Episode
The Seven Wonders of the World: Who Actually Decided?
- Podcast
- Smile with Daniel
- Published
- Jul 24, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 520
- Processing state
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- https://rss.com/podcasts/smile-with-daniel/3020286
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Summary
Daniel wants to know what the Seven Wonders of the World are. And who decided. The answer is more complicated than he expected. There is no single official list. There are many -- but the two that people usually mean are the ancient Seven Wonders and a modern list announced in 2007. And the stories of how each was created could not be more different. The ancient list. More than two thousand years ago, Greek writers around the Mediterranean began compiling lists of extraordinary sights -- almost like ancient travel recommendations. Several writers made their own versions. Their lists were not identical. Over the centuries, one combination became the standard we recognize today: the Great Pyramid of Giza, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Temple of Artemis, the Statue of Zeus at Olympia, the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, the Colossus of Rhodes, and the Lighthouse of Alexandria. Only one still stands substantially intact. The Great Pyramid. The others were destroyed over the centuries by earthquakes, fires, warfare, and time. Archaeologists have found remains of several -- but none still looks as it did in the ancient world. And the Hanging Gardens of Babylon may not have existed at Babylon at all. No convincing remains have been found there. Some historians think they were legendary. Others think the accounts may describe gardens that existed at Nineveh instead. One of the most famous wonders may have been in the wrong city -- or may never have existed as described. There is also something worth noticing about the ancient list. Because it came from Greek and Mediterranean writers, it reflected the part of the world those writers knew. Monuments in India and China, achievements in the Americas, extraordinary structures beyond their cultural horizon -- none of these appear…