This statue was located in the Harbor of the Mediterranean island Rhodes in Greece. The Island of Rhodes is located at the Southwestern tip of the Asia Minor, where the Aegean sea meets the Mediterranean.
This is a statue of the Sun god, Helios. On the Island of Rhodes 3 cities Ialysos, Kamiros and Lindos formed a unified city with their capital as Rhodes. During the period around 408 BC they had strong economic and commercial alliance with Ptolemy I Soter of Egypt.
In 357 B.C. this island was captured by Mausolus of Halicarnassus. It was then captured by Persians in 340 B.C. Then it fell into the hands of Alexander the Great in 332 B.C. After Alexander's death, 3 of his generals succeeded in dividing the kingdom for themselves. They are Ptolemy, Seleucus and Antigous. After this Rhodians supported Ptolemy which angered Antigous.
Antagonids in 305 BC, wanted to break their alliance and tried invading Rhodes and found this city to be impenetrable. Antagonids were fighting for almost one full year. By this time the support for Rhodes have started coming in from Egypt. So Antagonids started withdrawing their forces and fled, leaving behind lots of their arms and ammunitions, which lead to the construction of one of the seven wonders of world.
Rhodians sold some of those equipments and to celebrate their victory, erected a statue for their Sun God, Helios. Lot of the metals used in this construction came from the left off belongings of Antagonids. This is the Colossus of Rhodes, one of the seven wonders of world.
The construction took 12 years and the stature was erected in 282 BC. During the earthquake at about 226 BC, this Colossus of Rhodes (statue) was damaged and fell down. When they planned to rebuild it, the idea was dropped because some Oracle said the city will face misfortune if this statue is rebuilt. That was the final chapter to the story of this wonder of the world.
The picture shows the Rhodes head which is found in the modern time...
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment