7 Wonders - old, new, and au natural

- Machu Picchu

Recently there was voting online to choose the New Seven Wonders of the World, and there was some controversy about the fairness of the voting, with even the Vatican entering the fray with a protest that no Christian churches had been chosen. The winners were ...

Chichen Itza, a large pre-Columbian archaeological site built by the Maya civilization located in the northern center of the Yucatán Peninsula, present-day Mexico .....

Christ the Redeemer, a statue of Jesus Christ in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The statue stands 38 m (105 feet) tall, weighs 700 tons and is located at the peak of the 700-m (2296-foot) Corcovado mountain .....

The Great Wall , a series of stone and earthen fortifications in China, built, rebuilt, and maintained between the 5th century BC and the 16th century .....

Machu Picchu, a pre-Columbian city created by the Inca Empire. It is located at 2,430 m (7,970 ft)[2] on a mountain ridge ... above the Urubamba Valley in Peru .....

Ptera, an archaeological site in Jordan, lying in a basin among the mountains which form the eastern flank of Arabah (Wadi Araba), the large valley running from the Dead Sea to the Gulf of Aqaba. It is famous for having many stone structures carved into the rock. .....

The Colosseum, a giant amphitheatre in the centre of the city of Rome, Italy. Originally capable of seating around 50,000 spectators, it was used for gladiatorial contests and public spectacles. It was built on a site just east of the Roman Forum, with construction starting between 70 and 72 AD under the emperor Vespasian .....

The Taj Mahal, a mausoleum located in Agra, India. The Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan commissioned it as a mausoleum for his favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal. Construction began in 1632 and was completed in approximately 1648 ...

Of all of these Wonders, I've only seen one in person - the Colosseum - though I saw Petra in that last Indiana Jones movie, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and have heard Paul Horn play his flute in the Taj Mahal :-)

Lest we forget the past, the former Seven Wonders of the (Ancient) World, of which only one still exists (the Great Pyramid of Giza,) are ... the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Temple of Artemis, the Statue of Zeus at Olympia, the Mausoleum of Maussollos, the Colossus of Rhodes, the Lighthouse of Alexandria, and the Great Pyramid of Giza.

Don't know why, but for some reason I had thought the Library of Alexandria, not the Lighthouse, was one of the Seven Wonders ... brain rot, I guess.

Next up for the organizers of the contest - a new campaign to choose the seven natural wonders of the world, from possibilities like animal reserves, canyons, fjords, coastlines, cliffs, forests, glaciers, mountains, deserts, oases, reefs, seas, lakes, rivers and waterfalls (link).


- Christ the Redeemer