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THE SEVEN WONDERS OF THE ANCIENT WORLD...OR NOT ????
7 Wonders of the ancient world - or not.
THE SEVEN WONDERS OF THE ANCIENT WORLD
Do you know what the seven ancient wonders of the world are? Actually that should say “were” not “are” as only one of the ancient wonders of the world still survives. (The Pyramids of Giza in Cairo.) The other original seven wonders of the ancient world were the Hanging Gardens of Babylon; the Statue of Zeus at Olympia; the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus; the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus; the Colossus of Rhodes and the Lighthouse of Alexandria
Now history lovers are being invited to choose a new list of seven. Among 21 locations short listed for the worldwide vote is Stonehenge, the only British landmark selected.
The 5,000-year-old stones on Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire, will be up against sites including the Acropolis in Athens; the Statue of Liberty in New York; and the last remaining original wonder, the Pyramids of Giza in Cairo.
An original list of nearly 200 sites nominated by the public was narrowed to 21 by the organizers and experts, including the former director general of Unesco Professor Federico Mayor. The list of finalists is as follows:
1 Acropolis, Athens, Greece
2 Alhambra, Granada, Spain
3 Angkor Wat temple, Cambodia
4 Chichen Itza Aztec site, Yucatan, Mexico
5 Christ the Redeemer, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
6 Colosseum, Rome
7 Easter Island Statues, Chile
8 Eiffel Tower, Paris
9 Great Wall, China
10 Hagia Sophia church, Istanbul, Turkey
11 Kyomizu Temple, Kyoto, Japan
12 Kremlin/St.Basil's, Moscow
13 Machu Picchu, Peru
14 Neuschwanstein Castle, Fussen, Germany
15 Petra ancient city, Jordan
16 Pyramids of Giza, Egypt
17 Statue of Liberty, New York
18 Stonehenge, Amesbury, United Kingdom
19 Sydney Opera House, Australia
20 Taj Mahal, Agra, India
21 Timbuktu city, Mali
The vote is organized by a non-profit Swiss foundation called New 7 Wonders which specializes in the preservation, restoration and promotion of monuments, and the results will be announced on July 7, 2007, in Lisbon.
About 20 million votes have already been lodged, including many from India, for the Taj Mahal; China, for the Great Wall and from Peru for Machu Picchu, the fortress city of the Incas. The only criteria for the new list is that the landmarks were built or discovered before 2000"
Now, I don’t know what anybody else thinks and I don’t know what the original list of 200 entries contained before it was reduced to 21. But ………..Stonehenge? Is that the best we can do?? I wonder if the organisers have visited there recently. Many years ago it was quite a nice place. That of course was before you had to view it from miles away behind a fence. Even to reach the site nowadays is not easy. You have to park ages away and walk under an underpass. (Stonehenge being sort of in the middle of 2 roads). I have only visited 6 of the 21 listed but they have all been preferable to a visit to Stonehenge. Sorry but it's not getting my vote.
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