Helen Bellflower, age 14, of Twin Falls, Ida., for her question:
WHAT ARE THE SEVEN WONDERS OF THE ANCIENT WORLD?
Included on most lists of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World are the Pyramids of Egypt, the Hanging Gardens of, Babylon, the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, the Statue of Zeus, the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, the Colossus of Rhodes and the Lighthouse of Alexandria.
The pyramids of Egypt, built as tombs for Egyptian kings, are the oldest and best preserved of all the ancient wonders.
No positive trace of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon remains but scholars know about them from reports. They were laid out on a brick terrace about 400 feet square and 75 feet above the ground. A massive brick wall enclosed the garden that was filled with flowers and trees.
The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus was built about 550 B.C. and it was one of the most complicated buildings of ancient times. Made of marble, it had a tile covered wooden roof. It was 377 by 180 feet and had 106 columns about 40 feet high in double rows around the court.
The statue of Zeus at Olympia, Greece, was made about 435 B.C. It was 40 feet high, and showed Zeus on his throne. The ornaments were made of gold and the flesh was ivory. Zeus held a figure of victory in his right hand and a scepter with an eagle in his left.
The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus is in what is now southwestern Turkey. The tomb was about 135 feet high. It had a basement beneath a colonade formed by 36 columns. Four famous sculptors carved a frieze, or decorated band, on the building.
The Colossus of Rhodes was a huge bronze statue that stood near the harbor of Rhodes on the Aegean Sea. It stood about 120 feet tail, which is about as high as the Statue of Liberty. The sculptor, Chares, worked 12 years on it in the early 200s B. C.
The Lighthouse of Alexandria stood on the island of Pharos in the harbor of Alexandria, Egypt. The structure, designed about 270 B.C., was about 440 feet high. The bottom was square, the middle eight sided and the top was circular. A fire on top provided light.
World travelers and explorers have come up with a list of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World: Mount Everest on the Nepal Tibet border, Victoria Falls on the Rhodesia Zambia border, the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River, the Great Barrier Reef of Australia (which is the world's largest coral formation), the caves in France and Spain with their prehistoric paintings, the young volcano Paricutin in Mexico and the harbor at Rio de Janeiro.
Many other natural wonders are often listed, such as the giant sequoia trees in California, Rainbow Natural Bridge of Utah, Yellowstone Fails in Yellowstone National Park, Crater Lake and Wizard Island in Oregon and the Carlsbad Cavern of New Mexico.
World travelers and explorers have also come up with a list of the Seven Modern Wonders of the World: the Suez Canal, Dneproges Dam on the Dnepr River in Russia, the Atomic Energy Research Establishment at Harwell, England, the Alaska (or Aican) Highway that connects Alaska with Canadian and other U.S. highways, the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, the Eiffel Tower in Paris and the Empire State Building in New York City.