Welcome to I Am Your Target Demographic and today we’re continuing our discussion on the seven wonders of the world. In our last video, we covered what are considered the ancient wonders, all based around Greece and Turkey and the Mediterranean. Today, we’re diving into seven wonders of the quote unquote middle ages.
Some of these may be very ancient as well but it wasn’t until people began to actually travel the world that this list could be compiled. There isn’t a single author of this list but these are the seven wonders from this era that are mostly represented on various lists. We begin in Rome, with the Colosseum, built in around 70 AD.
This giant amphitheater could hold around 50 to 80 thousand spectators at once, for all sorts of entertainment. It was known for gladiator contests and mock battles that were almost like a theater performance. Occasionally they’d also hold executions or other spectacles for mass audiences.
The name Colosseum came from the Colossus of Rhodes, for its immense size. Colossal is still used today as an adjective in this way. While the colosseum has been wrecked by earthquakes over the years, most of it still stands and it is one of Rome’s most popular tourist attractions.
Also in Italy, we head to the city of Pisa to visit the Leaning Tower. This 185 foot tall (or 55 meter tall) belltower was not intended to be leaning but as the construction progressed, soft soil led to the foundation sinking. They corrected what they could but ultimately the tower was left leaning at a 5 degree angle.
It’s unproven who actually built the tower but continual efforts are being made to maintain the tower and restore its exterior. It’s even open to the public now that you can climb the interior staircase, for a small fee. We now head to China, for the Great Wall.
This massive fortification runs about 13,000 miles from end to end, though not all of it is still standing, many sections have fallen apart. Why was the wall built? Some sections were especially focused on protection against raids and attackers, though later sections were built as almost border controls, to be able to control who was entering and leaving the country when trade and commerce worldwide became possible.
This is a massive undertaking and it took about 2,000 years for the entire thing to be completed, though empires built it little by little, with huge gaps in between. The latest sections were built in the 1600s. Contrary to popular belief, the Great Wall is not visible from space though it is still quite impressive to see in person.
China has a second world wonder, the Porcelain Tower of Nanjing. This pagoda was about nine stories tall and was planned to be built larger but the original tower was mostly destroyed during the Taiping rebellion in the 1800s. It was built with white porcelain bricks that reflected sunlight.
While the original was destroyed, there is a life-size replica that stands today in Nanjing, built because of a donation of $156 million in US dollars. This was donated by one single donor and is the largest single donation in Chinese history. We now travel to Instanbal, Turkey to discuss the Hagia Sophia.
This building was originally built as a church and cathedral and for a long time was the largest cathedral in the world, for nearly 1,000 years. It’s said to have changed the history of architecture forever and people still flock to it to take it all in. Over the course of time, it’s also changed purposes many times from Christian and Catholic church to mosque and back again, based on who was ruling the region.
It now stands as a museum for all to enter and enjoy, no longer serving any religious purpose. Not everyone is happy about this though, drawing protests and petitions from people that want it rededicated as a church and those that want it rededicated as a mosque. For this next wonder, we go back to Egypt, to the Catacombs of Kom el Shoqafa.
This series of tombs, also called a necropolis, is from after the Egyptian, Greek, and Roman worlds collided, as all three cultures influence the statues and decorations of this space. It was seemingly meant for only one family and slowly expanded to include other families and even animals, including an entire room for the bones of horses that faithfully served their master, the Emperor Caracalla in 215 AD. These catacombs are still being excavated and researched, some of it being inaccessible and some being underwater.
Our last wonder for this list takes us to England, where we find Stonehenge. This monument features 13 foot high statues arranged in a circle. It was believed to be built as early as 3000 BC, meaning it’s stood now for over 5,000 years.
“Why isn’t this on the ancient wonder list? ” you ask. Again, that list was created by the Mediterranean people and consisted of only regional landmarks, so they wouldn’t know of other monuments like this one.
In terms of the site’s purpose, it’s mostly believed to be a burial site and place for celebration of the dead. Many researchers have studied this site and the various steps in its creation, down to indentations in the ground and remnants of stones and trees that no longer exist. Some restoration has been done in the last hundred years, helping to right stones that have fallen and put things back into their supposed places.
As a tourist, you can visit the stones and look from afar or you can try to schedule a special access tour that allows very small groups to cautiously walk amongst the site itself. And that is it for our seven wonders of the middle ages! We have one more video left, that is a little more technical, you know, modern day things that changed the way the world works.
If it's been a week, you can check out part three right here. If there's nothing there, it means maybe we have to just wait. So in the meantime.
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