Seven Wonders of the Ancient World

Main article: Seven Wonders of the Ancient World

The Great Pyramid of Giza, the only wonder of the ancient world still in existence.

The Colosseum in Rome.

The Great Wall of China.

Hagia Sophia.

Taj Mahal.

Golden Gate Bridge.

Chichen Itza.

Old City of Jerusalem.

The Aurora Borealis or Northern Lights.

Grand Canyon

The Great Barrier Reef.

The London sewerage system's original Abbey Mills pumping station.

Machu Picchu.

The historian Herodotus (484 – ca. 425 BCE), and the scholar Callimachus of Cyrene (ca. 305 – 240 BCE) at the Museum of Alexandria, made early lists of seven wonders but their writings have not survived, except as references. The seven wonders included:

• Great Pyramid of Giza
• Hanging Gardens of Babylon
• Statue of Zeus at Olympia
• Temple of Artemis at Ephesus
• Mausoleum of Maussollos at Halicarnassus
• Colossus of Rhodes
• Lighthouse of Alexandria

The earliest lists had the Ishtar Gate as the seventh wonder of the world instead of the Lighthouse of Alexandria.
The list that we know today was compiled in the Middle Ages—by which time many of the sites were no longer in existence. Today, the only ancient world wonder that still exists is the Great Pyramid of Giza.

Syrian Tell Halaf sculptures reconstructed

Conservators in Berlin  have reconstructed 30 basalt sculptures from Tell Halaf, Syria, which were damaged by by Allied bombs during WWII.

A group of 30 monumental sculptures from Tell Halaf, in Syria, have been reconstructed after being pulverised into 25,000 fragments in a bombing raid in World War II. Dating from soon after 1000 BC, the basalt statues were on display in Berlin until a combination of fire and water caused devastating damage.

Following the war, there were legal and political problems in even considering restoration. Although the reunification of Germany in 1990 eased the difficulties, conservators initially feared that reconstruction of the sculptures would be impossible. However, the painstaking work eventually began in 2002 and is finally nearing completion