How the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World Works, Part I

going fast. Portland's you guys are sold out, have been for a while. Hats off to you guys in Seattle. We're coming to see you guys January, and there's even fewer tickets left than there are for San Francisco. That's right. That's in the More Theater and you can get all the ticket information at s y s K live dot com. Are live touring home on the web, so so happy holidays and hurry up. Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from how Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to

the podcast. I'm Josh Clark and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryan there. Wait, wait, I know you thought I was gonna say Jerry, but you're wrong because it's Noel today, guest producer Noel, and that makes this stuff you should know. That's how you doing. I'm good. Noel. Who is the the eighth Wonder of the ancient world? Yes, and the modern world too. He spans he spans space and time. Yes, like the Colossus span the harbor of Rhodes or did it? Uh, it didn't. We're gonna learn a lot, Chuck. I'm so

excited about this one. Oh yeah, these two? You mean these two? That's right? Um? Yeah, I hit upon it and I'm like, this is a two parter right here, and I can't believe we haven't done this already. Like everybody knows about the Seven Wonders of the Ancient world, but nobody knows about the seven Wonders of the ancient world. You know what I mean. Nobody knows about them at all. It's like a perfect, perfect stuff you should know episode if you ask me times two a sequel, that's right.

So um, to get started, we we probably would. Let's just give a brief overview of the seven Wonders. Okay, let's do should you just want to name them? Yeah, and we're gonna we're gonna do them chronologically too, Okay,

is that how they're listed for me? Yeah? Okay, Well, then first up we have the the the Great Pyramid, the Great Pyramid of Giza, right, and then after that, again chronologically, there's the Hanging Gardens of Babylon and apparently there used to be it used to be the Walls of Babylon in addition to the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, but they were removed later. Uh. And then what's next, chuck, the Temple of our artemies at here we go the temple of Artemis at Ephesus. Uh, either one Artemis at

Ephesus nice man um. And then there's a statue of Zeus at Olympia, which I have to admit I had not heard of before I had heard of that one. I think, I think a couple of these. I felt bad because maybe I had disregarded some of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world because a couple of these were news to me. Oh yeah, okay, so that one was for me. The Mausoleum at hell Carnassis was also new for me too. Yeah. Colossus of Rhodes old hat sure, everybody knows that one. Come on, yeah, Like, I've got

Colossus of Rhodes underwear on right now. I know you where you got that whole style where you wear the sag and you show your underwear too, that's right. Uh. And then finally the Lighthouse of Alexandria, which is I think I had heard of that one. But when when you put these all together, it is not. It is no small list, no, and and so this list, like you may wonder who put this list together, you know, uh, maybe Jacques Cousteau, maybe um bertrand Russell, who knows. It's

actually way, way way older than that. Um This list goes back to the time of ancient Greece. Actually, and they're not entirely certain who wrote the first one, but there were several people who kind of took the list and and added to it or subtracted to it. And there's a bunch of candidates for who who had written the list, But the one I saw that's pretty roundly considered probably the first one to have written a list

is Diodorus Cecilius or Diodorus of Sicily. Yeah. And the reason that these lists were made was because at the time Greece had done a pretty good job of subjugating a lot of the areas around it, like Turkey, Persia, Babylon, and these places were now safe for Greeks to go visit. And because the Greeks were wealthy and had a lot of leisure time, they actually became some of the world's

first tourists, international tourists. And that was basically the you know, the list of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world was, hey, you should go visit these things, go to these places and see these things, and so some people would go do I think it was probably a point of pride to be able to say I've seen all seven what they called the amata. Yeah, theiamata translates as things to be seen, or if you want to get even more modern, it's literally like here are your musties if you're going

on vacation. It was kind of like the first travel website kind of, but it was just a list. Yeah,

it wasn't on the web yet. That would take a couple of hundred years, at least a couple of hundred because these guys they did live in like the third, fourth, fifth centuries BC, right, Yeah, so over time, this list, like I said, it was, Um, it started out I think with um, the Great Pyramid has always been on there, hanging gardens have always been on there, Temple of Artemis, Statue Zeus, the Mausoleum, the classes of and then I think the lighthouse at Alexandria may not have been on

and it was the wall of the walls of Babylon, and they said, we've already got bab blond covered, you guys, this lighthouse is to be seen. So it was eventually compiled and that list. So the list itself is pretty ancient too. Yeah. In Babylon, if they had one motto, it was come for the gardens, stay for the wall, for sure, you know. Yeah. Um. So out of all of those, the the only ones that are still around

actually is the Great Pyramid. Yeah. I mean there are bits of some of these and various museums, most notably the British Museum. Yeah. And there are some ruins on the site still yeah, here and there, some some ruins underwater here and there. Um. I used to have you been to a lot of ruins? I've been to Pompeii, you me and I went. It was kind of the fulfillment of a lifelong dream. Yeah. You have you been

to Pompeii? Yeah? What ruins? Have you been to? Just your your your garden variety ruins like uh, in Rome, that kind of thing. Oh yeah, man, the Colosseum, Yeah, that was something to be seen. Huh yeah, I mean it's part of me. Like when I go to see ruins, it's um, it's really cool because I try and take myself back to that time. But then when I stand back and look at it and it's in its current surroundings, sometimes you get a little sad because there's a lot

of people like chewing gum and on their phone and stuff. Yeah, you know, yeah man, and especially well we'll talk about the Pyramids. Uh, but you know have you have you seen the famous pizza hut pictures? No, what are you talking about? Well, you know that the Pyramids. Oh is that a photo shopped? No, it's not photo shopped. The Pyramids back right up or I guess front, right up to Cairo. H. So you always see the of image

looking at the Pyramids from Cairo. If you see the image looking the other way, there's like a city right button up against it. In an ancient Egyptian in the foreground turns of the camera with a single tear coming down. But he was really Italian. Now there's there, there's a literally a pizza hut kfc um, which you could do worse facing you could be a burger kid facing the Great Pyramids of Egypt and the Sphinx. And in one of the windows of the pizza hut there's the Pizza

Hut logo. And if you stand inside that Pizza Hut, you can take a photograph of that Pizza Hut cap and logo kind of sitting on top of the pyramid. And uh so, you know, there are all kinds of photos now of Pizza Hut, and it's just it's sort of you know, it's not it speaks of the times, you know, which is what I talked about being a little s add there's a pizza hut. There's a freaking Kentucky Fried Chicken yards from the Great Pyramids. Yeah, I

know how I feel about that. I guess that's well, I think it's pretty clear how you feel about it. You don't like it, I don't know. But I mean you can't say, like, no, what are you gonna have a restaurant here? You can't do anything it's just it is what it is, you know. Yeah, I mean, it's not like you're gonna live without KFC for a second. That's true. I would challenge some KFC if I was over there, the very famous one by the Pern I

know what you mean. Though, Sure, you know it was a little weird, But at the same time you're like, wow, you know this thing was built by slaves who died working. So maybe the KFC is actually preferable in some ways, you know. Yeah, And maybe that's what I should feel sad about. Just feel sad about both. Okay, so let's go to the Great Pyramids of Giza and there's actually if you go, um, oh, we're gonna really wear out the way Back Machine huh yeah this and gased it up.

It's ready, um, and I got a new air fresher and you like it. I'm not big on the pineapple, but it's all right, pineapple. We can swap it out for the second part. Okay, Okay, So, um, we're gonna get in the Way Back Machine and if you go, we're actually just gonna go back a couple of days because we're going to modern times. But if we're gonna look at the Great Pyramid at Giza. There's actually just one of them that's on the list of the seven

Wonders of the Ancient World. It's one particular one, the Pyramid of Kufu or Chaops is what the Greeks call them, and his is the biggest pyramid of them all. Yeah, I mean there are more than, uh more than or exactly eighty pyramids scattered across Egypt, uh various sizes and there. Imagine they're all pretty great to go look at. But the big daddy of them all, like you said, is Cufu k h u f U, and it is. It is the one you know that you can get with

the pizza hut cap on top right. It's one. It's the main dude there with the three pyramids with the sphinx standing by watching over Kentucky Fried Chicken to make sure nobody robs it. Well, it actually would work really well for that pizza hut cap because it's the one of the three. You always see the three together. The other two are the Pyramid of menku Are and the other one is Pyramid of Coffree, and they're smaller, but

if you'll notice those two have points. The biggest one, the Pyramid of Kufu has a flat top, like it just knew that that pizza hut was coming in four thousand years right. But the so we know so little about this pyramid that they're they're not entirely certain if this is true or not. But there's a pretty widespread theory that um, that pyramid was actually unfinished. Oh really,

they couldn't bring this final stones, huh. That maybe everybody involved died or there was a change in dynasty or something. But they think and there's other evidence we'll talk about, but it seems like it might have been unfinished. Didn't Napoleon toot off the nose of the sphinx? Or is that? Is that an old wives tale that was isis? Okay? Probably so took. One of the things that's so great about this pyramids just how massive it is, right, It's

it's tall. It's very tall. It's like, um, four hundred and eighty feet tall, which that's that's a substantial height if you ask me. Yeah, I mean for a long time it was one of the tallest or the tallest building in the world, which is amazing. Yeah, until the fourteenth century when Lincoln Cathedral in England finally topped it. So for almost for about thirty four hundred years, it stood as the tallest structure man made, human made structure

in the world. It's hard to believe. Yeah, it's pretty cool. And then it's side. Each side at the base is about seven one hundred and fifty five ft long. There's just massive, massive structures. Yeah. And you know how I was talking about the fact that it's uh, it just butt right up against Cairo. Um at least it's not surrounding, uh,

like the city is not just on all sides. So if you do look at it from the city, it's on the Giza plateau and that is still you know, I'm not sure how far it goes back, but you know, a nice wide aerial shots. Looks like most of that plateau is pretty preserved at least. So so this the whole thing. The pyramid was built um sometime during the reign of King Kufu appropriately enough, Um and the king rain from I think sixty six. So it's pretty old pyramid and it's it's you know, and it's made of

just a ton of blocks cut blocks, right. So one of the things like if you go on some sites, uh you'll find people who's just kind of poopoo the pyramids there is just like it's just pile piles of stone really, but it's actually pretty clever engineering, especially considering how long ago, um it was built. It's not just

a pilot stone. There's a lot of corridors and shafts and rooms, and the engineers had to take into account where to place these things so that they structure didn't collapse in on itself as it you know aged um. So it is a pretty pretty big feet of engineering just in addition to its size, you know. Yeah, I mean there are more than two million pile of stones.

Who says that some people online? Yea more than two million limestone and granite blocks, the weight of about six and a half million tons, And these things are engineered such that they that it's about a fifty one degree slope on each side, and each side is faces exactly to the four cardinal directions. So it's pretty impressive. Yeah, that's no accident. It's not like it just happened to land that way. It was all done very much on purpose.

These rocks fit together, the blocks really really tightly, less than a fiftieth of an inch separating them. So that right there is why these things are still standing, you know, right, And so when you look at the pyramid, it's actually so I think, I said fot, I think it's fo at its height originally it was four ft and it was also encased in limestone. Um, well, did it originally have the point then? I don't think so, because I think they would. I think there's some other stuff that

suggests that was unfinished too. Um. I don't know if I ever had the point. I don't know if anybody knows for certain, but it seems like it hadn't been put on yet, like an inscription at the top that's just not quite done. Well, that's one of the things. That's one of the reasons why they think that it wasn't done, because it's lacking inscriptions that other pyramids have, like in aces, doesn't have no more like we dedicate this to the sun god raw in the name of

King Kufu and um, right, yeah, the usual. So it's lacking any kind of inscriptions. The king's burial chamber, the actual sarcophagus, which is just this huge, massive stone that they actually built the chamber around. It's not like they built the room and then imported this thing was it's bigger than any entrance to the room, but it's it's kind of rough, it's got some cut marks still showing,

and it was obviously not finished. And then the other reason why they think that it wasn't ever finished, Chuck, was that there's no evidence that anyone ever found any treasure, loot bodies, anything. It's like, yeah, it's like it's this dead, empty place that has never been used. Ironically too and tomb dead people into it was just never finished either. So that's one theory that it was finished and never used.

Another one is that it actually was looted and it was looted so thoroughly that um, there's just not even evidence of it being looted. And then the yeah, it's kind of impressive. And then the last one, uh, is that um, it is finished, and that all of these shafts and like walkways and crawl spaces that we found are actually meant to distract you from the real places where the tombs are that we've just not found yet.

Couldn't they find those? By now? Though not necessarily, they're still finding like secret rooms and passages that are hidden from view. They're just starting now apply the technology to seeing through stone. Literally, just get up the X ray camera right and just stand at pizza hut, zoom in right and just see what's in that thing. You don't even need that. You can send off for some of those X ray specs from a comic book exactly. I don't know why, and no one else has thought of

this yet, So I have a question. Then they said it's originally covered in limestone in that case, sing, does that mean that originally it was it was not in a step pattern and it was just smooth on the outside. Yes, How in the world did they get up there? Would they just slide back down? Well, the answer that it's obvious it was aliens that helped them. That's right, That's that's it. That's the answer. I have no idea, Chuck,

that's a really good question to tell you. Maybe they maybe there's a passageway inside right that they can come at the top, You come out the top, pull the limestone up into place, and then slide down and start the process over again. Interesting. But if you want to see kind of probably what it looked like, just go look at the Iron Maid in Power Slave album covered it's kind of like smoothly covered. It's not stepped really. I mean there's steps, but they're they're meant to be

like a staircase. It's not steps on the outside. Oh yeah, that makes sense. So yeah. So in the fourteenth century there was an earthquake and as you'll see, that becomes a pattern here with a lot of these ancient uh wonders that would become ruins because of earthquakes. Um. You know,

most of these in the Middle East. It's a volatile area tectonically speaking, so um, you know, over the course of thousands of years, things are going to tumble over time, you know, And it is what happened in this case. It's basically earthquakes, earthquake, earthquake, earthquake, over and over again. It's the great leveler of monuments, right. Yeah. But the Cufoo Pyramids stood. It was stood that earthquake because it's

just more than a pile of rox. It is so big and so grand and so heavy, I guess, and probably a little luck came involved as well. Yeah, but it was also really good engineering too, for sure. But the the earthquake did get it in that it did level Cairo and they went out to the pyramid and took the limestone off of it and used it to rebuild Cairo. Yeah, and that's another common refrain of notices.

A lot of these would be toppled, and then people would come in and say, let's use this stuff for like actual for the city, yeah, instead of just some monument to a ruler. Yeah. And if you are you ever gonna go see the pyramids? I was. It was sort of on the old bucket list until I saw the pizza hut thing today. Oh man, that's funny. And I read an article where someone was like, don't do it, just don't go really, Yeah, but I mean that's just one person's opinion. We also had people that said the

the northern lights aren't that impressive. Yeah, and that one one person. Yeah, we got shouted down for that. Oh my god. It still happens from time to time. Yeah. Um. So if you do go the chuck the way that you go into the pyramid, as far as you can, it's actually and no one's figured out how to go in the way that it was intended. It's that that entrance is lost to history as far as I know.

The entrance that you use is actually a carved tunnel through the pyramid from the ninth century from this guy named Abdullah all Mama who oversaw the a looting expedition, and he's one of the reasons why they think that it was unused because even back in the ninth century, this guy couldn't find anything in the sealed pyramid interesting. And you gain access to that through the bathroom of pizza with your X ray specs. You want to take

a break, Yeah, let's do that. Let's do it now. Hey, everybody, we're back. Yes, we are no more poopo ng of modern things next to old things. I sound like an old man grabbing, grabbing along. That's all right, man uh. And this next one is interesting hanging gardens of Babylon, because this is one that that may not have even existed. Um, these are this is the we're going chron chronologically, like you said, so the second oldest if it was real,

built in about the sixth century. And obviously these don't exist anymore in any shape or form. But the deal is that these this was in like modern day Iraq, and they were gardens that it was really about the building. Um, it's kind of like the first big botanical garden it wasn't just things hanging from the sky. It was plants, uh and trees and everything planted in this grand, big building that had water flowing through it. Yeah, in the desert. Yeah.

So if it was in Babylon, it would have been about ninety miles or kilometers, you can't remember which one outside of Baghdad modern day Baghdad, right. And if it wasn't Babylon, they think that maybe King Nebuchaannezzar built the gardens. This is according to legend, at least he built the gardens for his wife Amatists, who was from the north where it's much more fertile and green, and apparently amateurs mr her homeland, so the king built her the hanging gardens.

And again this is in the desert, so to to. And Babylon was a magnificent place in and of itself again like their walls were once on this list of seven Wonders to go see right. Um. But supposedly it was just this enormous building, tiered with huge walkways, and they they planted it with dirt and trees. And there's a a quote that said it was thickly planted with trees of every kind that by their great size or

charm could give pleasure to the beholder. That was Diodorus who said that, and he was writing like for a while after um, they would have been built. But the idea that you could just walk down tree line avenues in this building in the desert, it's pretty neat. Yeah, I mean, I get this inset. In today's terms, it would be like a sort of a nice office park. Yeah, I guess now we just take them for granted. But

back then it was a big deal. You didn't have these structures with all these plants in the middle of the desert like this. Um, it was along the Euphrates River most likely, and we're talking about I mean, it looks any of the pictures that you've seen, it really looks like it was something else about seventy five ft tall,

like you said, tiered. Uh, this brick structure with plants and waterfalls coming off of it and twenty two ft thick walls four feet wide and all all manner of flora all over the place and irrigated from the Euphrates River. Right if if again, it wasn't Babylon. But there's a couple of reasons why that whole thing is um. Why

it's question right. So for on the one hand, there's no evidence of it, no one said this is where it was, um, And other people say, well, of course you can't say that these were plants, these were gardens. There's not gonna be any trace of it left. Maybe you know, we found the building and we don't even realize it. Um. The reason why they think it might not have actually existed in Babylon is because, first of all, King Nebuchadnezzar loved to boast about all of the stuff

he did. He left inscriptions in cuneiform basically everywhere. He's like, you know, uh, let out like a thirty second belch today, King Nebuchadnezzar, he would have stuff like this inscribed. Right. I can't think of anyone today who I could like him that too, But yes, right, exactly, like he was one of a kind. No ruler ever has bore any resemblance. But he never mentioned the gardens of Babylon and any cuneiform tablet that's ever been discovered. Yeah, he did not

tout it in writing, which is very very usual. And then there's another UM guy, Herod Herodotus UM. He was a a Storian from Greece, and he wrote a basically a monograph on Babylon a hundred years after Nebuchadnezzar, and he didn't mention the hanging gardens at all. No gardens, no legend of a garden, no talk of a garden, no garden. I visited nothing about gardens. And the idea that he would have passed over one of the great wonders of the ancient world when he's writing about the

town that contains it, it's pretty questionable. So some people say, well, maybe it wasn't in Babylon. Maybe it was in another place in Assyria. Yeah, maybe, uh, the Assyrian queen built it. Maybe the ruler of Nineveh, whose name and these names I just love kicking through all these names, as if Nebuchadnezzar wasn't good enough. Uh senac arib it's great, the

ruler of Nineveh may have built them. Um. I had always thought these were real, But I tend to think that maybe uh Nebucadnezzar didn't have anything to do with it, because it doesn't You're right, I don't. I don't think it makes any sense that it was not mentioned in any of these accounts, right, because they just and it wasn't just Nebuchadnezzar all all this stuff like keeping records.

It was all very new. It was like the hot thing to do, you know, And so they wouldn't just say, oh, by the way, we we failed to mention we built this what would eventually be a wonder of the world, but we just didn't think it was important enough to write down. Yeah, and this this is from Nebuchadnezzar, who used to leave like inscriptions in the blocks of buildings saying built by Nebuchadnezzar, ruler of Babylon from C to C. Even if he didn't build it, he would have been

right exactly, he would have mentioned it. Right. So if if it was in ninevah Um, it would have been close to present day Mosel in northern Iraq, right. And if it was in ninevah then we've actually already found the gardens of Babylon be because they they discovered a structure that was clearly and something similar to what the

Gardens of Babylon have described. It was a structure that m had irrigation brought to it, that used water screws to pump water, remember from our Archimedes death ray episode, um to pump it upward to this thing. So we found a garden basically a botanical garden structure in ninevah. So if it is there, we now know where the

hanging gardens were. Yeah, and that is the idea, is that they took this water up them from the Euphrates into these big holding tanks, uh, these big cisterns essentially on top, and then it would use a very clever system of of gravity to then feed down and irrigate all the different areas as as it flowed downward. Right,

Really something to see. I can't imagine what it must have been like like, especially there, can't, you know, kind of disappointed now I have to admit why because it doesn't sound like it was it was there or maybe even real. Yeah, but it could have been a ninevah. I think it was real. I think it was a ninevah. And yeah, because if you if you look at the if you look at some I think it was Diodorius.

Diodorus is writing from Sicily, the guy from Sicily. He says that they were hanging gardens, but they were built by a Syrian king. So I'm pretty sure. That's that's it. So they were real, Chuck, and we know where they are. Um. And then you want to do one more for this episode. Yeah, let's take a break and we'll come back and finish up with the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, right for this? Okay, Chuck, and we're back this one. This might be my faith.

Do you have a favorite one yet? Uh? My favorite one will be in the next episode. Okay, cool. How's that for a tease. That's a great tease. This one's pretty good though, because this took, by all accounts, over a hundred and twenty years to build and just one night to go bye bye. Yeah, which is how it goes sometimes, especially when there's someone with pyromania involved. Yeah, exactly. So, uh, Ephesus thesis, Thesis, That's where I'm going with. How about you,

Artemis at Ephesus. I think it sounds better. I think that might be it. So if thesis is Um. It's actually a pretty well known city of the ancient world, and I think it's still around in some some way, shape or form. But it was It used to be a fabulously wealthy ports city in Um what's today Turkey, but it was under the control basically of Greece, and from what I understand, it was allowed to remain an independent city state, but it was still like that was

at the pleasure of Greece and then later Rome. But they managed to be an important place of um finance and law too. I think that's where a lot of the courts were was in Ephesus. But it was also well known for all of its magic cults. Right, Yes, that's where the magician's mansion was located back in the ancient world. Yes, so when they call it the city of magic, they mean that literally, right, not magic city.

It's but it had like a quarter of a million residents at its peaker at the time when the Temple of Artemis was in full swing, and it was originally built this temple, this massive, huge temple um back in five b C. By again named King Croesus. They think that that might be old King Cole Did you know that? Oh really? Huh, that's what I've always heard, so King Crosus of Lydia. And this one, if you look it up under the images it is it looks like you're

you're kind of classic Greek temple. It's rectangular, uh, that it measures about three fifty by one eight feet. And the thing about this one that is is uh really jumped out at me were the columns and there are more than a hundred columns and their marble and it's not just like everything had columns. So that's that's all fine, and well, these are enough with the columns. These are the ionic architectural style columns. But these were like if you look at it, there like the two rows of

columns on the front. To me, like the fact that they doubled them up and offset them is just really kind of striking looking. It is. It's gorgeous. And if you're just the size of this thing to in length or in depth, that's like one in the one in uh more than one football field American football field, which is this is a pretty good sized temple. It's it's not as massive as you might think initially, but it's

still pretty big. Well, I mean, you gotta you have to think all of this in ancient standards like today, you look at a building the size of football field, it's not that big of a deal, but it's still large. But by those standards back then, it was enormous, right, which I'm I'm I'm happy with saying it's massive. Put on your ancient hats, folks. Plus also, let's also, um, just the the ornate detail that was carved into the

structure in every single spot, it was pretty neat. And then if you looked at the pediment of the temple of the base, there was a door and two windows. I believe the windows are on either side of the door. That was not for you, Pion, that was for Artemis to enter and leave her temple at her whim. That's right, So Artemis herself, this is this is one of the reasons by this is my favorite. Artemis herself was um

the Greek precursor to the Roman Diana. Okay, she was the goddess of fertility of the hunt and I believed the moon too right, And she was Apollo's twin sister. She was the daughter of Zeus and Liedo, so she

was a pretty important deity. But she was kind of cobbled together at the Temple of Artemis with an already much much much older deity for the area Um and her name was Sybil, and Sybil was based on an ancient like fertility goddess from nine thousand years ago so they took Sybil and they took Artemis, who basically represented the same thing but to two different cultures, and they put it together at this temple of Artemis at a thesis. Yeah, I mean, we're talking about a statue. I don't think

we said that. Oh yeah, we No, we didn't. We weren't talking about some kind of weird black voodoo, black magic. Right, It's a statue built from gold, silver, ebony, and some other stuff they had laying around, uh pull tabs from tab cans. Sure, it was like a found object basically.

But this what's amazing about this one. You can actually look up the statue even though uh, these are just I don't know if where there ever pictures of it, or is it's just called from I don't I don't know, man, I'm not sure if it was just from writings or if they do have it somewhere. Well, the cool thing is is the statue has this row of bulbs hanging from her body, and if you look at it looks like she's wearing a a tunic made of avocados or like water balloons. Sure, but what they are is up

for debate. Some people say, well, they're obviously breast. She's a fertility goddess for it does It would make even more sense if it weren't for the fact that Sybils cult Um was known to castrate bulls as sacrifice, so they think they were probably bull testicles, and the actually the the Cibil cult high priests would castrate themselves so they could be more like Sybil i e. Without testicles. Remember our castration episode. Boy, we've talked about a lot

of stuff, Chuck, we have. So you've got this amazing, wonderful, super cool statue in already amazing temple. And it's not just me who thought that um that it was the most amazing one of all. There was another guy who wrote. His name was antipurav Sidon. He says, I, and this is he's writing back in Um. You know, I guess BC still because he was an ancient Greek. But he said, Um,

I have seen the walls of unbreachable Babylon. Remember that was aginally went seven wonders along which chariots may race, and the statue of Zeus by the river Alphaeus, the hanging gardens, and the Colossus of the Sun, the great Man made mountains of the lofty pyramids and the gigantic tomb of Mossulus. But when I saw the sacred House of Artemus reaching the clouds, the others paled. And that was antipur of side on right. So he's saying, like, I've seen all the wonders and to me, the Temple

of Artemis, that Efsis is the best. And he said, you got to see it. She has bull testicles hanging around her neck. You've never seen anything like. Uh. So this thing was very I mean it was. It was a legit tourist destination. People would travel long distances to come to this place to see the statue in the temple, and it was I mean, it's hard to believe, but even back then they had. It boosted the local economy and was literally supported by like gift shops selling little

statuette recreations of this thing. Yeah, and this was already a wealthy area, so the tourism was so big that that was still significant. The the replicas, the sale of the replicas still made that much of a splash on the local economy. That's how many were sold. Like you go to New York City and you go to a gift shop at the statue of Liberty and you buy the little replica that exact thing was going on thousands of years ago. Yeah, there's nothing new. I want one

of those. That would be great if if you're looking for something for me for Christmas, an original replica from the BC. Okay, um of of the Temple of Artemus, I would love that, all right. So you just want to give it's worth. That's priceless basically, Okay. Uh, so this story gets a little more interesting here. You mentioned a pyromaniac earlier. Uh, in July three BC, there was a man name and we almost didn't know his name.

He wrote Stratus, who was a pyromaniac who burned this temple down for the by all accounts, for the sole reason of living in infamy. And uh there was a decree that his name shall never be recorded at all, so he wouldn't even earn that, but someone did. Well, that was it was punishable upon death to even say his name afterward. Yea, But yeah, a guy named um who was it? THEO pompous was the one who wrote it down, who recorded the act, and so um what's

his name? Harris Stratus was was recorded in infamy just like he wanted he was. He was an ancient jerk, I think, is what you'd call it. And the temple, this is the story gets even better because the temple burned h the same day that Alexander the Great was born, which was amazing, and the temple. They would later rebuild the temple, and Alexander said, yeah, you know what, why

don't I Why don't I pay for this thing? Um, all you gotta do is, like, I don't know, just throw my name on it somewhere, right, And they said, yeah, that's nice, but we'll we'll just build it on her own, right. But then they backed slowly out of the room, like, Okay, that's okay, right, you're not gonna kill us, are Yeah? And I couldn't find a bunch of places that said that he wanted his name on the temple except for our article, So I'm not sure that's true. Did you

see that in other places? I did not. Yeah, that's that's so the story goes. I'm not sure about that though. That's that's according to the house stuff works. So they they rebuilt it. They eventually did rebuild it. Uh, and I think it was somewhat Yeah, it was somewhat shortly after. I'm not sure actually how long it was after it was burned. Yeah, I don't, No one knows. They said they don't know the date. Okay, but it was rebuilt, and I think it was rebuilt even bigger than before.

But then in two sixty two, see the Goths rated it rated if faces Um, led by Robert Smith and Peter Peter Murphy, and they burned that thing to the ground. That's right. They actually broke the thing up and used the marble to build the city after what chuck an earthquake yep, a bunch of earthquake. That's right, it's the Great Leveler. And now and then I saw another thing that said, and this wasn't in our our our article either, but it said that it was rebuilt again even after that.

And then Christian mob came along and destroyed it. Oh, is that right? That's what I saw. I've not seen that one. I did see that if Thesis was an important city in the Bible, because I think Paul came and was proselytizing there and started a riot because everybody's like, oh man, your God sounds so great that it's gonna undermine our artemis in our local economy is gonna fall to pieces. My ancient religion was so interesting, it really was, you know, all right, have you got anything else on

that one? No? I don't, man, I think we've reached the end of part one. And if you're waiting, while you're waiting for episode two to come out, you can get in touch with us. You can join me on Twitter at josh um Clark. Uh. There's also the s Y s K podcast Twitter handle. You can join Chuck at Facebook dot com slash Charles W. Chuke Bryant or Facebook dot com slash stuff you Should Know. I've got

my own website called are You Serious Clark dot com. Uh. We also accept emails by the oodles at stuff podcast at house Stuff works dot com and has always joined us at at Home on the web, Stuff you Should Know dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, is how Stuff Works dot com.