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See All The Wonders Of Our World

Billions of anxious people wake up every morning wondering if maybe the Pyramids of Egypt are going to be voted off the island, or is this the year those cute but dense-looking giant heads on Easter Island finally get their due?

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By DEREK MAUL | The Brandon News

Published: February 7, 2007

Have you ever tried to recall one of those lists we're all supposed to know? At Christmas it's always Santa's reindeer. Let's see: Blitzen and Comet … Prancer and Dancer … Cupid and Stupid …? Then there are Disney's ubiquitous Seven Dwarfs: Sleepy and Dopey … Bashful and Sneezy … Happy and Pappy …? I'm never quite sure.

Another famous must-know list catalogs the Seven Ancient Wonders of the World. Did you ever have to list them at school for a Western Civilization test? Or try to figure them out during a conversation around the dinner table? My memory recalls the Pyramids of Egypt, the Colossus of Rhodes, and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Then the list starts to get fuzzy.

The inventory was first proposed several centuries before Christ. The chief librarian at Alexandria wrote his "A Collection of Wonders around the World" during the third century B.C., and most scholars agree that the Statue of Zeus at Olympia, the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus and the Lighthouse of Alexandria should be added to the three I mentioned.

But not to worry, someone out there has decided the file needs updating. Not a bad idea when you consider all but one of the original seven have long since returned to dust.

So I'm kind of curious. How many readers out there have been keeping up with the big vote? Have you registered your preference regarding exactly what structures should be immortalized as the "New Seven Wonders of the World?"

Humanity, apparently, must be holding its breath with anticipation. Billions of anxious people wake up every morning wondering if maybe the Pyramids of Egypt are going to be voted off the island, or is this the year those cute but dense-looking giant heads on Easter Island finally get their due?

Would you vote against the pyramids, the only surviving relic of the ancient legends? If you don't believe me go to www.new7wonders.com and check it out for yourself. "All structures built or discovered before the year 2000 are eligible," the instructions read. "Your vote counts! Help make history ..."

At this writing there are exactly 150 days remaining in which to vote for seven of the 21 pre-selected final choices. The selection, culled from literally thousands of possible entries, was prepared by an international committee of experts.

The choices are unarguably impressive. Some, like India's Taj Mahal, England's Stonehenge, China's Great Wall and the Acropolis in Athens were fairly obvious and had already come to mind. Others, such as Australia's Sydney Opera House, the Eiffel Tower in Paris, and that huge statue of Jesus overlooking Rio de Janeiro weren't even on my radar for such designation.

The expressed purpose in coming up with the huge publicity event has been to raise global consciousness and to pique the interest of the world regarding the scope and the grandeur of what these magnificent structures represent.

So I spent a few minutes browsing the site. The 21 finalists each represent astonishing human achievement. I couldn't help but think about the remarkable sum of effort and imagination that had to have been applied in order to build an edifice like the Colosseum in Rome or to literally carve the Palace Tombs of Petra out of mountain walls deep in the Jordan desert.

What does it say about us as a species that we constantly push the envelope of applied imagination, and that we aspire to leave our imprint on this earth in such a fashion? Does it point toward transcendent revelations of truth and immortality that inspire us beyond the humdrum of mere existence? Or is each structure -- The Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, the Mayan temple at Chichén Itzá, the Moorish palace of Alhambra in Granada, Spain -- simply a monument to the triumph of nature and the ascendancy of rational humanism?

These are interesting questions. But you be the judge. It's not my intention today to force any existential leaps, but to remind us all what an amazing and multi-faceted world we inhabit. Check out the new7wonders Web page and see what captures your interest.

Personally, I have only seen eight of the sites. Sometime over the next 20 years I'd like to visit them all. Our world really is only as big as our capacity to dream.

Derek Maul is a writer who lives in Valrico. You can reach him at derekmaul@gmail.com.

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