Speaker 1: Everyone knows the renowned Seven Wonders of the world, but
Speaker 1: few have set eyes on them. For in order to
Speaker 1: do so, you have to arrange a long journey to
Speaker 1: the land of the Persians on the far side of
Speaker 1: the Euphrates. You have to visit Egypt. You must then
Speaker 1: change direction and go to Ilia in Greece. Then you
Speaker 1: must see Halakarnassis, a city state in Karia, and Ephesus
Speaker 1: in Ionia. And you have to sail to Rhads, so that,
Speaker 1: being exhausted by lengthy wanderings over the Earth's surface and
Speaker 1: growing tired from the effort of these journeys, you finally
Speaker 1: fulfill your heart's desire only when life is ebbing away,
Speaker 1: leaving you weak through the weight of years.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name
Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb. Those are the words of Felo of Byzantium,
Speaker 1: promoting the idea of the Seven Wonders of the World.
Speaker 1: On today's episode, I'm going to be chatting with Professor
Speaker 1: Michael Dennis Higgins, author of the new book The Seven
Speaker 1: Wonders of the Ancient World, Science, Engineering, and Technology, out
Speaker 1: now from Oxford University Press in both physical and digital formats.
Speaker 1: It's an absolutely wonderful book and we've actually used it
Speaker 1: already as a source on the show in our series
Speaker 1: on mud, specifically in our section on mud bricks. So
Speaker 1: I'm delighted to have the author on the show. When
Speaker 1: we set this up a couple of weeks ago, we
Speaker 1: decided to just focus on a single wonder as opposed
Speaker 1: to all seven of the Wonders of the world, so
Speaker 1: we're going to be talking about the Colossus of Rhodes.
Speaker 1: Let's get right to the interview. Hi, Michael, thanks for
Speaker 1: coming on the show.
Speaker 3: It's my pleasure to be alone.
Speaker 1: The book is The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, Science, Engineering,
Speaker 1: and Technology. It's a terrific read. Tell us how did
Speaker 1: this project come together?
Speaker 4: Well, the project was actually inspired many years ago by
Speaker 4: my father. My father was a curator at the British Museum.
Speaker 4: After he died, I started thinking about what he had done,
Speaker 4: and he had written on a chapter on the Colossus
Speaker 4: of Roads for a book on the Seven Wonders of
Speaker 4: the Ancient World, and so I thought, well, why not
Speaker 4: update it a bit because there'd been nothing really done
Speaker 4: seriously on the Seven Wonders in almost forty years, So
Speaker 4: hence my book.
Speaker 1: Now we're only going to be focusing on the one
Speaker 1: particular wonder for today's conversation, the Colossus of Rhodes. But
Speaker 1: I thought you might remind our listeners where and when
Speaker 1: this whole concept of the seven Wonders of the ancient
Speaker 1: world comes from.
Speaker 4: Well, the idea broadly comes from the third century BCE.
Speaker 4: It's a sort of a kind of modern life, a
Speaker 4: modern bucket list of things to see before you die.
Speaker 4: And it may seem rather surprising that these kind of lists,
Speaker 4: you know, existed at that time. Now, it's true that
Speaker 4: there wasn't very much tourism in ancient Greece, and that
Speaker 4: was partly because travel was by sea and there was
Speaker 4: a lot of problems with pirates. But into Roman times
Speaker 4: there was a well established a tourist industry in Greece
Speaker 4: and Egypt and Roman and all the rest of it.
Speaker 4: We actually have a tourist guide from the second century
Speaker 4: BCE where he describes all the places he went to.
Speaker 4: There were many lists, but the most popular and the
Speaker 4: one that's come down.
Speaker 3: To us now.
Speaker 4: It starts, of course with the Pyramids you can't avoid them.
Speaker 4: The Gardens of Babylon, the walls of Babylon as well,
Speaker 4: although that was subsequently are replaced by the Phiahs, the
Speaker 4: Statue of Zeus at Olympia, the tomb of King Marsolis,
Speaker 4: the Temple of Artemiss and of course the Colossus of Roads.
Speaker 4: And the question always is why were these things chosen?
Speaker 4: And they were probably chosen for their size, their beauty,
Speaker 4: and their engineering challenges. But also there's another aspect that
Speaker 4: almost all of them have some kind of indirect or
Speaker 4: direct link with Alexander the third of Macedon. He was
Speaker 4: the great conqueror who was known as the Great by
Speaker 4: those who were not unfortunate enough to have been conquered
Speaker 4: by him.
Speaker 1: Now narrowing in on the Island of Roads where the
Speaker 1: Colossus of Rhodes is or wise position now, Unfortunately, the
Speaker 1: Island of Roads is currently in the news due to
Speaker 1: destructive wildfires, so a refresher might not be as essential
Speaker 1: for listeners as as it normally would be. But could
Speaker 1: you go ahead and position roads for us geographically? And
Speaker 1: I guess geologically, well.
Speaker 4: It's a Biggish Greek island in the south east GNC.
Speaker 4: It's near the Turkish Turkish coast. In antiquity it was
Speaker 4: known as a warm, sunny island, and in fact it
Speaker 4: was sacred to the sun god Helios. And the story
Speaker 4: is that that Zeus had divided up the world between
Speaker 4: his brothers, but Helios was away and when he came
Speaker 4: back he found that that he hadn't been allocated anything.
Speaker 4: I guess they perhaps held the meeting during the night,
Speaker 4: so he wasn't there. But serious offered to redivide up
Speaker 4: the world. But Helius saw an island appearing in the
Speaker 4: south and asked for it, and that was Rhodes. And
Speaker 4: so in a sense that people still worship the sun there.
Speaker 4: Of course, it's a major holiday destination. Unfortunately, it is hot,
Speaker 4: it's sunny, it's dry for a huge amount of a
Speaker 4: very large amount of time every year, and so it's
Speaker 4: very susceptible to fires, which we're seeing now with the
Speaker 4: hot weather and that throughout Greece. And it's also suceptible
Speaker 4: to earthquakes, which come into the story of the Colossos
Speaker 4: quite a bit.
Speaker 1: Now. Yeah, turning to the colossus itself, I think many
Speaker 1: of us have seen illustrations of it, but really, what
Speaker 1: was this colossus, So what do we think it looked like.
Speaker 4: Okay, it was a huge statue, probably thirty three meters high,
Speaker 4: because we have some descriptions which say how big it
Speaker 4: was as one hundred feet and it was made of bronze.
Speaker 4: Now we don't have any really detailed description. Most people
Speaker 4: seem to say, well, everybody knows what it looks like,
Speaker 4: so there's no point in talking about it, and we don't.
Speaker 3: Have any images of it.
Speaker 4: Although the Rodians actually put on their coins the head
Speaker 4: of Helios. Now Roman in ancient coins were obviously they
Speaker 4: were used for money, but there was also essentially made souvenirs,
Speaker 4: and so they often had on their coins things that
Speaker 4: would encouraged tourism, and one of them was this image
Speaker 4: of Helios with curly hair and sun rays coming out
Speaker 4: of a kind of diadem. Now many people have suggested
Speaker 4: that the image of the head and perhaps of parts
Speaker 4: of the body was actually inspired by the statues of Alexander,
Speaker 4: because the sculptor who created the colossos was a pupil
Speaker 4: of the official sculptor of Alexander. And as for the
Speaker 4: rest of the statue, well, the most people think that
Speaker 4: he probably the god probably stood upright. He was holding
Speaker 4: a spear in one hand. This was partly, of course,
Speaker 4: to stabilize the statue, and he may have held a
Speaker 4: torch above his head. So if you want to think
Speaker 4: of what it looked like, well you know clearly the
Speaker 4: Statue of Liberty was inspired by the idea of what
Speaker 4: the statue looked like, and it was created to commemorate
Speaker 4: a very important event in three hundred and five BCE.
Speaker 4: Now this time, Rhodes was a quasi independent kingdom and
Speaker 4: it was caught between two major powers which were ruled
Speaker 4: by the successors of Alexander. So Alexander had died some
Speaker 4: time before, and he just his empire had been divided up,
Speaker 4: and two of the big chunks were Egypt to the
Speaker 4: south and Macedonia to the north, and Rhodes was kind
Speaker 4: of caught in a proxy war between these two major states,
Speaker 4: and Macedonia attacked roads with a fleet of ships. The
Speaker 4: Egyptians came to the rescue and defeated the Macedonians, and
Speaker 4: when the Macedonians left, they based sickly, just ran as
Speaker 4: fast as they could, and they left behind most of
Speaker 4: their military equipment, including some huge siege towers and These
Speaker 4: were towers that were built of wood and iron and bronze.
Speaker 3: Some of them.
Speaker 4: Maybe up one hundred and fifty feet high fifty meters high,
Speaker 4: and that perhaps come back into the story a bit later.
Speaker 4: So these towers had rams at the base of them.
Speaker 4: They were covered in iron plates to prevent fire arrows
Speaker 4: setting fire to the whole wooden structure. And the story
Speaker 4: goes that when the Rhodians finally defeated the Macedonians, that
Speaker 4: they sold off a lot of the siege towers. But
Speaker 4: I think actually they probably were wise enough to recycle
Speaker 4: a lot of the material into the statue that makes sense,
Speaker 4: and perhaps sell off other materials they didn't need.
Speaker 3: So that was it.
Speaker 1: Now you discussed that of the three surviving descriptions of
Speaker 1: the statue, the longest description, like the most detailed description,
Speaker 1: also seems to present a detailed but implausible construction method.
Speaker 1: What are we to make of this?
Speaker 3: Yes, it's a bit curious.
Speaker 4: The description you're talking about is by Philo of Byzantium,
Speaker 4: who is a third century BCE engineer, and he was
Speaker 4: the one who may have written the original description of
Speaker 4: the Seven Wonders, although that's somewhat debatable. Now he talks
Speaker 4: about how the statue had a framework of iron and stone,
Speaker 4: which is okay so far it would have had to
Speaker 4: have been built on a framework. But then he goes
Speaker 4: on and talks in great detail about how the bronze
Speaker 4: was poured on layer after layer, a bit like casting concrete,
Speaker 4: you know, putting one layer on, waiting a fort to solidify,
Speaker 4: and then putting another layer on. But it's a very
Speaker 4: brutal way of making a statue and would have required
Speaker 4: a gigantic amount of metal, and it would have produced
Speaker 4: an incredibly heavy statue that would have probably had problems
Speaker 4: standing up. It's much more likely that the colossus was
Speaker 4: actually made like smaller statues because they hadn't made one
Speaker 4: this high one hundred feet high before, But they'd made
Speaker 4: statues that were thirty forty feet high, so I mean
Speaker 4: they knew how to make big statues. This one was
Speaker 4: just even bigger. Now, the first stage in all of these,
Speaker 4: making any of these statues was to build a full
Speaker 4: sized model. So this would have had a frame of
Speaker 4: wood or iron. We don't know whether it's the final
Speaker 4: frame or not, or whether it was some kind of
Speaker 4: temporary affair. So they would have built a frame of
Speaker 4: wood and put struts and other bits on it, and
Speaker 4: finally smaller and smaller pieces of wood until they could
Speaker 4: cover the whole thing with plaster and make an exact
Speaker 4: model of what they wanted in the final structure. So
Speaker 4: they must have needed cranes and a shelter to produce
Speaker 4: this huge structure because it would have taken years to do.
Speaker 4: And one possibility is that they used the old siege
Speaker 4: tower or one of the old siege towers, or at
Speaker 4: least its framework. Now we know these siege towers were
Speaker 4: maybe thirty or forty feet wide and one hundred feet high.
Speaker 4: They were made of wooden frames like I mentioned, covered
Speaker 4: with metal. So what they could have done is dismantled
Speaker 4: a siege tower, moved it and re erected it on
Speaker 4: the base for the statue, and then they would have
Speaker 4: used that frame for hauling things up, and also they
Speaker 4: could put a roof on it so they would be
Speaker 4: sheltered while they were doing the construction because they're building
Speaker 4: the statue probably took about ten or twelve years, so
Speaker 4: it's kind of nice to think that they were recent Michael,
Speaker 4: and perhaps the size of the original siege tower, which
Speaker 4: would have been large enough to reach out over the
Speaker 4: walls so that they could attack the city. Perhaps this
Speaker 4: is what inspired the size of the actual statue itself.
Speaker 4: So the next stage after they'd produced that that model
Speaker 4: was casting the bronze first light. Say you know what
Speaker 4: is bronze? As people are often get confused with all
Speaker 4: these different alloys, it's it's an alloy of copper and
Speaker 4: tin and usually lead. Now, the reason why they mixed
Speaker 4: up these metals was that all alloys melt at lower
Speaker 4: temperatures than pure metals, so it's less energy, it's easier
Speaker 4: to pour and bronze this mixture of mostly copper like
Speaker 4: ninety copper tin and two few percent lead. That also
Speaker 4: flows more readily than pure copper, so it was a
Speaker 4: much better material.
Speaker 3: It was harder.
Speaker 4: Now copper was available from Cypress. Cypress, in fact, even
Speaker 4: takes its name from the ancient Roman name for copper,
Speaker 4: and there are huge deposits there which were exploited until
Speaker 4: quite recently. Still they may still be exploited because Cypress
Speaker 4: is actually a section of the seafloor that many many
Speaker 4: years ago was thrust up above sea level or to
Speaker 4: make new land. But I'm sure that many people have
Speaker 4: seen pictures of black smokers. There's hot springs on the
Speaker 4: ocean floor. The smoke that comes out is actually contains
Speaker 4: copper sulfide, and so that's how those deposits on Cypress formed.
Speaker 4: And so copper from Cyprus was no problem. It had
Speaker 4: been exploited for thousands of years before then, and it
Speaker 4: was exploited for many years afterwards. Now tin is a
Speaker 4: much more of a mystery. We don't know when people
Speaker 4: discovered that tin. Addition of tin to copper would make
Speaker 4: it melted at a lower temperature and make a harder material,
Speaker 4: but it was certainly something extremely important. But the problem
Speaker 4: is where the tin came from, because there isn't a
Speaker 4: single source like Cyprus. Heroditis, who was writing in the
Speaker 4: fifth century BCE, talked about the Casiderites islands far off
Speaker 4: in the Atlantic, and that may have been England, Southwest
Speaker 4: England or Brittany.
Speaker 3: But it's also.
Speaker 4: Possible that the tin actually came from the far East,
Speaker 4: because we know that the gem material lap Is Lazuli
Speaker 4: was actually imported from Afghanistan to Europe for a very
Speaker 4: long period of time. It's present in ancient Egypt, so
Speaker 4: we know there were long distance trade routes all the
Speaker 4: way as far as the as far as Afghanistan, and
Speaker 4: it's possible that the tin came from there, but there
Speaker 4: may have been just many, many, many different sources. It
Speaker 4: was obtained by washing river sediments a bit like gold
Speaker 4: place of gold, and it may have been essentially a
Speaker 4: byproduct of gold explotation in some places. Now, the third
Speaker 4: component was lead that was added to further reduce the temperature,
Speaker 4: but it was also to stretch the metal because it
Speaker 4: was incredibly cheap, and the reason was that it was
Speaker 4: a waste product from the silver mines near Athens, near
Speaker 4: near Lavrion, which was the source of the of the
Speaker 4: wealth that built the Parthenon and the other monuments of
Speaker 4: classical grease. It was silver, so there was pars of
Speaker 4: lead there. So they would import these these materials and
Speaker 4: perhaps recycle a bit, and then they had to cast it.
Speaker 4: So the way of it is most likely that they
Speaker 4: cast it was that they would have taken a section
Speaker 4: of the full size model, maybe up to two or
Speaker 4: three meters wide two or three meters deep, and they
Speaker 4: would have covered it with wax. This would have been
Speaker 4: bees wax, maybe a quarter inch thick. Five milimeters. Then
Speaker 4: they would have carefully removed the wax model covered it
Speaker 4: in clay and baked it to make a mold, so
Speaker 4: the wax would have drained out.
Speaker 3: It would have been recycled because it.
Speaker 4: Had a lot of value, and they would vend it
Speaker 4: up with a clay mold with a hole in it
Speaker 4: very very narrow width, just like I said, a quarter
Speaker 4: of an inch. So then melt metal and pour it
Speaker 4: into the mold, and then once it was cool, you
Speaker 4: would break up the mold and clean up the casting
Speaker 4: because of course it would probably have holes in it
Speaker 4: and other little bits and pieces that need fixing. And
Speaker 4: then you'd fix their metal sheets onto the framework the
Speaker 4: framework of iron, and would probably mostly iron. And the
Speaker 4: total amount of metal in the in the statue was
Speaker 4: probably the order of like one hundred and thirty one
Speaker 4: hundred and fifty tons something like that. So it was
Speaker 4: it was a significant amount, but it wasn't It wasn't gigantic.
Speaker 4: They probably would have produced that much copper in Cyprus
Speaker 4: every year, or or perhaps every six months, so it
Speaker 4: was it was not. It's not an impossibly large amount
Speaker 4: of material.
Speaker 1: How would it have looked from Afar?
Speaker 3: Would it.
Speaker 1: Do you do we think it would have like gleamed
Speaker 1: in the sun. Would it have been like really splendid
Speaker 1: to behold?
Speaker 4: I think initially it would have gleamed in the sun,
Speaker 4: but of course it would have.
Speaker 3: It would have had a.
Speaker 4: Green pattern that developed quite fast. I don't think anybody
Speaker 4: has ever suggested that it was covered in gold. You
Speaker 4: could have put a thin coating of gold on it.
Speaker 4: It was sometimes done, but it probably wouldn't last that long.
Speaker 4: I mean, remember that it was put up beside the sea,
Speaker 4: and so there was a certain amount of.
Speaker 3: Sea spray which would have corroded it.
Speaker 4: So I think, you know, it would have looked green,
Speaker 4: and it would have been seen from some distance out
Speaker 4: to sea. So it was a kind of It was
Speaker 4: a kind of beacon to welcome boats into the harbor,
Speaker 4: as well as a symbol of yes, look we can
Speaker 4: stand up to ourselves against the against the Macedonians, even
Speaker 4: if it was our friends the Egyptians who helped us
Speaker 4: on this one.
Speaker 1: Now, one of the big mysteries with the Colossus of Roads,
Speaker 1: as you discuss and this is there's similar mysteries with
Speaker 1: with other of the ancient wonders concerns that the location.
Speaker 1: So we don't know exactly where the Colossus of Roads
Speaker 1: stood right right exactly.
Speaker 3: We don't.
Speaker 4: We don't have any fragments of it. We don't we
Speaker 4: haven't actually found where the metal was cast, which would
Speaker 4: actually probably be something easier to find than the fragments
Speaker 4: of the statue itself, because you know, an old factory
Speaker 4: is something that nobody particularly wants, so you should be
Speaker 4: left remains of it.
Speaker 3: And it's a bit of a.
Speaker 4: Mystery as to why we've never actually found anything of
Speaker 4: where it was. But there's something that is clear is
Speaker 4: that there's an image which is endlessly recycled of the
Speaker 4: Clossos straddling the harbor as this giant statue with his
Speaker 4: legs apart and ships sailing happily between his legs. Well,
Speaker 4: there is absolutely no suggestion that that was correct. It's
Speaker 4: completely the fantasy of a sixteenth century illustrator. But I
Speaker 4: think because of the power of the illustration, you know,
Speaker 4: it's it's a bad idea that you just can't get
Speaker 4: rid of. It would have been technically impossible to actually
Speaker 4: build a statue with the legs apart like that, And
Speaker 4: also if the statue was thirty three meters high. It's
Speaker 4: one hundred feet high including the spear and torch. Then
Speaker 4: the crotch would have only been at about thirty five
Speaker 4: feet and it's supposed to straddle the military harbor, and
Speaker 4: none of the military boats of navy boats could have
Speaker 4: got in because it would have been too small.
Speaker 3: So there is no way it stood like that.
Speaker 4: It's much more likely that it stood on a low
Speaker 4: mound near the edge of the harbor, that's to say,
Speaker 4: between the current harbor, which still exists, and the city itself.
Speaker 3: In fact, the place where we think it stood.
Speaker 4: Is actually covered by the Palace of the Crusader Knights,
Speaker 4: which was erected essentially in medieval times, although what you
Speaker 4: see now is essentially a modern reconstruction because when Roads
Speaker 4: was part of the part of Italy briefly during Miscellini's time,
Speaker 4: it was reconstructed as a palace for Mussolini, so unfortunately
Speaker 4: that's what happened now. So there are certain advantages being.
Speaker 3: Near the harbor like this.
Speaker 4: First of all, it was on a low hill, so
Speaker 4: it was visible from further out.
Speaker 3: It was also useful.
Speaker 4: For shipments of metal coming in because they had a
Speaker 4: lot of weight of metal and being natural harbor, they
Speaker 4: could store it there. They could have put workshops very
Speaker 4: easily around the harbor itself, and perhaps the old seage
Speaker 4: engine was nearby, so they had plenty of space for construction.
Speaker 4: And also it was far from the corrosive effects of
Speaker 4: sea spray, because sea spray obviously creates bronze very readily.
Speaker 1: Now you mentioned that. Of course, you mentioned that the
Speaker 1: stance of the statue, and how we think that it
Speaker 1: was likely legs together as opposed to the legs apart.
Speaker 1: That is a fantasy of illustration. One thing I kept
Speaker 1: wondering about the reading the chapter is that a lot
Speaker 1: of us still have that vision stuck in our minds
Speaker 1: when we just think of the Colossus of Rhodes, this
Speaker 1: huge metal colossus, you know, straddling the bay right up there,
Speaker 1: you know, next to the water, and we think of
Speaker 1: that and we think, well, that just sounds audacious. Of
Speaker 1: course it fell down because we don't have I don't
Speaker 1: see statues like that in the world today. You know,
Speaker 1: why would they be able to get away with it
Speaker 1: back then? And I was just wondering, if do you
Speaker 1: think that these sorts of images in this line of thinking,
Speaker 1: does it make us sort of take for granted the
Speaker 1: skill that they would have had in constructing it. Like
Speaker 1: how you mentioned that this was basically a larger version
Speaker 1: of statues that they were already building. So was it
Speaker 1: truly on an audacious project or was it maybe not
Speaker 1: as audacious as we might think?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 4: I think it was definitely audacious. I mean it really
Speaker 4: was considerably bigger, probably two or three times bigger than
Speaker 4: anything they'd constructed before.
Speaker 3: And remember that.
Speaker 4: It was a very impressive construction, and it was much
Speaker 4: imitated afterwards. There were other statues of this size that
Speaker 4: were built. One of them will come into the story
Speaker 4: a little bit later, but it was the Colossus of
Speaker 4: Nero that was built at Rome, and it was constructed
Speaker 4: next to the Flavian Amphitheater, which most people, of course
Speaker 4: know as the Colosseum. And the Colosseum was not named
Speaker 4: because it was colossal. It was named for the colossal
Speaker 4: statue of Nero that stood nearby.
Speaker 3: But the problem always with.
Speaker 4: Large constructions in an area like roads, which is particularly
Speaker 4: susceptible to earthquakes, is that it collapsed. It collapsed, in fact,
Speaker 4: only sixty years after it was finished, in two twenty six,
Speaker 4: so the problem was that there was an earthquake. There
Speaker 4: was not, perhaps by Rodian standards, are very big earth quake,
Speaker 4: but the land went down by one meter. And the
Speaker 4: problem was that the wealth of roads essentially was derived
Speaker 4: from its trading activity, and the harbor went down one meter.
Speaker 4: So all the keys are underwater, the military ship sheds
Speaker 4: where they stored the boats. Because boats, the military boats
Speaker 4: were always hauled out of the water except when they
Speaker 4: were needed. They were all submerged. And this international trading
Speaker 4: hub just simply collapsed to that point. And there were
Speaker 4: many cities which needed that trade, including Egypt, and so
Speaker 4: there was a kind of international effort to try and
Speaker 4: help roads and re establish the trade. So it was
Speaker 4: not entirely altruistic that they were doing it. For instance, Egypt,
Speaker 4: we know they offered ninety tons of bronze work, workmen
Speaker 4: and money to restore the harbor and the statue. Now
Speaker 4: we don't know if it was accepted immediately or accepted
Speaker 4: at all. What we do know is that the Rhodians
Speaker 4: consulted the oracle of Delphi, who said do not rebuild. Now,
Speaker 4: I probably think that the Oracle of Delphi was a
Speaker 4: bit like modern management consulting companies. People consult them to
Speaker 4: consolidate the idea that they've already had in their mind,
Speaker 4: but whether they did or did not accept the Obgyptian
Speaker 4: offer is unclear. But the story that has followed on
Speaker 4: from that was that the remains of the statue lay
Speaker 4: on the ground for nine hundred years, nobody stole any
Speaker 4: of it until the Arabs invaded and sold off the
Speaker 4: money to a Jewish trader who hauled it away on
Speaker 4: one hundred and thirty five camels. This story seems extremely unlikely.
Speaker 4: I can't imagine anywhere in the ancient world where you
Speaker 4: could have that amount of metal, the amount of wealth
Speaker 4: in a big pile around for nine hundred years without
Speaker 4: anybody stealing it. But that's become again it's it's the
Speaker 4: story that's off to repeat it. But there's another possibility.
Speaker 4: There was a Roman historian called Eusebius writing in three
Speaker 4: hundred and eleven CE, and he it's a kind of
Speaker 4: chronicle year by year that he describes, and for about
Speaker 4: four times he describes in this kind of year by
Speaker 4: year listing that the Colossos was rebuilt. The problem is
Speaker 4: that we don't know whether he's talking about the Colossus
Speaker 4: of Rhodes or the Colossus of Nero, because he was
Speaker 4: actually based in Rome, so hence the problem. But of course,
Speaker 4: if you could have restored the Colossos of Nero, which
Speaker 4: was almost exact copy of the Colossos of Rhodes, except
Speaker 4: of course with near his head on the top, if
Speaker 4: you could restore that one, then you could restore the
Speaker 4: Colossos of Roads too. So it seems quite likely that
Speaker 4: many of the Roman emperors did in fact restore the Colossos,
Speaker 4: and in fact it may have been rebuilt two or
Speaker 4: three times. Whether it was built in exactly the same
Speaker 4: form rebuilt, we don't know, and we don't know how
Speaker 4: much of the damage was. But I imagine that the corrosion,
Speaker 4: probably of the statue with an iron core and a
Speaker 4: bronze exterior, would have corroded quite readily, and so even
Speaker 4: relatively small earthquakes would have certainly damaged it partly brought
Speaker 4: it down. So I like to think that that Ucbius
Speaker 4: was probably right and that it was actually restored, because
Speaker 4: it certainly was something that was incredibly important in people's consciousness,
Speaker 4: and Roman empress did sometimes do these kind of altruistic
Speaker 4: moves just to re establish their power too. So which
Speaker 4: case when did it finally fall and was not restored, well,
Speaker 4: probably one two CE, so this is like four hundred
Speaker 4: years after it was built. There was a huge earthquake
Speaker 4: in Roads. Now we know about this earthquake because the
Speaker 4: land was uplifted by four point eight meters that's what
Speaker 4: fourteen feet, and imagine that the size of an earthquake
Speaker 4: needed to push the land up fourteen feet. And we
Speaker 4: know how much the land went up and when that
Speaker 4: happened from looking at sea level notches along the northeast
Speaker 4: coast of Roads. Now, the Mediterranean, as most people know,
Speaker 4: has very little tide, so when the waves hit on cliffs,
Speaker 4: they create a notch, They rode away the cliff at
Speaker 4: a level, and they create a platform. Because the century
Speaker 4: no tide, so the waves always attacking the same level.
Speaker 4: So during an earthquake, the land will move up or down.
Speaker 4: In this case, it moved up and we have the
Speaker 4: old kind of notch. The old sea level is still
Speaker 4: visible and those that visit Roads City, Northern Roads can
Speaker 4: still see these things along all the beaches, this old
Speaker 4: notch up on it and it gives you the whole
Speaker 4: history of it, and it certainly was a gigantic earthquake.
Speaker 4: The trade must have completely been eliminated. The harbor was
Speaker 4: just kind of wiped out. It would have taken a
Speaker 4: tremendous It did take a tremendous amount of effort to
Speaker 4: re establish trade. But if the colossus fell at that point,
Speaker 4: it probably was not restored, simply because there were so
Speaker 4: many other things to do. Were after such a huge earthquake,
Speaker 4: the distraction of the city would have been almost total,
Speaker 4: as well as all the buildings and the rest of it.
Speaker 1: Now, in the last chapter of the book, you discuss
Speaker 1: the idea of reconstructing modern replicas of the Seven Wonders,
Speaker 1: which which I thought was a wonderful way to round
Speaker 1: out the book, especially given you know, the book has
Speaker 1: this has this great focus obviously on geology, often bringing
Speaker 1: up the aspects of of of the local geology and
Speaker 1: the sourcing of materials for the different Wonders that I,
Speaker 1: you know, I'd never really considered before, I guess i'd,
Speaker 1: you know, and often focused more on just sort of
Speaker 1: the historical tidbits. I loved all of that, and I
Speaker 1: love the focus on the engineering. So with the Colossus
Speaker 1: of Rhodes in particular, how colossal of an undertaking, if
Speaker 1: you will, would it be to rebuild it today, and
Speaker 1: to do it right?
Speaker 4: I don't think it would have actually been particularly difficult
Speaker 4: to do. To rebuild now. I mean we we do
Speaker 4: have the Statue of Liberty, which is a little smaller,
Speaker 4: but not not that much smaller. The Statue of Liberty
Speaker 4: is built again on our metal frame. It's made of copper,
Speaker 4: it's not bronze. But of course the Statue of Liberty
Speaker 4: is not in an earthquake zone, whereas Roads we definitely
Speaker 4: know it is. There is a plate tectonic boundary, probably
Speaker 4: about ten kilometers south of Roads, where the floor of
Speaker 4: the Mediterranean drops down from the kind of platform which
Speaker 4: Roads is on right down into the deep ocean. So
Speaker 4: it's a place where we regularly get big earthquakes, and
Speaker 4: like I said, we can have ones with fourteen feet
Speaker 4: of displacement, which is a huge earthquake. So you need
Speaker 4: to build an earthquake resistant structure. There certainly are there's
Speaker 4: a lot of expertise in building such structures, especially in
Speaker 4: places like Chile where they regularly have very large earthquakes.
Speaker 4: And I think the way to do it would be
Speaker 4: to build a platform, a metal platform, and isolate it
Speaker 4: seismically from the underlying rock.
Speaker 3: So you would have a slab of concrete, you'd have rubber.
Speaker 4: Blocks, and then on top of that there would have
Speaker 4: been a metal frame, and the metal frame.
Speaker 3: Could be relatively rigid.
Speaker 4: Then the statue would have a framework which would be
Speaker 4: built onto that base. Again, it would have to have
Speaker 4: a certain amount of flexibility so that the amount of
Speaker 4: vibration that did get transmitted through there would not make
Speaker 4: the plates of bronze come off the framework. They'd have
Speaker 4: to be carefully design in that way, but I don't
Speaker 4: think it would be a particularly big challenge to do.
Speaker 4: The big challenge would be that everybody would expect to
Speaker 4: rebuild it as a statue straddling the harbor. And so
Speaker 4: when I've seen pictures of reconstructions that they're going to do,
Speaker 4: it's been announced several times that they're building a reconstruction.
Speaker 4: It's you know, often portrayed as straddling the harbor. Now
Speaker 4: it is actually a harbor that's used now. So the
Speaker 4: choice is you then have to build a much bigger colossos,
Speaker 4: which I think is what they what they're thinking of.
Speaker 4: Doing one that would be not one hundred feet high
Speaker 4: but three hundred feet high. Then of course it gets
Speaker 4: to be a little bit more complicated. But you know,
Speaker 4: the question is do they want to rebuild it as
Speaker 4: something that is somewhat resembles what it was in antiquity,
Speaker 4: or do you want it as a model symbol of roads,
Speaker 4: in which case it doesn't have to resemble anything that
Speaker 4: it did. Did it look like an antiquity But it's
Speaker 4: an interesting problem. It's more of a political problem than
Speaker 4: anything else. I mean, I rather hope that none of
Speaker 4: it is ever reconstructed, because I rather like visiting roads,
Speaker 4: and Roads is a rather nice place on its own
Speaker 4: without a very large statue in it.
Speaker 1: The fact that it was there was ever it was
Speaker 1: ever built at all? You know what, what what does
Speaker 1: this reveal about? Like the nature in the scope of
Speaker 1: the original construction and about the place of roads in
Speaker 1: the ancient world.
Speaker 4: I think it was it celebrated their worship of Helios,
Speaker 4: and Helios is as a Greek god is somewhat neglected.
Speaker 4: I mean, nowhere else in Greece do you find statues
Speaker 4: or worship of Helios in any significant So it was
Speaker 4: essentially their own kind of personal island god. I mean,
Speaker 4: his place of Helios is usually taken by Apollo, who
Speaker 4: had a similar kind of responsibilities. Now Helios, we always
Speaker 4: talk about the sun god. Actually he is not quite that.
Speaker 4: He was the guy in charge of transporting the sun,
Speaker 4: so he dragged it on a chariot across the sky
Speaker 4: and then kind of pushed it through hades and pulled
Speaker 4: it up on the other side. So it was more
Speaker 4: of a kind of wagoneer than a than a god.
Speaker 4: But you know, every city of community wants to have
Speaker 4: its kind of what was it starchitect building now, and
Speaker 4: this was their starchitect building from the third century BC,
Speaker 4: and perhaps nothing really has changed. People want to have
Speaker 4: a symbol of their town, something they can put on
Speaker 4: their coins, something they can use to attract tourists. And
Speaker 4: that's what it was at those times, I say, and
Speaker 4: not unusual when you look at the other wonders they
Speaker 4: were essentially perhaps partly there to attract tourists too, but
Speaker 4: also for worship as well. I mean, the Zeus statue
Speaker 4: of Zeus was certainly a very very important destination for
Speaker 4: people to view the mausoleum. The was a similarly in
Speaker 4: that kind of way, and of course the pyramids still
Speaker 4: are the greatest symbol of Egypt.
Speaker 1: Well, Michael, thanks again for coming on the show to
Speaker 1: discuss the book again. The title is The Seven Wonders
Speaker 1: of the Ancient World, Science, Engineering and Technology. Courage listeners
Speaker 1: to check this book out because it has the history,
Speaker 1: it has the mythology, it has the engineering and the geology.
Speaker 3: It's just a treat Well, thank you very much.
Speaker 1: Thanks again to Professor Michael Dennis Higgins for chatting with
Speaker 1: us today. The book again is The Seven Wonders of
Speaker 1: the Ancient World, Science, Engineering and Technology from Oxford University Press.
Speaker 1: It's available now in hardback and as an ebook. I
Speaker 1: highly recommend it. I think you can love it. If
Speaker 1: you want to listen to other episodes of Stuff to
Speaker 1: Blow your Mind, well just find us in the Stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind podcast feed wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: We have core episodes of the show on Tuesdays and Thursdays,
Speaker 1: listener mails on Mondays, short form artifactural monster fact episodes
Speaker 1: on Wednesdays, and on Fridays. We set aside most serious
Speaker 1: concerns to just talk about a weird film on Weird
Speaker 1: House Cinema. Thanks again to the excellent JJ Possway for
Speaker 1: producing the show, and if you would like to get
Speaker 1: in touch with us, well, you can email us at
Speaker 1: contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
Speaker 2: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
Speaker 2: more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.