43 centuries. It is both the oldest and the best preserved wonder of theancient world.
THE PYRAMIDS OF GIZA
How was the Great Pyramid built
Pyramids are found in Egypt
EGYPT
GizaCairo
What are the pyramids of Giza
Slaveshauling
large stoneblocks
The pyramids contain the tombs of ancient Egyptiankings or pharaohs. There are three large pyramids atGiza, a ‘necropolis’ or city of the dead, outside Cairo.The largest and oldest is the Great Pyramid of Khufu,or Cheops, which was once 145.75 m (481 ft) high.Nearby are the Pyramids of Khefre and Menkaure andthe famous Sphinx statue.
The pyramids have a very geometrical shape. The ancient Egyptians thought that using fixed shapes like thesquare, the circle and the triangle in their buildings would allow their civilisation to survive floods and droughts.They thought that the shape of the pyramid, reaching out to the stars, would bring the pharaoh closer to the godsand make him live forever.
What is the significance of the shape of the pyramids
5
What is the Sphinx
The magical statue of theSphinx at Giza has a lion’sbody and the face of PharaohKhefre. It is 73.5 m (241 ft)long and 20 m (65 ft) high.The Sphinx was carved out ofsolid rock around the time ofthe construction of the Pyramidof Khefre in 2555–2532 BC. The Sphinx at Giza
What is inside the Great Pyramid
Mysterious corridors and galleries lead to Khufu’sburial chamber at the heart of the pyramid. Thepyramid was so well designed that there is only 1 cm (one third of an inch) between the tomb andthe chamber walls. The galleries once containedbeautiful precious objects, but robbers have stoleneverything. Khufu’s servants may have been sacrificedinside the pyramid.
King’sburial
chamber
Grandgallery
Unfinishedchamber
The Great Pyramid at Giza
Queen’s chamber
Queen’s passage
6
To bring the god of thunderbolts to life and celebrate the Olympic Games, themost famous ancient Greek sculptor created an enormous golden statue.
What were the ancient Olympic Games
In Greek legend, godsand goddesses camefrom a mountain outsideOlympia, 70 km (43miles) from Athens. Everyyear from 776 BC to AD
391, wars stopped allover the Greek world andathletes came to Olympiafor competitive games inhonour of Zeus, ‘thefather of gods and men’.
THE STATUE OF ZEUS AT OLYMPIA
The ancient OlympicGames were held near
Athens
GREECE
Athens
Entrance to the original Olympic stadium, Olympia The impressive Statue of Zeus at Olympia
Zeus lived on mountain tops and in clouds, where hekept an eye on the other Olympian gods and naughtyhumans, too. Although he was the most important god,Zeus often had to zap other Olympians withthunderbolts to keep them in order. The Olympianswere definitely not ‘one big, happy family’: Zeus’sfather Kronos ate his own children!
Who was Zeus
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When was the Statue of Zeus built
In 430 BC, the sculptor Pheidias finished a terrifying13-m (42-ft) statue. The height of a four-storeybuilding, the statue barely fitted into the Temple ofZeus. Visitors had the statue’s feet at eye level. Zeuswas seated but looked as though he was about toexplode out of the temple. His flesh was ivory, hisdrapery gold, and his throne was decorated withprecious stones.
Pheidias built a wooden frame on which sheets ofmetal and ivory were placed. He sculpted and carvedthe different pieces of the statue in a workshop beforeassembling them in the temple. As the statue wasdesigned to be out of proportion to the temple, itlooked bigger than it was. For almost four hundredyears, it fascinated everyone who saw it.
How was the Statue built
What happened to theStatue of Zeus
The Olympic Games were outlawed in AD 391 by theChristian Emperor Theodosius I. The temple was closedand then badly damaged by earthquakes, landslidesand floods. In the fifth century AD, the ruined statuewas taken to a palace in Constantinople, where it wasunfortunately destroyed by fire in AD 462.
The Statue of Zeusheld a figure of thewinged goddess ofvictory in one hand.Her name was Nike,which is where thesports brand-namecomes from!
FACT BYTES
Pheidias also made the marble sculptureson the Parthenon inAthens. These areknown as the ElginMarbles and cantoday be seen in the British Museumin London.
FACT BYTES
The ruined Temple of Zeus
8
The massive walled city of Babylon was full of wonders, but none could matchthe Hanging Gardens, the greatest example of hydraulic engineering in theancient world.
Where was Babylon
Babylon was built onthe banks of the RiverEuphrates in Iraq.This area is called‘the cradle ofcivilisation’, becausethe world’s first citieswere constructedthere. Babylon hadmassive walls, onehundred bronze gatesand brightly tiledbuildings full of golden statues of the god Marduk. The91-m (300-ft), multi-coloured Tower of Babel stood atthe city’s heart.
THE HANGING GARDENS OF BABYLON
Who built the Hanging Gardens
In 570 BC, KingNebuchadnezzar II builtan enormous terracedgarden next to his palace,to please his wife Amyitis.Nebuchadnezzar was a great militarycommander, and wasvery proud of makingBabylon the mostbeautiful city in the world.Bricks in Babylon borethe inscription‘Nebuchadnezzarmade this’.
Babylon, on the RiverEuphrates
IRAQ
Babylon
King Nebuchadnezzar
The Hanging Gardens were built on an 24-m (80-ft) high, man-made hill. The hilltop was packed with beautifuland exotic trees and flowers. The hill was actually a series of terraces – also full of flowers and plants – supportedby strong pillars. Ingenious machines called chain pumps helped to irrigate the garden. Although the gardensdidn’t really ‘hang’ the name probably came from a Greek word meaning ‘overhanging’ and they must havebeen an impressive sight with their beautiful plants overhanging terraces and arches.
Why were the Hanging Gardens so special
The ancient historianHerodotus believedthat when Babyloniansdied they were buriedin honey. Sweet, butdefinitely untrue!
FACT BYTESThe beautiful Hanging Gardens at Babylon
As Babylonian records make no mention of theHanging Gardens, they may have been a myth.However, archaeologists have discovered possibleevidence of garden cellars and chain pumps. The RiverEuphrates would have provided the water needed forthe plants which would have been transported inbuckets on the chain pump.
Why might the HangingGardens be a myth
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Two wheels, one above the other, were connected bya chain, on which buckets were hung. When slavesturned the lower wheel, the buckets dipped into theRiver Euphrates and picked up water. The chain thenlifted thebuckets tothe upperwheel,where theyfed waterchannelsrunningdownthrough theGardens.
How did chain pumps work
The Hanging Gardens were irrigated with waterfrom the River Euphrates
The chain pump mechanism
What happened to the Gardens
The Hanging Gardenswere first described whenthe warrior-king Alexanderthe Great invaded in 331BC. By the time of thePersian invasion in thesecond century BC, theHanging Gardens haddisappeared, along withthe city of Babylon.
Alexander the Great
FACT BYTES
Babylon got allits food from thenearby Plain ofEdin, which isthe Bible’sGarden of Eden
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Antipater of Sidon, the man who listed the Seven Wonders of the World in thesecond century BC, thought that this was the best of them all!
THE TEMPLE OF ARTEMIS
Why was the Templeso impressive
The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus – on Turkey’sMediterranean coast – was built in about 550 BC.It was enormous and made out of marble. The Templewas 80 m (260 ft) wide, 130 m (420 ft) long and had127 18-m (60-ft) high columns. The overall height ofthe Temple was 24 m (80 ft). The Temple housed fourhuge bronze statues of warrior women, or Amazons.
Baghdad
TURKEYAnkara
Izmir
AdanaEphesus
The Temple of Artemis is at Ephesus
Who was Artemis
Artemis was the Greekgoddess of hunting andfertility. According to legend,she was friendly to humans,especially children, and alsoprotected animals. At night,she was supposed to dancethrough the countryside, firingarrows of moonlight from asilver bow. Artemis was stillvery popular in the earlydays of Christianity.
Statue of the Greek goddess Artemis
The ruins of the Temple of Artemis
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Who was Herostratus
In 356 BC, a man in Ephesus called Herostratus wasobsessed with becoming famous. He burned down theTemple of Artemis so that everyone would talk abouthim, but the authorities made it illegal to say his name!The Temple burned down on the night that Alexanderthe Great was born. Legend says that Artemis was toobusy at the birth to save her own temple.
When was the Temple rebuilt
When Alexander the Great conquered Asia Minor, hehelped rebuild the Temple, which was finished by 335BC. In AD 262, Goths destroyed the Temple, but Artemiswas still so popular that the Ephesians vowed to rebuildit. For some reason, they never did.
Why did the Temple become animportant Christian site
St Paul preached inthe Temple in the firstcentury AD and wasalmost attacked by theangry worshippers ofArtemis. Legend hasit that the Virgin Mary,accompanied by StPaul, came to Ephesusat the end of herlife, sometime betweenAD 37 and AD 45.St John is said to havelived the last years ofhis life nearby.
Statue of the Virgin Mary
Why are there only sevenwonders of the ancient world
In ancient times, the number seven was thought to bethe purest of numbers – which is why Antipater ofSidon included only seven wonders on his list!
Marble statues,Ephesus
Museum,Seljuk, Turkey
FACT BYTES
Some of the remains of the Temple of Artemis can beseen in the Ephesus Museum, Turkey and the BritishMuseum, London.
To purchase this book and others in theseries, vistit www.topthatpublishing.com.
Why was the Taj Mahal built?How was the Golden Gate Bridge
constructed? What were the ‘hanginggardens’? What is the world’s tallest building?
If you want to know all about the wondersof the world, then you’ll find the answers to almost
all the questions you can think of – and many more – inside this exciting book.
There are 64 pages of bite-sized facts, brilliant illustrations and diagrams to tell you all about these
incredible structures. No question is too toughto tackle, and no answer too difficult to explain.
Focus On titles are theultimate in addictive reading!
Published by Top That! Publishing plcCopyright © 2010 Top That!Publishing plcTide Mill Way, Woodbridge,Suffolk, IP12 1AP, UKwww.topthatpublishing.comTop That! is a registered trademark of Top That! Publishing plcAll rights reserved.0 2 4 6 8 9 7 5 3 1Printed and bound in China
