Saturday, July 07, 2007

7 New wonders of the world, and 1 ancient.


"After careful consideration, the New7Wonders Foundation designates the Pyramids of Giza—the only remaining of the 7 Ancient Wonders of the World—as an Honorary New7Wonders Candidate."

5 comments:

Greybishop said...

Well, 5 out of 7 ain't bad.

I'd substitute the Acropolis and Easter Island for the Christ Statue and Petra (although Petra is a Wonder it doesn't stack up against the ancient nature of the Easter Island statues or the architectual wonder of the Acropolis) for the perfect list.

I'm glad that they gave the Pyramids a pass. Makes a ton of sense. I'd like to see them do a "modern" wonders list. The bridge to P.E.I., etc., deserve a list of "wonders" of their own.

Sawsee said...

I'm surprised Angkor Wat and Easter Island were not chosen. I hope they post the votes one day, so we can see how close the race was.

Greybishop said...

Angkor Wat suffers from "Western-Centrism". A lot of folks in the West (myself included) aren't that familiar with it...and we have the greatest percentage of internet access. I suspect if the voting was broken down by region that a very different picture would emerge.

Sawsee said...

I agree about 'western-centrism'; I would not pick the Taj Mahal but I've heard people say it is more fantastic than they ever imagined.

Greybishop said...

Yeah, Taj Mahal wasn't on my list.

It's one of those "spectacular" places that is drummed into our conciousness here in the West though. Like the Great Wall, it seems somehow even more exotic because it's from a region of Asia we know just enough about to think we're familiar with it.
Ankhor Wat is, on the other hand, more exotic, but not as "post card-ee" so we in the West don't have a pop-culture attachment to it...

The BIG problem I see with the "list" is that they've let EVERYONE vote and since it's on the net, there were bound to be "regional" preferences that translated into voting "blocks".

The "original" list of seven wonders was a very fluid grouping that changed many times over the centuries, but came from "knowlegable" sources. Mostly Greek Historian types, but there were other inputs as well. This list has more "heart" than "head" in it, methinks.