In advance of #7Wondersday, I bring you my modest contribution to the celebration of our World Heritage: a new hand-drawn map representing the New Wonders of the World. There are some other new designs too. As you can tell, this isn’t a road trip map or a city map, like the ones I usually do, but I hope you’ll like it.
What is #7Wondersday? Read on…
The 7 Wonders of the Ancient World
Once upon a time (200 BCE), there were 7 classic Wonders. All of them were located around the Mediterranean Sea, as the World wasn’t exactly as we know it today. These 7 wonders were:
Colossus of Rhodes
Great Pyramid of Giza
Hanging Gardens of Babylon
Lighthouse of Alexandria
Mausoleum at Halicarnassus
Statue of Zeus at Olympia
Temple of Artemis at Ephesus
Time has passed and from these 7 Wonders, the great Pyramid of Giza, the most ancient of them all, is the only one that truly remains and can still be admired today.
For the other wonders, fate and time haven’t been kind.
There is a lonely column still standing from the Temple of Artemis.
It is possible to see the ruins of the Lighthouse of Alexandria but you have to go diving in the bay of Alexandria.
With regards to the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, some of its marble blocks can be spotted into the walls of the Knights of St. John castle in Bodrum. On the site of the Mausoleum, there are only the foundations of this, once impressive, structure. Fragments of some of its statues are at the British Museum.
For the last 3 ones, it’s simply impossible to admire them.
No one really knows the exact location of Colossus of Rhodes and the Statue of Zeus at Olympia was completely destroyed.
As for the Hanging Gardens of Babylon? These are the biggest mystery of the list as there are no archaeological evidence these have even existed.
So what do you do when the items on your list don’t exist anymore? You create a new list!
The New 7 Wonders of the World
The New 7 Wonders of the World was a private initiative launched by a private Swiss foundation. It started in 2000 and the winners of the popularity poll were announced on 7 July 2007. Something like 100 Million people, from all over the World, voted for their favorite sites amongst a pre-selected list.
The New 7 wonders of the World chosen are :
Chichén Itzá, Mexico
Machu Picchu, Peru
The Christ Redeemer, Brazil
The Colosseum, Italy
Petra, Jordan
The Taj Mahal, India
The Great Wall, China
To celebrate such Wonders, I have created the below map! You can click on it and download it for free. Print and frame if you wish! (No commercial use, thank you). I also created a few other designs which you can see below.
A celebration of the World Wonders
Since the New7Wonders of the World project, the Swiss foundation launched similar initiatives for the New7Wonders of Nature, the New7Wonders Cities and the most recent one, the New7Wonders Symbols of Peace.
You can check the official website for more info: https://new7wonders.com
And now for the fun part: there is now a new observance day on the universal calendar and it is the 7 Wonders Day, on the 7th of July each year! That’s pretty cool! #7Wondersday, of course!
“If we want to save anything, we first need to truly appreciate it.” — Bernard Weber (founder of New7Wonders)
The New7Wonders project was not linked in any way to the UNESCO and its World Heritage list, although all the sites chosen are on such list. It seems that, at the time, there were a bit of a controversy on such project. I don’t want to fall into such controversy, but I would still say this:
Every project that brings attention to our World Heritage and its preservation is a worthy project.
The New 7 Wonders of the World Map
Here it is!
Again, you can click on the one you like below. A new window will open with the high definition version JPEG of the map. Save, print and frame if you wish! No commercial use allowed.
I will probably work on a few more variations of such map, so come back in a while and check what’s new!
The New 7 Wonders of the World – Goodies and other stuff
For you, my dear fellow Road Trippers and you only, there are some new designs available on the ‘Postcard page‘ like the one below. Hope you like them!
Now, now, if you are new around here, don’t be mad if you can’t access the ‘Postcard page‘ yet! It’s an easy problem to solve as you just need to sign up for RTatW newsletter. It’s a pretty nice newsletter, if you ask me! But not quite as regular as it should. So, I guess the good part is that you won’t feel spammed!
If you’ve been around here before, you know I have Society6 shop so as usual, I used those drawings to create a few new designs for my shop.
There are the usual prints and note books that I love. I think that those are going to go very well with the Paris, Cyprus, Demanrk and Luxembourg designs!
There are also new things… like stickers and wood art!
I love that Society6 is expending their product line regularly, although I’ll tell you, it’s hard to keep up! But the stickers are a nice addition. I will publish individual ones for each site. I just need a bit more time!
Now, when I saw the wood art, I was like whoa! It looks so cool!! I can’t wait to play around with those.
And that is it for now! I hope you like those maps and designs. Again, you should come back in a bit to check out what’s new as I’ll probably add some new versions. If there is something that you would like to see, email me! (MissCocoTravel at gmail . com)
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