N7N

The seven wonders of the world is a list of seven remarkable constructions of classical antiquity. The structures were all man-made monuments and were selected by Philon of Byzantium in 200 B.C. His selection of wonders was essentially a travel guide for fellow Athenians, and the stunning sites were all located around the Mediterranean basin, the then-known Hellenic world.

The monuments chosen were all built between 2500 and 200BC and consist of:
· The Great Pyramid of Giza
· The Hanging Gardens of Babylon
· The Temple of Artemis
· The Statue of Zeus at Olympia
· The Mausoleum of Halicarnassus
· The Colossus of Rhodes
· The Lighthouse of Alexandria

Of all the original seven wonders, only the pyramids of Giza have survived and for this reason a Swiss-based, for-profit corporation called New Open World Corporation (NOWC) has decided to revive the seven wonders. The selection is being made by free and paid votes, through telephone or online. The first vote is free to registered members and additional votes may be purchased through a donation to NOWC. In addition to the sale of votes, NOWC relies on private donations, the sale of merchandise such as shirts and caps, and revenue from selling broadcasting rights.

In September 1999, the founder of the company, Bernard Weber launched the first New7Wonders website and nine months later, on the 26th June 2000 the official site was launched to facilitate a global vote via the internet. By September 20th, one million votes were cast proving that this campaign was to be a success. In February 2002 an e-mail chain letter campaign started by Turkish Internet surfers drove the Turks to surpass the US in voting participation. This began a whole race between countries until October when the Chinese started voting at a rate of 70,000 votes per day! Being the country with the largest population it was very hard to overtake and in fact China still retains the lead.

Nominations kept pouring in to the New7Wonders board till the very end of 2005 but on the 1st January 2006, 77 sites with the highest votes were selected out of a total of 177. Twenty-one finalists were then chosen by a panel of experts and voting was restarted to select 7 sites as the New Seven Wonders of the World. The seven winning sites will be announced in Lisbon on the 7th July 2007, i.e. 07/07/07.


One disappointing fact for us Maltese is that not one of our historical monuments were submitted or nominated. Ġgantija temples, in Gozo are the oldest free standing monuments in the world and therefore surely deserve some international recognition. They pre-date the pyramids of Egypt and cannot be compared to those of Stonehenge since the British temple was built many years after. The only problem there might have been would have been to surpass the criteria required to be nominated. All sites had to be man-made, completed before 2000AD and in an "acceptable" state of preservation in order to be nominated.

In my opinion the idea of reviving a list of seven wonders is a step forward for the preservation of each country’s cultural heritage. As soon as the idea was published many countries began restoring their old buildings and monuments in order to make it to the new list of seven wonders. 177 sites were nominated but many more historical artifacts exist and it is thus very hard to choose just seven sites. Eventually this new list will also become obsolete with the introduction of new sites, designs and ideas together with the possible destruction of ancient sites either naturally or by man, just like what happened to the ‘old’ but not forgotten original seven wonders of the world.

Zachary Engerer