Discovery Channel - Seven Wonders of the World (1994) Part 1 Simply The Best

Two statues, a temple, a hanging garden, two tombs and a lighthouse. This selection of monuments became known as “The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World”. There are probably few who could list them right away, are even fewer who know something about each of them or the reasons for which they were labeled as Wonders. Six of those seven were destroyed by forces of nature, or by human hand. Each episode in this series describes one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and we see besides the monuments themselves the people who designed and built them, with the vision to create something wonderful.

Now they exist only within the precise, rectangular pits of excavated remains that capture a once-powerful dream whose images continue to echo around us. But, centuries ago, the Seven Wonders of the World were advertisements for a contemporary, thrilling, and heroic way of life, the finest examples of a brand-new civic architecture, the ancestors of every modern city on the planet. Here is the history behind these legendary lost structures: the enormous statue to the Greek god Zeus, carved by Phidias and holding a figure of Victory in one hand and a scepter in the other; the Colossus of Rhodes, a tribute to freedom looking up to Olympus and over the sea; the elegant lighthouse on the island of Pharos in Alexandria; the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, adorned with numerous statues and carvings; the many-tiered Hanging Gardens of Babylon; the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, as beautiful as the goddess for whom it was named; and the eternal Pyramids and the Rise of Wonder.

Journey back to the ancient world to discover it's man-made Wonders. Each wonder is recreated with computer animation, and your host, author and archaeologist, John Romer examines the historical background of these ancient monuments and the civilizations to which they belonged.

Part 1: Simply the Best

In this episode, John Romer invites viewers to investigate the notion of Seven Wonders and the concept of Wonder itself. He examines the statue of Zeus and the Colossus of Rhodes. For Zeus, John Romer visit a Parthenon and a copy of Nashville, TN, explaining how the great statue and temple was constructed. At the site of the temple of Zeus at Olympia, Romer talks about how the statue was made. Exploring the Colossus, Romer finds the foundation pieces of the statue embedded in an old fort in the harbor. But where exactly was the statue of Rhodes? Romer investigates this question and the image of Colossus.