The Two Classic Ladies of Country Music Revisited

Hola, Bloggers! This time, Ophelia goes country and revisits the two classic lady icons of Country Music! I was raised as a country girl and I grew up hearing country music from the time that I was still in mama's womb...lol! Yes, mama was a great fan of country music so I am really a country girl at heart. At this point, let me start off with the Golden Lady of Nashville, Emmylou Harris. We have almost all of her record albums, believe it or not, but i want to share with you one particular song of Emmylou Harris that I really, really love...

If you were a bluebird you'd be a sad one

I'd give you a true word

But you've already had one

If you were a bluebird, you'd be crying

You'd be flying home

If you were a raindrop,

You'd shine like a rainbow

And if you were a train stop,

The conductor would sing low

If you were a raindrop, You'd be falling

You'd be calling home

If you were a hotel

Honey, you'd be a grand one

But, if you hit a slow spell,

Do you think you could stand one

If you were a hotel, Well I'd lean on your doorbel

l I'd call you my home

If I was a highway, I'd stretch alongside you

I'd help you pass by ways

That had dissatisfied you

If I was a highway,

Well I'd be stretchin'

I'd be fetchin' you home

~~Recorded and Sung by Emmylou Harris~~

Nanci Griffith is the other classic country music icon that mama loved very much and I love her too. (Whoever mama loved, I love too...lol...bless her soul!) I think mama had really passed on to me her love for country music and I don't mind it because I reallyyyyyyyyy, reallyyyyyy love countryyyy!!!...lol (Ophelia has gone crazy).
Over a span of more than 20 years, from the straits of Juan De fuca to the east of Portland, Maine, this Texas songwriter has been observing others and sketching her impressions of them -- in two novels (unpublished) and countless songs, such as ''Hometown Streets,'' ''Trouble in the Fields,'' ''Love at the Five and Dime'' and her signature tune, ''It's a Hard Life Wherever You Go.'' To know her -- to really get to be her pal -- is to realize that your exploits may someday wind up on a record for the whole world to hear.
Herein I want to share with you one of my favorite Naci Griffith songs...


Oh, I wish it would rain, it's gonna wash my face clean
I wanna find some dark cloud to hide in here
Oh, love and a memory sparkle like diamonds
When the diamonds fall they burn like tears
When the diamonds fall they burn like tears

Once I had a love from the Georgia Pines who only cared for me
I want to find that love of twenty-two here at thirty-three
I've got a heart on my right and one on my left, it neither suits my needs
No, the one I love is way out West and he never will need me

So I wish it would rain and gonna wash my face clean
I want to find some dark cloud to hide in here
Oh, love and a memory sparkle like diamonds
When the diamonds fall they burn like tears
When the diamonds fall they burn like tears.

Gonna pack up my two-step shoes
And head for the Gulf Coast plains
I wanna walk the streets of my own hometown
Where everybody knows my name
I want to ride a ways down in Galveston
When the hurricanes blow in
'Cause that Gulf Coast water tastes sweet as wine
When your heart's rolling home with the wind.

And I wish it would rain and gonna wash my face clean
I wanna find some dark cloud to hide in here
Oh, love and a memory sparkle like diamonds
When the diamonds fall they burn like tears
When the diamonds fall they burn like tears.

~~Recorded and sung by Nanci Griffith~~


"and we can be anywhere and never leave home
with your hand to hold ... we are two for the road
two of a kind heart ... two for the road"
"Dance a little closer to me,
dance a little closer now
Dance a little closer tonight
Dance a little closer to me,
'cause it's closing time
And love's on sale tonight at this five and dime"

~~Nanci Griffith, Love at this Five and Dime~~






Have a great weekend ahead bloggers! Always keep in mind that music is the language of the soul and God can give us a song in the night...a wonderful song of life, love and light.

Take care one and all and God bless!

Sincerely, Ophelia

The Classic Revisited: Emily Bronte

Emily Jane Bronte (1818-1848)




The undisputed genius of the Bronte family was Emily Bronte. An unyielding and enigmatic personality, she produced only one novel and a few poems, yet she is ranked among the giants of English Literature.
Top Withens: believed to be the setting of Bronte's Wuthering Heights


Emily Bronte's masterpiece, WUTHERING HEIGHTS, is the wild, passionate story of the intense, almost demonic, love between Catherine Earnshow and the gypsy foundling Heathcliff. The action of the story is chaotic, and unremittingly violent, its characters are less people than forces. Indeed, the novel would be extraordinarily difficult to read were it not for the power of Emily Bronte's vision and the beauty and energy of her prose. In addition, some of her powerful lyrics are counted with the best of English poetry. Emily Bronte ranks top among my favorite classical poets and writers. I am helplessly drawn to her powerful lyrical prose. She had as her sister Charlotte Bronte said the "secret power and fire that might inspire the brain and kindled the veins of a hero." One of my favorite poems of Emily Bronte is posted below...


Top Withens form another view

The Old Stoic

Riches I hold in light esteem,

And love I laugh to scorn,

And lust of fame was but a dream,

That vanished with the moon.

And if I pray the only prayer,

That moves my lips for me.

Is "Leave the heart that now I bear,

and give me Liberty!"

Yes, as my swift days near their goal;

'Tis all that I implore;

In life and death a chainless soul,

With courage to endure.

~~Emily Jane Bronte~~

"I've dreamt in my life dreams that have stayed with me ever after,

and changed my ideas:they've gone through and through me,

like wine through water and altered the color of my mind."

~~Emily Jane Bronte~~

Have a wonderful and blessed weekend Bloggers!

I am Ophelia Jane Julia saying leaving you with this thought...

"Without the ingredient of love, nothing is well done...if love is missing, even miracles can leave the human spirit damaged."

God bless one and all!

Sincerely,

Ophelia

Biblical Turkey

"I, John... was on the island called Patmos, because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like the sound of a trumpet, saying, “Write in a book what you see, and send it to the Seven Churches.” Rev. 1:9-11

The Seven Churches mentioned by St. John in the Book of Revelations ( The Apocalypse) are all found in Turkey and each was a founding community of Christianity.In the book of Revelation of the Bible are written messages to seven of the most prominent churches of the Roman Province of Asia, which are located in western Turkey. When we use the word “church” we mean a group

of Christians, not a building.

The seven cities mentioned in Revelation form what the Rev. John Stott calls “an irregular circle”, and “are listed in the order in which a messenger might visit them if commissioned to deliver the letters”. Sailing from the island of Patmos, to which John had been banished, he would arrive at Ephesus. He would then travel north to Smyrna and Pergamum, southeast to Thyatira, Sardis and Philadelphia, and finish his journey at Laodicea. He would need only to keep to what Professor William Ramsey calls “the great circular road that bound together the most populous, wealthy and influential part of the Province, the west-central region.”

Philadelphia

Philadelphia lies in a valley at the foot of a mountainous plateau in west central Turkey. The low dark hill in the center of the picture shows the area of the ancient city. The kings of Pergamum founded Philadelphia as an outpost of their realm in the second century B.C. The town was located along an important travel route that linked Pergamum in the north with Laodicea to the south. In New Testament times, Philadelphia was part of the Roman province of Asia. The town was devastated by an earthquake in A.D. 17, and for a time people lived in fear of aftershocks. Philadelphia was rebuilt with help from the emperor Tiberius.

The Agora of Smyrna (columns of the western stoa)

Smyrna

Smyrna was a port city in Asia Minor, in what today is Turkey. In ancient times Smyrna contended with Ephesus and Pergamum for the honor of being called the foremost city of Asia. Streets and buildings extended from the bay up the sides of the surrounding hills. Fountains flowed with the water from the city’s aqueducts. A theater on one of the highest slopes overlooked the lower city. Smyrna claimed to be the birthplace of the poet Homer and built a shrine in his honor. A library, gymnasiums, baths, and a stadium contributed to Smyrna's cultural life. The city attracted speakers like Apollonius of Tyanna in the first century and other renowned rhetors in the second century.

Ephesus

Ephesus was a major port city on the western coast of Asia Minor, in what today is Turkey. As a center for seaborne trade and the hub of the region’s road system, Ephesus was a thriving urban community. By the late first century A.D. it was the fourth largest city in the Roman Empire. The Romans made Ephesus an administrative center for the province of Asia. The governor and other officials from Rome entered the province through the harbor and conducted much of their business in the city. Renowned religious shrines, a spacious theater, stadium, and elegant public buildings gave Ephesus an integral place in the cultural life of the entire region. In the mid-first century A.D., Paul worked at Ephesus for several years (see Ephesus on the Journeys of Paul web site). Click "city tour" on the left to continue

Pergamum

Pergamum

Pergamum was a major city in western Asia Minor in New Testament times. It lies in a spacious valley, sixteen miles from the Aegean Sea in what is today the country of Turkey. In the centuries before Christ, Pergamum was the capital of an independent kingdom. Its impressive temples, library, and medical facilities made Pergamum a renowned cultural and political center. By the time Revelation was written, Pergamum had become part of the Roman Empire, but because of its location and importance, the Romans used it as an administrative center for the province of Asia.

Sardis

Sardis was one of the legendary cities of Asia Minor in what is today Turkey. In the seventh century B.C., Sardis was the capital of the kingdom of Lydia. Gold was found in the river near Sardis and the kings who lived there were renowned for their wealth. The Persians captured Sardis in the sixth century and made it the administrative center for the western part of their empire. The fabled "royal road" connected Sardis with the Persian cities to the east. In New Testament times, Sardis was part of the Roman province of Asia

Laodicea Ruins

Laodicea lies at a major crossroads in the valleys of Asia Minor, in what today is Turkey. The city was situated on a hill overlooking fertile valleys and majestic mountains. In Roman times, the city was an important center for administration and commerce. Court cases from the region were heard at Laodicea and funds were placed in the city's banks for safekeeping. Although damaged by earthquakes during the reign of Augustus (27 B.C.-A.D.14) and again in A.D. 60, the city kept rebuilding and prospering.

The Seven Churches mentioned by St. John in the Book of Revelations ( The Apocalypse) are all found in Turkey and each was a founding community of Christianity.In the book of Revelation of the Bible are written messages to seven of the most prominent churches of the Roman Province of Asia, which are located in western Turkey. When we use the word “church” we mean a group of Christians, not a building.

The seven cities mentioned in Revelation form what the Rev. John Stott calls “an irregular circle”, and “are listed in the order in which a messenger might visit them if commissioned to deliver the letters”. Sailing from the island of Patmos, to which John had been banished, he would arrive at Ephesus. He would then travel north to Smyrna and Pergamum, southeast to Thyatira, Sardis and Philadelphia, and finish his journey at Laodicea. He would need only to keep to what Professor William Ramsey calls “the great circular road that bound together the most populous, wealthy and influential part of the Province, the west-central region.”

Patmos

John, the writer of Revelation, received visions while on the island of Patmos, which lies 37 miles from the western coast of Asia Minor. The island is about 9 miles long and about 2 and a half miles wide, although it broadens to a width of 6 miles across its extreme northern end. The deeply indented coastline consists of ridges and hills that rise from the Aegean Sea. Residents of the island shared in the culture of the Greco-Roman world. Their institutions and religious beliefs corresponded to those of most Greek cities.

Well of St. Paul in Tarsus

Tarsus: The Birthplace of St. Paul

Paul’s birthplace of Tarsus is one of the oldest settlements in Cilicia. Excavators working on the mound rising in the north-west quarter in the city have uncovered evidence of settlements here in the Chalcolithic, Early Bronze, Hittite, Hellenistic and Roman periods. Among the famous people of Tarsus is the name of Sit Aleyhisselam, known as Adam’s son Seth; he is reputedly buried in a mausoleum on the eastern side of Ulu Mosque.A somewhat later, and likewise legendary, burial is that at Donuk Tas of Sardanapalus, the Assyrian king who is sometimes credited with founding Tarsus in about 820 BC. The Emperor Julian the Apostate was buried in Tarsus after his defeat in his battles with the Persians in 364. The Emperor also died here, and his heir, Hadrian, who was with him, assumed the power.Alexander the Great marched through southern Anatolia in 334 BC enroute to his lightning conquest of the East. He stopped long enough in Tarsus to catch what was almost his death of cold swimming in the Cydnus River, The city has changed hands many times. The most famous person associated with Tarsus in religious history
is Paul the Apostle. Paul was born a Jew of the tribe of Benjamin in Tarsus about AD 10 and spent his early years here. While still a youth he was sent to Jerusalem to study with Gamaliel, a leading Jewish theologian. In Jerusalem he persecuted members of the new Christian community and was present when Stephen was stoned. Continuing his intent to stop the new group from spreading, Paul went to Damascus. Shortly before he arrived, he was struck blind with the vision of Jesus who called him to witness to the Gospel. From then on his life was devoted to that mission. Paul was back living in Tarsus when Barnabas recruited him to work with the church in Antioch-on-the-Orontes. Paul made two subsequent missionary journeys through western Anatolia and into Greece. Tarsus originally was a seaport on a lagoon at the mouth of the Cydnus River and into the 10th century it was a hideout for Arab pirates. Since then the coast has gradually moved farther and farther out into the Mediterranean Sea.Other Roman remains have been found in Tarsus. For example, the foundations of the Tarsus American Lycee are on top of vaults that probably were part of a Roman or Hellenistic hippodrome.

TROAS

This city was founded by Antigonos and Lysimachos at the command of Alexander the Great. Because of its artificial harbor, Troas became a powerful and rich commercial town. This city was visited several times by St. Paul during his journeys.






The House of the Virgin Mary (Turkish: Meryemana or Meryem Ana Evi, "Mother Mary's House") is a Christian and Muslim shrine located on Mt. Koressos (Turkish: Bülbüldağı, "Mount Nightingale") in the vicinity of Ephesus, in modern-day Turkey (7 km from Selçuk).
It is believed by many Christians and Muslims that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was taken to this stone house by Saint John and lived there until her Assumption into Heaven according to Catholics or Dormition according to the Orthodox.[1]






A part of the site, St. John's Basilica, was built in the 6th century AD, under emperor Justinian I over the supposed site of the apostle's tomb. It is now surrounded by Selçuk.
















The Greek goddess Artemis and the great Anatolian goddess Kybele were identified together as Artemis of Ephesus. The many-breasted "Lady of Ephesus", identified with Artemis, was venerated in the Temple of Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders of the World and the largest building of the ancient world according to Pausanias (4.31.8). Pausanius mentions that the temple was built by Ephesus, son of the river god Caystrus. [7] before the arrival of the Ionians. Of this structure, scarcely a trace remains.

Ephesus (Hittite Apasa; Ancient Greek Ἔφεσος; Turkish Efes) was a city of ancient Anatolia. During the period known as Classical Greece it was located in Ionia, where the Cayster River (Küçük Menderes) flows into the Aegean Sea. It belonged to the Ionian League.
Ephesus hosted one of the seven churches of Asia, addressed in the Book of Revelation of The Bible),[1] and the Gospel of John might have been written here.[2] It is also the site of a large gladiator graveyard.
The city was famed for the Temple of Artemis (completed around 550 BC), and both were destroyed by the Goths in 263. The emperor Constantine I rebuilt much of the city and erected a new public bath. The town was again partially destroyed by an earthquake in 614. The importance of the city as a commercial centre declined as the harbour slowly filled with silt from the river.
Today's archaeological site lies 3 kilometers south of the Selçuk district of İzmir Province, Turkey. The ruins of Ephesus are a favorite international and local tourist attraction, partly owing to their easy accessibility from Adnan Menderes Airport and via the port of Kuşadası.

Sources for Words and Images

Wikipedia

Http://www.ephesusmeeting.com

Http://www.luthersem.edu/

The Monument of Love

Antiquities and Classic Monument revisited....the Taj Mahal monument in India

The Taj Mahal (pronounced /tɑʒ mə'hɑl/) (Persian: تاج محل, Devanagari: ताज महल) is a mausoleum located in Agra, India, that was built under Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal.
The Taj Mahal (also "the Taj") is considered the finest example of Mughal architecture, a style that combines elements from Persian, Turkish, Indian, and Islamic architectural styles. In 1983, the Taj Mahal became a UNESCO World Heritage Site and was cited as "the jewel of Muslim art in India and one of the universally admired masterpieces of the world's heritage."
While the white domed marble and tile mausoleum is most familiar, Taj Mahal is an integrated symmetric complex of structures that was completed around 1648. Ustad Ahmad Lahauri is generally considered to be the principal designer of the Taj Mahal.

The Little Mona Lisa

She doesnt belong to the antiquities but she got the classic Mona Lisa smile. This portrait was called by our family as 'our little MOna Lisa' . I put it here for fun...just to display below the famous Mona Lisa painting. Judge for yourself....

Poets as Dreamers?

My Dream

by Christina Rossetti

Hear now a curious dream I dreamed last night,

Each word whereof is weighed and sifted truth.

I stood beside Euphrates while it swelled

Like overflowing Jordan in its youth:

It waxed and coloured sensibly to sight,

Till out of myriad pregnant waves there welled

Young crocodiles, a gaunt blunt-featured crew,

Fresh-hatched perhaps and daubed with birthday dew.

The rest if I should tell, I fear my friend,

My closest friend would deem the facts untrue;

And therefore it were wisely left untold.

Yet if you will, why, hear it to the end.

Each crocodile was girt with massive gold

And polished stones that with their wearers grew:

But one there was who waxed beyond the rest,

Wore kinglier girdle and a kingly crown,

Whilst crowns and orbs and sceptres starred his breast.

All gleamed compact and green with scale on scale,

But special burnishment adorned his mail

And special terror weighed upon his frown;

His punier brethren quaked before his tail,

Broad as a rafter, potent as a flail.

So he grew lord and master of his kin:

But who shall tell the tale of all their woes?

An execrable appetite arose,

He battened on them, crunched, and sucked them in.

He knew no law, he feared no binding law,

But ground them with inexorable jaw:

The luscious fat distilled upon his chin,

Exuded from his nostrils and his eyes,

While still like a hungry death he fed his maw;

Till every minor crocodile being dead

And buried too, himself gorged to the full,

He slept with breath oppressed and unstrung claw.

Oh marvel passing strange which next I saw:

In sleep he dwindled to the common size,

And all the empire faded from his coat.

Then from far off a winged vessel came,

Swift as a swallow, subtle as a flame:

I know not what it bore of freight or host,

But white it was as an avenging ghost.

It levelled strong Euphrates in its course;

Supreme yet weightless as an idle mote

It seemed to tame the waters without force

Till not a murmur swelled or billow beat:

Lo, as the purple shadow swept the sands,

The prudent crocodile rose on his feet

And shed appropriate tears and wrung his hands.

What can it mean? you ask. I answer not

For meaning, but myself must echo, What?

And tell it as I saw it on the spot.

"The other day we heard someone smilingly refer to poets as dreamers. Now, it is accurate to refer to poets as dreamers, but it is not discerning to infer, as this person did, that the dreams of poets have no practical value beyond the realm of literary diversion. The truth is that poets are just as practical as people who build bridges or look into microscopes ; and just as close to reality and truth. Where they differ from the logician and the scientist is in the temporal sense alone ; they are ahead of their time, whereas logicians and scientists are abreast of their time. We must not be so superficial that we fail to discern the practicableness of dreams.

Dreams are the sunrise streamers heralding a new day of scientific progress, another forward surge. Every forward step man takes in any field of life, is first taken along the dreamy paths of imagination. Robert Fulton did not discover his steamboat with full steam up, straining at a hawser at some Hudson River dock; first he dreamed the steamboat, he and other dreamers, and then scientific wisdom converted a picture in the mind into a reality of steel and wood. The automobile was not dug out of the ground like a nugget of gold ; first men dreamed the automobile and afterward, long afterward, the practical minded engineers caught up with what had been created by winging fantasy.

He who looks deeply and with a seeing eye into the poetry of yesterday finds there all the cold scientific magic of today and much which we shall not enjoy until some tomorrow. If the poet does not dream so clearly that blueprints of this vision can immediately be drawn and the practical conversions immediately effected, he must not for that reason be smiled upon as merely the mental host for a sort of harmless madness.

For the poet, like the engineer, is a specialist. His being, tuned to the life of tomorrow, cannot be turned simultaneously to the life of today. To the scientist he says, "Here, I give you a flash of the future." The wise scientist thanks him, and takes that flash of the future and makes it over into a fibre of today."

Sources:
Commentary: By Glenn Falls
Art Photos by Florence Harrison

Classical Mythology

"Of old the Hellenic race was marked off from the barbarians as more keen-witted and more free from nonsense."

Herodotus I: 60.

Greek and Roman Mythology is quite generally supposed to show us the way the human race thought and felt untold ages ago. Through it, according to this view, we can retrace the path from civilized man who lives so far from nature, to man who lived in close companionship with nature; and the real interest of the myths is that they lead us back to a time when the world was young and people had a connection with the earth, with trees and seas and flowers and hills, unlike anything we ourselves can feel.

When the stories were being shaped, we are given to understand, little distinction had as yet been made between the real and the unreal. The imagination was vividly alive and not checked by the reason, so that anyone in the woods might see through the trees a fleeing nymph or bending over a clear pool to drink, behold in the depths a naiad's face.
The prospect of traveling back to this delightful state of things is held out by nearly every writer who touches upon classical mythology, above all by the poets. In that infinitely remote time primitive man could
"Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; Or Hear Old Triton blow his wreathed horn."

And we for a moment can catch, through the myths he made, a glimpse of that strangely and beautifully animated world. But a very brief consideration of the ways of uncivilized peoples everywhere and in all ages is enough to prick that romantic bubble. Nothing is clearer than the fact that primitive man, whether in New Guinea today or eons ago in the prehistoric wilderness, is not and never has been a creature who peoples his world with bright fancies and lovely visions. Horrors lurked in the primeval forest, not nymphs and naiads. Terror lived there, with its close attendants, Magic, and its most common defense, Human Sacrifice. Mankind's chief hope of escaping the wrath of whatever divinities were then abroad lay in some magical rite, senseless but poweful, or in some offering made at the cost of pain and grief.

Source: Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes by Edith Hamilton

O Sweet Spontaneous Earth!....

O sweet spontaneous
earth how often have
the
doting

fingers of
prurient philosophers pinched
and
poked
thee?,
has the naughty thumb
of science prodded
thy

beauty? , how
often have religions taken
thee upon their scraggy knees
squeezing and

buffeting thee that thou mightest conceive
gods
(but
true

to the incomparable
couch of death thy
rhythmic
lover

thou answerest


them only with

spring)


 e.e.cummings

Romantic Classics: Nature, Beauty and Power

The Sensitive Plant

Whether the sensitive Plant, or that

Which within its boughs like a Spirit sat,

Ere its outward form had known decay,

Now felt this change, I cannot say.

Whether that Lady's gentle mind,

No longer with the form combined

Which scattered love, as stars do light,

Found sadness, where it left delight,

I cannot guess; but in this life

Of error, ignorance, and strife,

Where nothing is, but all things seem,

And we the shadows of the dream,

It is a modest creed,and yet

Pleasant if one considers it,

To own that death itself must be,

Like all the rest, a mockery.

That garden sweet, that lady fair,

And all sweet shapes and odours there,

In truth have never passed away;

'Tis we, 'tis ours, are changed; not they.

For love, and beauty and delight,

There is no death nor change; their might

Exceeds our organs, which endure

No light, being themselves obscure.

--Percy Bysshe Shelley

Echoes

Late-born and woman-souled I dare not hope,

The freshness of the elder lays, the might

Of manly, modern passion shall alight

Upon my Muse's lips, nor may I cope

(Who veiled and screened by womanhood must grope)

With the world's strong-armed warriors and recite

The dangers, wounds, and triumphs of the fight;

Twanging the full-stringed lyre through all its scope.

But if thou ever in some lake-floored cave

O'erbrowed by rocks, a wild voice wooed and heard,

Answering at once from heaven and earth and wave,

Lending elf-music to thy harshest word,

Misprize thou not these echoes that belong

To one in love with solitude and song.

--Emma Lazarus

Poem 722

Sweet Mountains--Ye tell Me no lie--

Never deny Me--Never fly--

Those same unvarying Eyes

Turn on Me--when I fail--or feign,

Or take the Royal names in vain--

Their far--slow--Violet Gaze--

My Strong Madonnas--Cherish still--

The Wayward Nun--beneath the Hill--

Whose service--is to You--

Her latest Worship--When the Day

Fades from the Firmament away--

To life Her Brows on You--

--Emily Dickinson

The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World

The Great Pyramid of Giza is the oldest and largest of the three pyramids in the Giza Necropolis bordering what is now Cairo, Egypt in Africa, and is the only remaining member of the Seven Wonders of the World. It is believed to have been built as a tomb for Fourth dynasty Egyptian pharaoh Khufu (hellenized as Χεωψ, Cheops) and constructed over a 20 year period concluding around 2560 BC. The tallest man-made structure in the world for over 3,800 years, it is sometimes called Khufu's Pyramid or the Pyramid of Khufu.

This drawing of Colossus of Rhodes, which illustrated The Grolier Society's 1911 Book of Knowledge, is probably fanciful, as it is unlikely that the statue stood astride the harbour mouth.

Colossus of Rhodes, imagined in a 16th-century engraving by Martin Heemskerck, part of his series of the Seven Wonders of the World.

The Colossus of Rhodes was a colossus of the Greek god Helios, erected on the Greek island of Rhodes by Chares of Lindos between 292 and 280 BC. It's considered one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Before its destruction, the Colossus of Rhodes stood over 30 meters (107 ft) high, making it the tallest statue of the ancient world.

The lighthouse of Alexandria (or The Pharos of Alexandria, Greek: ὁ Φάρος τῆς Ἀλεξανδρείας) was a tower built in the 3rd century BC (between 285 and 247 BC) on the island of Pharos in Alexandria, Egypt to serve as that port's landmark, and later, its lighthouse.

With a height variously estimated at between 115 ~ 150 meters (377 ~ 492 ft) it was among the tallest man-made structures on Earth for many centuries, and was identified as one of the Seven Wonders of the World by Antipater of Sidon. It was the third tallest building after the two Great Pyramids (of Khufu and Khafra) for its entire life. Some scholars estimate a much taller height exceeding 180 meters that would make the tower the tallest building up to the 14th century.

Statue of Zeus at Olympia was one of the classical Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. It was made by the famed classical sculptor Phidias (5th century BC) circa 432 BC in Olympia, Greece. The seated statue, some 40 feet (12 meters) tall, occupied the whole width of the aisle of the temple built to house it. "It seems that if Zeus were to stand up," the geographer Strabo noted early in the 1st century BC, "he would unroof the temple." Zeus was a chryselephantine sculpture, made of ivory and accented with gold plating. In the sculpture, he was seated on a magnificent throne of cedarwood, inlaid with ivory, gold, ebony, and precious stones. In Zeus' right hand there was a small statue of Nike, the goddess of victory, and in his left hand, a shining sceptre on which an eagle perched. Plutarch, in his Life of the Roman general Aemilius Paulus, records that the victor over Macedon “was moved to his soul, as if he had beheld the god in person,” while the Greek orator Dio Chrysostom declared that a single glimpse of the statue would make a man forget his earthly troubles.










Temple of Artemis (Greek: Ἀρτεμίσιον Artemision, Latin: Artemisium), also known less precisely as Temple of Diana, was a temple dedicated to Artemis completed in its most famous phase, around 550 BC at Ephesus (in present-day Turkey) under the Achaemenid dynasty of the Persian Empire. All but nothing remains of the temple, which was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The Temple of Artemis was not the first on its site, where evidence of a sanctuary dates as early as the Bronze Age.

The temple was a 120-year project started by Croesus of Lydia. It was described by Antipater of Sidon, who compiled a list of the Seven Wonders:

I have set eyes on the wall of lofty Babylon on which is a road for chariots, and the statue of Zeus by the Alpheus, and the hanging gardens, and the colossus of the Sun, and the huge labour of the high pyramids, and the vast tomb of Mausolus; but when I saw the house of Artemis that mounted to the clouds, those other marvels lost their brilliancy, and I said, "Lo, apart from Olympus, the Sun never looked on aught (anything) so grand".

Tomb of Maussollos, Mausoleum of Maussollos or Mausoleum of Halicarnassus (in Greek, Μαυσωλεῖον Ἁλικαρνασσεύς, Μαυσωλεῖον τοῦ Ἁλικαρνασσοῦ (Ἀλικαρνασσοῦ)) was a tomb built between 353 and 350 BC at Halicarnassus (present Bodrum, Turkey) for Mausolus — a satrap in the Persian Empire — and Artemisia II of Caria, his wife and sister. The structure was designed by the Greek architects Satyrus and Pythius.It stood approximately 45 meters (135 feet) in height, and each of the four sides was adorned with sculptural reliefs created by each one of four Greek sculptors — Leochares, Bryaxis, Scopas of Paros and Timotheus.^[3] The finished structure was considered to be such an aesthetic triumph that Antipater of Sidon identified it as one of his Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The word mausoleum has since come to be used generically for any grand tomb, though "Mausol – eion" originally meant "[building] dedicated to Mausolus".






The Hanging Gardens of Babylon
Near present day Al Hillah in Iraq

The Greek Historian Diodorus:

"The Garden was 100 feet long by 100 feet wide and built up in tiers so that it resembled a theater. Vaults had been constructed under the ascending terraces which carried the entire weight of the planted garden; the uppermost vault, which was seventy-five feet high, was the highest part of the garden, which, at this point, was on the same level as the city walls. The roofs of the vaults which supported the garden were constructed of stone beams some sixteen feet long, and over these were laid first a layer of reeds set in thick tar, then two courses of baked brick bonded by cement, and finally a covering of lead to prevent the moisture in the soil penetrating the roof. On top of this roof enough topsoil was heaped to allow the biggest trees to take root. The earth was leveled off and thickly planted with every kind of tree. And since the galleries projected one beyond the other, where they were sunlit, they contained conduits for the water which was raised by pumps in great abundance from the river, though no one outside could see it being done."

Source: Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia