Nobody has seen the original list of the seven wonders of the ancient world. The Greek historian Herodotus and later Callimachus are purported to have created this list more than two millennia ago, but their original writings on this topic haven’t survived — we only know they included sites like the Colossus of Rhodes and the Lighthouse of Alexandria based on the writings of others later on.
The only surviving wonder of these original seven that still stands is the Great Pyramid of Giza — the other six are either completely lost to time or only exist in fragments. People sometimes even question whether the most mysterious of them all — the Hanging Gardens of Babylon — existed at all. Ruins of the Temple of Artemis in Turkey can be visited today while some of those of the Lighthouse of Alexandria are submerged under the Mediterranean. Earthquakes destroyed the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus — the second last standing of the seven original wonders — by the 15th century.
Given that only one of the original seven survives today, a Swiss foundation began a worldwide vote to choose seven new wonders in 2001. More than 100 million votes were counted on a list of 21 final candidates that a panel of experts chose. Prominent snubs included such amazing structures at Angkor Wat in Cambodia, Stonehenge, and the Moai statues of Easter Island. Even the Great Pyramid of Giza didn’t make the cut this time around. Here is a list of the new seven wonders of the world.
