Why?

Everyone knows that there are "Seven Wonders" of the ancient world, but when one considers the list there are some obvious problems with it:

Antipater of Sidon put together his list in the second century BC in Greece. Thus, he only listed things that existed at that time and that were in the part of the world he knew about. The Pyramids at Giza, 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 Pharos of Alexandria may all be deserving of the title, but they are an incomplete list. A very incomplete list.

The Project

I suggest that we solve this problem by adding 70 more items to the list to make a list of the H2G2 77 Wonders of the Ancient World. H2G2 researchers can propose items for the list, and then we can vote on a final list.

Anyone who has a proposal for the list should post their proposal along with the category it falls into and with a short description/explanation if it isn't something that everyone knows about. Please post proposals to the thread "Isn't it Wonderful?" However, make sure it follows the rules first.

Once we have a complete list, we can vote for the top seven.

Rules and Categories

The rules for objects to be included in this list are as follows:

1.) The object must either exist today or have good historical or archaeological evidence for it. We don't want mythical things to be listed.

2.) The object must have been built by 1801 AD--this is the ancient world, after all. A lot of things that we build relatively easily today would have been amazing a couple of hundred years ago.

The categories for objects to be included in this list are as follows:

STRUCTURES: Structures or complexes of structures that are wondrous either because of their architectural beauty or the skill implied by their construction.

SYSTEMS: Systems or networks, such as road networks, that may be extended over a nation or empire but which are wondrous because of their size, complexity, or the skill implied by their construction.

CITIES: Cities, which, although they contain nothing which would alone be considered a wonder, represent a collection of unusual architectural beauty or unusual skill in their construction. However, if any individual part of a city is a wonder, the city is disqualified and parts of a city take precedence over cities themselves.

PRIMITIVE: Buildings, Systems, or Cities, which are not objectively wondrous enough to be listed, but which are when one compares both the skill and effort required to construct them with the means of the groups that built them.

MISCELLANEOUS: Objects which do not fit into any of the above categories but which still ought to be included because of some quality.

The List:

TRADITIONAL:

1. The Pyramids at Giza
2. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon
3. The Statue of Zeus at Olympia
4. The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus
5. The Mausoleum of Mausolus at Halicarnassus
6. The Colossus of Rhodes
7. The Pharos of Alexandria

STRUCTURES:

1. The Temple of Karnak at Thebes
2. The Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacán
3. The The Temple at Baalbek
4. The Sistine Chapel
5. The Kremlin and Red Square
6. The Leaning Tower of Pisa
7. The Colosseum
8. The Pantheon
9. The Parthenon
10. The Hagia Sophia
11. The Taj Mahal
12. The Terracotta Army of Qin Shihuangdi
13. The Stone Buddhas of Bamian
14. The Potala Palace in Lhasa
15. The Temple at Baalbek
16. Monastary on Sri Pada
17. The Temple at Abu Simbel
18. Amber Room

SYSTEMS:

1. The Roman Roads
2. The Incan Roads
3. The Roman Aquaducts
4. The Dutch Dikes
5. The Great Wall of China
6. Ancient Egyptian / Persian Suez Canal

CITIES:

1. Machu Piccu
2. Ankor Wat
3. Delphi

PRIMITIVE:

1. Stonehenge
2. Moai (Easter Island Statues)
3. Nazca Lines
4. Great Zimbabwe

MISCELLANEOUS:

1. The Library of Alexandria
2. The Globe Theatre
3. Magellan's Expedition
4. Zheng He's Treasure Fleet
5. Tycho Brahe's Observatory at Uranienborg
6. The Spanish Armada