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***TECH TREE***: Wonders of the Ancient World
We have done an outstanding job getting dates and information on a wealth of topics! But my goal is for this to be actually used by Firaxis, and to do that, we need to really nail down dates and sources as best we can. I'm starting us on Wonders of the Ancient World and will start the next group once we all agree on these.
Please provide a quote from your source, like this:
If we do this, Firaxis will have a very easy time trusting our findings and putting them directly in the game! Also, with source linked, we can directly look at the facts ourselves. So, let's confirm the following:
Wonders of the Ancient World
[This message has been edited by yin26 (edited March 14, 2000).]
Please provide a quote from your source, like this:
quote: Rhodes, Colossus of: "Colossal statue of the sun god Helios that stood in the ancient Greek city of Rhodes and was one of the Seven Wonders of the World. ...."--Yin (http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/ar...5066+1,00.html ) |
If we do this, Firaxis will have a very easy time trusting our findings and putting them directly in the game! Also, with source linked, we can directly look at the facts ourselves. So, let's confirm the following:
Wonders of the Ancient World
- Colossus:
292-280BC--S. Kroeze
Rhodes, Colossus of: "Colossal statue of the sun god Helios that stood in the ancient Greek city of Rhodes and was one of the Seven Wonders of the World. The sculptor Chares of Lyndus (another city on the island) created the statue, which commemorated the raising of Demetrius I Poliorcetes' long siege (305 BC) of Rhodes. Made of bronze and reinforced with iron, it was weighted with stones. The Colossus was said to be 70 cubits (105 feet [32 metres]) high and stood beside Mandrákion harbour, perhaps shielding its eyes with one hand, as a representation in a relief suggests. It is technically impossible that the statue could have straddled the harbour entrance, and the popular belief that it did so dates only from the Middle Ages. The statue, which took 12 years to build (c. 294-282 BC), was toppled by an earthquake about 225/226 BC. The fallen Colossus was left in place until AD 654, when Arabian forces raided Rhodes and had the statue broken up and the bronze sold for scrap. Supposedly, the fragments totaled more than 900 camel loads."--Yin (http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/ar...5066+1,00.html ) - Great Library:
Became the intellectual centre of the Hellenistic world under Ptolemy II (283-247BC)--S. Kroeze
Ptolemies: The large empire Alexander had conquered was too big for one successor. One general was entrusted with Macedonia another Thrace and a third Syria. One of Alexander's favorite generals Ptolemy was made governor of Egypt. The esteem was mutual as can be seen in Ptolemy's having Alexander's body brought for burial to Egypt where it was permanently interred at the city Alexander had founded and named after himself. Alexandria was the city Ptolemy made his capital. There he founded a museum and started collecting books for a library. For more than 350 years the Ptolemies ruled Egypt. Following the general was his son Ptolemy Philadelpus who made the library the best in the world. The books made of papyrus were in Greek or Latin. Ptolemy Philadelphus had the Jewish Bible translated into Greek for his library. He is also known for re-opening a canal between the Red Sea and the Nile providing access between the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean which was important for the wheat trade and enabled Alexandria to become the richest city in the world. Under the Ptolemies learning was encouraged. Its students first taught that the earth is round and another determined almost the exact diameter of the earth. The most famous Ptolemy was Cleopatra."--Yin( http://ancienthistory.about.com/educ...lptolemies.htm )
Ptolemy: fl. AD 127, -145, Alexandria--Yin( http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/ar...3344+1,00.html ) - The Great Wall:
Linked together by Ch'in Shih Huang-ti (221-210BC); actually mainly built by the Ming (1368-1644AD)--S. Kroeze
Great Wall of China: "Extensive bulwark erected in ancient China. It is one of the largest building-construction projects ever carried out, running (with all its branches) about 4,500 miles (7,300 km) east to west from Shan-hai Pass near Po Hai (Gulf of Chihli) to Chia-yü Pass (in modern Kansu province). Without its branches and other secondary sections, the wall extends for some 4,160 miles (6,700 km), often tracing the crestlines of hills and mountains as it snakes across the Chinese countryside. Large parts of the fortification date from the 7th through the 4th century BC. In the 3rd century BC Shih huang-ti, the first emperor of a united China, connected a number of existing defensive walls into a single system. Although lengthy sections of the wall are now in ruins or have disappeared completely, it is still one of the more remarkable structures on earth. The Great Wall was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1987."--Yin( http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/ar...8652+1,00.html ) - Hanging Gardens:
Legendary; if they ever existed tradition associates them with Semiramis/Sammuramat (~810-806BC) or Nebuchadrezzar II (604-562BC)--S. Kroeze
Nebuchadnezzar II's palace with terraced gardens, built between shortly after 600 BC--The Mad Viking
Hanging Gardens of Babylon: One of the Seven Wonders of the World. The gardens, built within the walls of the royal palace at Babylon, the capital of Babylonia (now in southern Iraq), did not actually "hang" but were instead "up in the air"--that is, they were roof gardens laid out on a series of ziggurat terraces that were irrigated by pumps from the Euphrates River. Traditionally, they were the work either of the semilegendary Queen Sammu-ramat (Greek Semiramis, mother of the Assyrian king Adad-nirari III, who reigned from 810 to 783 BC) or of King Nebuchadrezzar II (reigned c. 605-c. 561 BC), who built them to console his Median wife, Amytis, because she missed the mountains and greenery of her homeland."--Yin( http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/ar...9950+1,00.html ) - The Lighthouse:
During the reign of Ptolemy I (305-283BC) and Ptolemy II (283-247BC); built by Sostratos of Knidos from ~285BC--S. Kroeze
"The forerunners of lighthouses proper were beacon fires kindled on hilltops, the earliest references to which are contained in the Iliad and the Odyssey (c. 8th century BC). The first authenticated man-made lighthouse was the renowned Pharos of Alexandria, which stood some 350 feet (about 110 metres) high. The Romans erected many lighthouse towers in the course of expanding their empire, and by AD 400 there were some 30 in service from the Black Sea to the Atlantic. These included a famous lighthouse at Ostia, the port of Rome, completed in AD 50, and lighthouses at Boulogne, Fr., and Dover, Eng. A fragment of the original Roman lighthouse at Dover still survives. The Phoenicians, trading from the Mediterranean to Great Britain, marked their route with lighthouses. These early lighthouses had wood fires or torches burning in the open, sometimes protected by a roof. After the 1st century AD, candles or oil lamps were used in lanterns with panes of glass or horn."--Yin ( http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/ar...7655+2,00.html )
"Pharos of Alexandria: One of the Seven Wonders of the World and the most famous lighthouse in antiquity. It was a technological triumph and is the archetype of all lighthouses since. Built by Sostratus of Cnidus, perhaps for Ptolemy I Soter, it was finished during the reign of Soter's son Ptolemy II of Egypt in about 280 BC. The lighthouse stood on the island of Pharos in the harbour of Alexandria and is said to have been more than 350 feet (110 metres) high; the only taller man-made structures at the time would have been the pyramids of Giza. Much of what is known about the structure of the lighthouse comes from a 1909 work by Hermann Thiersch, Pharos, antike, Islam und Occident. According to the ancient sources consulted by Thiersch, the lighthouse was built in three stages, all sloping slightly inward; the lowest was square, the next octagonal, and the top cylindrical. A broad spiral ramp led to the top, where a fire burned at night."--Yin ( http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/ar...592999,00.html ) - Oracle:
Destruction of Krisa in 590BC opened free access to Delphi; the Pythian games were raised to Panhellenic status in 582BC; the prestige of the Oracle was now at its height--S. Kroeze
DelphicOracle: "It was consulted not only on private matters but also on affairs of state, and its utterances often swayed public policy. It was also consulted whenever a colony was to be sent out from Greece proper, so that its fame spread to the limits of the Greek-speaking world. Such influence led to controversy, and several more sacred wars were waged over the oracle, with control of the site shifting between rival city-states."--Yin( http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/ar...0338+1,00.html )
- Pyramids:
of Khufu (~2590-2567BC), Khafre (~2540-~2514BC) and Menkaure (~2510-~2500BC)--S. Kroeze
Masonry: The first stonebuild structure is the Step Pyramid and its Funerary Complex of Djoser (3rd Dynasty, 2630-2611 BC) in Saqqara, Egypt. It was build by the architect Imhotep who was later deified in the Ptolemaic era--Huey
Giza, Pyramids of: "4th-dynasty (c. 2575-c. 2465 BC) pyramids erected on a rocky plateau on the west bank of the Nile River near Al-Jizah (Giza), northern Egypt; in ancient times they were included among the Seven Wonders of the World. The ancient ruins of the Memphis area, including the Pyramids of Giza, Saqqarah, Dahshur, Abu Ruwaysh, and Abu Sir, were collectively designated a World Heritage site in 1979. The designations of the pyramids--Khufu, Khafre, and Menkaure--correspond to the kings for whom they were built. The northernmost and oldest pyramid of the group was built for Khufu (Greek: Cheops), the second king of the 4th dynasty. Called the Great Pyramid, it is the largest of the three, the length of each side at the base averaging 7553/4 feet (230 metres) and its original height being 4812/5 feet (147 metres). The middle pyramid was built for Khafre (Greek: Chephren), the fourth of the eight kings of the 4th dynasty; the structure measures 7073/4 feet (216 metres) on each side and was originally 471 feet (143 metres) high. The southernmost and last pyramid to be built was that of Menkaure (Greek: Mykerinus), the fifth king of the 4th dynasty."--Yin( http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/ar...7678+1,00.html ) - Sun Tzu's War Academy:
I don't think there ever was a "Sun Tzu Academy"--Hugo Rune (can we get his birth and death dates?)==The problem with finding Sun Tzu's birth/death dates is that no-one knows who he really was or even if he existed at all...
This is from Britannica.com-"The book is traditionally attributed to Sun Tzu (personal name Sun Wu), a military strategist and general who served the state of Wu near the end of the Spring and Autumn Period (770-476 BC). It is more likely, however, that it was written early in the Warring States period (475-221 BC), at a time when China was divided into six or seven states that often resorted to war with each other in their struggles for supremacy."--Hugo Rune([url]http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/8/0,5716,72168+1,00.htmlrl]
[This message has been edited by yin26 (edited March 14, 2000).]
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