Everyone knows the 93-meter Statue of Liberty erected in the harbor of New York. In his left hand is a torch, and in the right is a plaque on which the date of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence is immortalized. But 2300 years ago, the same statue was built on a Greek island and its name is Colossus of Rhodes.
Colossus of Rhodes: a brief description
The Colossus of Rhodes is a famous wonder of the world, which was installed at the entrance to the harbor of Rhodes in 304 BC.
During antiquity, the island of Rhodes played an important economic role, located in the southwest of Asia Minor. The main city - Rhodes, bore the name of the island and was founded in 407 BC. In 358 BC. the island was conquered by King Mavsol, yes, exactly by the one in whose honor one of the seven wonders of the world was erected - the mausoleum in Halicarnassus.
Later, in 340 BC. the island passed into the possession of the Persians, and eight years later it was captured by Alexander the Great. After the death of the Macedonian, who died in the gardens of Semiramis (another of the seven wonders of the world), the generals began to fight for the right to inherit the empire.
Rhodes was divided into three parts, which went to Ptolemy, Seleucus, Antigonus. It so happened that the Rhodes were on the side of Ptolemy, who even before that ruled Egypt. Envy clouded the eyes of Antigonus and he, with the help of his son Demitrius, went to war on Rhodes. A huge army numbering more than 40,000 (most of the island's population) soldiers fell on the walls of the port city. To conquer Rhodes, a huge siege tower was built, installed on six ships!
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But then Demitrius failed, a sudden hurricane knocked the structure into the water. Antigonus did not give up and ordered his son to build another giant tower 150 feet high and 75 square feet base.
The second tower carried many catapults, the soldiers on it were protected by animal skins and shields made of wood. The Rhodians did not give up here either, pouring out a bunch of sewage from the outside of the wall. As a result, the huge tower got stuck, never reaching its destination. Just in time the fleet from Egypt arrived, which repulsed the attack of Demetrius, putting him to flight.
How the Colossus of Rhodes was created
To perpetuate their victory, the islanders decided to build a huge statue of Helios - the sun god, who, according to legend, carried the island out of the depths of the sea. For the construction, funds were used from the sale of Demitri's siege machines, which were thrown behind the wall. Construction began in 304 BC. and lasted twelve years, the Colossus of Rhodes was erected on a hill that was created at the entrance to the harbor.
The statue was surrounded by an earthen embankment that grew along with the sculpture. Hares pursued two goals when building this barrier. Firstly, for the time being, the statue was hidden from the eyes of the curious, and secondly, the embankment served as a kind of platform allowing workers to carry out each subsequent stage of assembly.
Very often, in the photo, the Colossus of Rhodes is depicted with legs wide apart, between which ships sail to the harbor, but this is not so - the statue was installed on the shore. The Colossus was about 110 feet high, add another 50 feet to the plinth. The sculpture represented a half-naked god, who covered his eyes from the sun with his right hand, and held his robe with his left. There is an opinion among historians that most of the sculpture consisted of clay glued to a steel frame, and bronze sheets were already laid on top of it. According to the Byzantine Pylon, 15 tons of bronze and 9 tons of iron were used for the statue.
The creator of the statue was Jerez, a native of Linda, who studied under the famous sculpture Lysippos. Unfortunately, Jerez never saw the result of his work.
There are two versions of his death. First - Jerez noticed a crack in the almost finished statue, unable to survive it, he committed suicide.
The second is the complete ruin of the sculptor due to increased construction costs. Jerez grieved for a long time and eventually hanged himself. The Rodovsky Colossus stood at the entrance to the harbor for about 6 years. The statue was visible even far from the island, reflecting the rays of the sun.
Colossus of Rhodes: the inglorious demise of a giant statue
The colossus stood for 65 years. In 222 or 226 BC. the statue was destroyed by an earthquake. For nearly seven hundred years, parts of the statue have been lying at the entrance to the harbor, attracting tourists and merchants.
In the 7th century A. D. The Arabs who conquered Rhodes split the bronze parts of the Colossus into smaller ones and sold them to the Arab merchants, after which the fragments fell into the hands of the Jewish wealthy from Syria. The legend says: in order to take out the "remains" of the sculpture, it took 900 camels! Until now, among historians, debates are raging about the true whereabouts of the statue.
In our time, measures are being taken to erect a new colossus made of luminous elements. The cost of the project, conceived in 2008, is about 200 million euros, and the height of the statue after reconstruction, according to various sources, will be from 60 to 100 meters.