Posted on 08/28/2023 7:19:45 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
1:05 - Chapter 1 - The crossroads of the ancient world
2:45 - Chapter 2 - An epic siege
4:55 - Chapter 3 - An offering to the gods
7:30 - Mid roll ads
9:00 - Chapter 4 - The standing statue
10:20 - Chapter 5 - Collapse
12:00 - Chapter 6 - LegacyThe Colossus of Rhodes: The World Wonder That Became History's Greatest Statue | 15:31
Geographics | 1.05M subscribers | 272,360 views | May 26, 2021
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Transcript 0:00 · this video is brought to you by 0:01 · squarespace whether it's your profession 0:03 · or just a lifelong passion 0:05 · start your journey to website glory with 0:07 · squarespace check out their amazing 0:08 · all-in-one platform through the link in 0:10 · the description below 0:11 · more on them in a bit 0:19 · the statue of liberty is easily the 0:20 · world's most famous statue lady 0:22 · liberty's visage is so iconic that it 0:24 · serves as short hands for not only new 0:26 · york city but 0:27 · america as a whole but where did the 0:28 · inspiration for this statue come from 0:30 · to find it you have to go back over 2 0:32 · 000 years to a similar statue 0:34 · also in a harbor and of a comparable 0:36 · size nothing like it 0:37 · had ever been seen in the ancient world 0:39 · and people traveled great distances just 0:41 · to see it 0:42 · the colossus of roads only stood for 0:44 · less than a century but the impact it 0:45 · had has continued to be felt even today 0:48 · but what exactly was the colossus of 0:50 · rhodes 0:51 · why was it built and why did it earn a 0:53 · place on the famed 0:55 · seven wonders of the ancient world list 0:57 · well 0:58 · today we're going to find out 1:00 · [Music] 1:05 · our story begins in 323 bc with the 1:08 · death of alexander the great and the 1:10 · city of babylon the macedonian king had 1:11 · conquered a massive empire unlike 1:13 · anything the world had ever seen before 1:15 · but he died before he could secure the 1:17 · position of his heir 1:19 · instead his generals tore his empire 1:21 · apart what followed was a long-running 1:23 · series of conflicts known as the wars of 1:25 · the successors 1:26 · as each of alexander's former lieutenant 1:28 · struggled to 1:29 · carve out a position of power for 1:30 · themselves eventually three major 1:32 · factions emerged 1:33 · egypt controlled by ptolemy the seleucid 1:35 · empire in persia 1:37 · and the antigone dynasty which ruled 1:39 · asia minor caught in the middle of all 1:41 · this term or quite literally was the 1:42 · island city-state of rhodes 1:44 · in greek mythology the island was said 1:46 · to be created by the sun god helios so 1:48 · that he had a place to rule since he 1:50 · missed the meeting where the gods drew 1:52 · lots to divide up the places of the 1:54 · earth 1:54 · it was named after his wife the nymph 1:56 · rhodos the capital city built in 408 bc 1:59 · was also named rhodes 2:00 · by the end of the 4th century bc rhodes 2:02 · was becoming a commercial maritime power 2:04 · it was situated at the conflux of the 2:06 · aegean and mediterranean 2:08 · seas 18 kilometers from the southern 2:10 · shore of asia mine are an ideal position 2:12 · to control the sea trade 2:13 · rhodes was an important waypoint for 2:14 · ships traveling between the cities of 2:16 · greece and those of asia and so 2:18 · roads grew exceptionally wealthy as the 2:20 · successor wars raged around 2:22 · them rhodes steadfastly maintained its 2:24 · own independence 2:25 · and neutrality but they formed a close 2:27 · association with ptolemaic egypt 2:29 · something 2:29 · that irked antagonist ptolemy's sworn 2:32 · enemy antigonus knew that if the 2:34 · powerful rhodian navy allied 2:36 · itself with egypt against him he'd be at 2:38 · a disadvantage he decided 2:39 · roads needed to be dealt with 2:47 · in 305 bc an army of forty thousand 2:49 · commanded by antigonus's son demetrius 2:52 · attacked rhodes attached to the antigone 2:54 · in force were 2:55 · swarms of pirate vessels who hoped to 2:57 · take advantage of the carnage to take 2:59 · plunder for themselves 3:00 · against them the rodians could only 3:02 · muster a force of 7000 but their city 3:04 · had strong fortifications 3:06 · and a well-defended harbour demetrius 3:08 · ravaged the surrounding countryside and 3:10 · put the city of rhodes under siege 3:12 · unable to capture the original harbour 3:14 · he 3:14 · built one of his own to house his fleet 3:17 · of 200 ships along with the large 3:18 · encampment that resembled a city itself 3:21 · though his troops surrounded the walls 3:22 · they were unable to prevent supply ships 3:24 · from entering the roadian harbor to keep 3:25 · the inhabitants from starving 3:27 · demetrius tried to take the city by 3:29 · storm and at one point breached the 3:30 · walls but the troops that 3:31 · made it into the city were all killed 3:33 · and the attack was rebuffed the rodians 3:35 · then quickly repaired the damage to the 3:36 · city walls demetrius now tried 3:38 · engineering his way to victory he 3:40 · ordered the construction of gargantuan 3:42 · siege weapons including a battering ram 3:44 · and catapults 3:45 · the biggest of these was a siege tower 3:46 · known as the halepolis this wooden tower 3:49 · was unlike anything the world had ever 3:50 · seen before standing over 40 meters high 3:52 · and 20 meters wide and weighing 160 tons 3:55 · the structure was covered in iron plates 3:56 · to make it fireproof and bristled with 3:58 · weaponry 3:59 · 16 catapults and all it required a crew 4:01 · of 3 400 men to push it into place 4:04 · surely against such a goliath as the 4:06 · helepolis the city of rhodes 4:08 · didn't stand a chance only it didn't 4:10 · quite work out that way there are 4:12 · differing accounts about what happened 4:14 · when demetrius tried to use the siege 4:15 · tower in battle 4:16 · one story says the defenders damaged 4:18 · enough of the iron plating that the 4:20 · general ordered it removed from the 4:21 · battlefield so that they couldn't set it 4:23 · on fire another account says the rodians 4:24 · flooded the ground the helepolis was to 4:27 · advance upon the night before 4:28 · and the huge siege engine got stuck in 4:30 · the mud and couldn't be moved whatever 4:32 · happened 4:32 · the city still held out a year after the 4:35 · siege began when 4:36 · a relief force sent by ptolemy arrived 4:38 · demetrius outmaneuvered and knowing that 4:40 · the siege was growing ever more 4:41 · unpopular at home 4:43 · was forced to sue for peace his army 4:44 · left and the city of rhodes was saved 4:47 · [Music] 4:52 · when demetrius's army departed it left a 4:54 · lot of equipment behind 4:56 · including the siege engines the rodians 4:58 · deciding there was no point in letting 4:59 · it all go to waste gathered it all up 5:01 · and sold it for scrap they dismantled 5:03 · the abandoned helipolars and melted down 5:05 · its iron plating the total amount of 5:06 · money they received after 5:08 · selling the equipment amounted to 300 5:09 · talents of silver 5:11 · amount worth around 6.4 million dollars 5:13 · in today's money so 5:14 · what do they do with all the money well 5:16 · the rodians wanted to give thanks to 5:17 · their patron god 5:18 · helios who they believed had favored 5:20 · them by sparing their city and even back 5:22 · then people knew the best way to honor 5:24 · someone was to build a statue of them 5:25 · this couldn't just be any ordinary 5:27 · statue though it had to be big 5:29 · huge in fact bigger than any statue the 5:32 · world had ever seen 5:33 · something as big as the helepolis to 5:36 · build their mammoth statue the people of 5:38 · rhodes turns to the best sculptor on the 5:40 · island 5:41 · a man named chares of lindos charis have 5:44 · been mentioned by a man named 5:46 · lisipos the personal sculptor of 5:48 · alexander the great whose crowning 5:49 · achievement was the building of a 22 5:51 · meter high statue of zeus in the city 5:53 · of terrence construction on the statue 5:55 · of helios began in 292 bc on a hilltop 5:58 · overlooking the city and harbor of roads 6:01 · later depictions of the statue being in 6:03 · the harbor or even straddling the 6:05 · way so ships would have to pass between 6:07 · its legs to enter it 6:08 · a fantasy concocted in medieval times 6:11 · the first thing to be built was a 6:12 · 15-meter tall white marble pedestal on 6:15 · which the statue would stand on top of 6:17 · this was constructed an iron framework a 6:19 · skeleton onto which molded bronze plates 6:21 · would be affixed to it to 6:23 · form the statue's skin charles built a 6:25 · massive casting bit to mold the bronze 6:27 · pieces he needed for the statue 6:28 · larger than any pit ever constructed for 6:30 · this purpose before as the statue grew 6:32 · taller stone blocks were placed inside 6:34 · the interior to act as further support 6:36 · for the iron framework it soon became 6:37 · clear that normal scaffolding wasn't 6:39 · going to be enough for the statue not as 6:41 · its height continued to grow 6:43 · it was becoming too difficult to move 6:44 · the bronze pieces into place using the 6:46 · technology of the time period 6:48 · so shars decided to build a massive 6:50 · earthen ramp around the statue 6:52 · to allow workers to access it this also 6:54 · had the effect of obscuring the statue 6:56 · from public view 6:57 · no one but the designer was going to 6:59 · know what it looked like until it was 7:01 · finished 7:01 · finally after 12 years of work the 7:02 · earthen mound was removed and the statue 7:04 · was finished 7:05 · the finished statue stood at 70 cubits 7:07 · high or 32 meters 7:09 · together with the pedestal it towered 7:10 · over the city and harbour of roads from 7:12 · its hilltop 7:13 · to describe it the greeks had to invent 7:14 · a new word 7:16 · colossus which literally means giant 7:18 · statue 7:19 · so the finnish structure became known as 7:21 · the colossus of rhodes 7:23 · [ad text redacted] 8:57 · bizarrely enough though there are plenty 8:59 · of contemporary accounts of how large 9:01 · the colossus was how it was built and 9:03 · how amazed people were by it there are 9:05 · no surviving accounts depicting what the 9:07 · statue actually looked like so 9:09 · historians have no idea many later 9:12 · illustrators showed helios holding a 9:13 · torch loft like the statue of liberty 9:15 · but there's no evidence that this is the 9:17 · case 9:17 · a sculpture in a nearby temple has a 9:19 · depiction of helios shielding his eyes 9:20 · with one hand like a person would when 9:22 · shielding their eyes from the sun 9:24 · and it's possible that this is how 9:25 · colossus looked what is known 9:27 · is that in the years after it was built 9:28 · people came from all over the ancient 9:30 · world to view the colossus 9:31 · it was an early form of tourism that 9:33 · allowed learned men or at least men with 9:35 · sufficient means to travel around 9:36 · viewing the great sites known to them at 9:38 · the time these sites became known 9:39 · as wonders and as early as the second 9:41 · century bc chroniclers were writing 9:43 · about what wonders they had seen and 9:45 · were encouraging other people to see you 9:47 · might call the creation of the concept 9:48 · of the seven wonders of the world as 9:50 · an early attempt at a tourist guidebook 9:52 · the colossus built to celebrate the city 9:54 · of rhodes soon came to 9:56 · define the place's existence people from 9:58 · rhodes became known 9:59 · as coliseums and tourist revenue from 10:02 · people coming to view it only propelled 10:03 · the city's growth further rhodes became 10:05 · known as a cultural as well as a 10:07 · commercial center becoming home to 10:08 · famous centers of learning in the arts 10:10 · but unfortunately for rhodes mother 10:12 · nature ensured that the good times 10:14 · wouldn't last forever 10:21 · in 226 bc 54 years after the colossus 10:25 · had been built 10:25 · a massive earthquake rocked roads the 10:27 · island sits on a boundary between two 10:29 · tectonic plates that are pushing against 10:31 · each other 10:32 · making the area prone to large 10:33 · earthquakes the quake of 226 bc caused 10:36 · large amounts of destruction 10:38 · destroying many buildings earthquake 10:40 · proof construction was an unknown 10:41 · concept at the time people 10:42 · simply didn't understand the forces at 10:44 · work and the colossus 10:46 · as tall as it was just didn't stand a 10:48 · chance the statue snapped off at the 10:50 · knees and fell over breaking into pieces 10:51 · when it hit the ground 10:52 · contemporary accounts give no figure for 10:54 · the number of people killed 10:55 · but we can infer that they were high 10:58 · office of aid came in from all over the 10:59 · mediterranean to help the rodians 11:01 · rebuild their city this included their 11:03 · famed colossus pharaoh ptolemy iii of 11:05 · egypt offered to help 11:06 · finance its reconstruction at the time 11:07 · however natural disasters were viewed as 11:09 · a sign of god's disfavor and 11:11 · the people of rhodes worried that they'd 11:12 · displeased helios in some way 11:14 · and he had sent the earthquake to smite 11:16 · them they constructed the oracle at 11:18 · delphi who cautioned them against 11:19 · rebuilding the statue the rodians with a 11:21 · heavy heart agreed and 11:23 · no attempt was made to rebuild the 11:24 · colossus neither were the remains of the 11:26 · statue removed from where they fell they 11:28 · were just 11:28 · left there still so large and imposing 11:31 · that people continued to visit them for 11:32 · another 800 years 11:34 · one writer described how visitors would 11:35 · struggle to wrap their arms around the 11:37 · thumb of the fallen statue and 11:39 · remarking on how the fingers were longer 11:41 · than most statues were tall in 653 a.d 11:44 · the island of rhodes was conquered by 11:45 · the forces 11:46 · of the umayyad caliphate and the statue 11:48 · was melted down and 11:49 · sold as part of the spoils of war the 11:51 · bronze was supposedly hauled away 11:53 · on over 900 camels 11:57 · [Music] 12:01 · no trace of the colossus remains today 12:03 · outside of records and contemporary 12:04 · accounts leaving experts to struggle 12:06 · with a question of 12:07 · where the statue was located and what it 12:08 · looked like a lot of artistic liberty 12:10 · was taken in the following centuries as 12:12 · stated before a common misconception was 12:13 · that the colossus straddled the entrance 12:15 · of 12:15 · rhodes's harbor and held a torch aloft 12:18 · in some accounts the torch is even lit 12:20 · meaning the colossus also acted as a 12:21 · lighthouse these depictions are almost 12:23 · certainly fictional as historians have 12:25 · concluded that there was no way a statue 12:27 · could have been built like that using 12:28 · the techniques of the time period 12:30 · without 12:30 · collapsing under its own weight further 12:32 · proof that the statue wasn't located in 12:34 · or near the harbour is the fact that the 12:35 · remains of the statue were visible for 12:37 · hundreds of years after it fell over 12:39 · which would have been impossible had the 12:40 · statue fallen into the water 12:42 · from which it would have been impossible 12:43 · for the rodians to retrieve regardless 12:45 · the fictional positioning of the 12:47 · colossus became so influential that it 12:49 · is the basis 12:49 · upon which the statue of liberty was 12:51 · built on a stone pedestal 12:53 · in the harbor of a major maritime city 12:55 · holding a torture loft 12:56 · emma lazarus famous poem about the 12:58 · statue of liberty describes it 13:00 · as the new colossus rhodes wasn't able 13:02 · to maintain its independence forever 13:03 · any mores and they could keep their 13:05 · colossus afloat the city fell to the 13:07 · romans 13:07 · along with all of the successor kingdoms 13:09 · and much of the known world after the 13:11 · roman empire split into 13:13 · rhodes was ruled by the eastern empire 13:15 · renamed the byzantine empire for a 13:17 · thousand years 13:18 · except for brief periods when the island 13:20 · was occupied by invading forces in 1306 13:22 · the knights hospital captured roads and 13:24 · ruled it for over 200 years until they 13:26 · were forced out by the ottoman empire in 13:27 · 1522 eventually 13:29 · moving their base of operations to the 13:30 · island of malta italy seized control of 13:32 · the island during the italo-turkish war 13:34 · of 1912 and the germans occupied the 13:36 · island during world war ii 13:37 · capturing it from the italian garrison 13:39 · who wanted to surrender it to the 13:40 · british 13:41 · after the war the island was given to 13:42 · greece who have governed it ever since 13:44 · today about a hundred thousand people 13:45 · live on roads not counting the tourists 13:47 · and 13:48 · the island is one of europe's most 13:49 · popular vacation spots they come to see 13:51 · the beaches and 13:52 · the medieval and ancient architecture as 13:54 · well as to partake in the many mineral 13:56 · springs on the island that have 13:58 · purported healing properties to boost 14:00 · tourism many investors have proposed 14:01 · building a new colossus of roads on the 14:03 · site of the original 14:04 · or even in its fictional location within 14:06 · the harbour but 14:07 · none of these plans has ever gotten off 14:09 · the ground meaning that the colossus 14:10 · still exists only 14:12 · within our imaginations but the very 14:14 · fact that the colossus of roads existed 14:16 · at all continues to fascinate us it was 14:18 · a remarkable feat of engineering a 14:19 · statue as large as the statue of liberty 14:21 · being built entirely by hand without the 14:23 · aid 14:24 · of any of the powered tools and devices 14:26 · so essential 14:27 · in construction work today it was so big 14:29 · for its time period that language itself 14:31 · needed to be changed to accommodate it 14:33 · something that still impacts us today 14:35 · after all from the word colossus 14:37 · came the word colossal which can be used 14:39 · to describe anything extremely large 14:41 · it's also a term in sculpture referring 14:43 · to a statue that is at least twice 14:45 · life-size which 14:46 · definitely applied to the colossus its 14:49 · design 14:49 · inspired countless other statues and 14:51 · monuments over the following centuries 14:53 · the most famous of which sits in new 14:55 · york harbor and though there was always 14:57 · some debate among 14:58 · contemporary greek writers about what 14:59 · exactly constituted the seven wonders of 15:01 · the world 15:02 · the present list wasn't established 15:03 · until the renaissance the colossus of 15:05 · rhodes 15:06 · was included from the very beginning 15:07 · when these lists were first being 15:09 · created 15:09 · and what more could be said about it 15:11 · than that being considered 15:13 · a wonder of the world truly a colossal 15:16 · compliment 15:17 · so i really hope you enjoyed this video 15:19 · thanks again to squarespace who 15:20 · sponsored it link to them below 15:22 · and thank you for watching 15:31 · [Music] 15:31 · you
According to recent study, in the exact spot in which the palace exists today, there was the foundations of the ancient temple of the sun god Helios, and probably that was the spot where the Colossus of Rhodes stood in the Antiquity.[citation needed] The palace was originally built in the late 7th century as a Byzantine citadel. After the Knights Hospitaller occupied Rhodes and some other Greek islands (such as Kalymnos and Kastellorizo) in 1309, they converted the fortress into their administrative centre and the palace of their Grand Master. In the first quarter of the 14th century, they repaired the palace and made a number of major modifications.[2] The palace was damaged in the earthquake of 1481, and it was repaired soon afterwards. -- Palace of the Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes [Wikipedia]
The Colossus of Rhodes is not where you think!!! #short #shorts | @TheWorldOnWave
Doesn’t look so ‘colossus’ to me.....................
Summarized by chatgpt
- Video sponsored by Squarespace.
- The Statue of Liberty is iconic and symbolic.
- The Colossus of Rhodes, an ancient statue, served a similar purpose.
- Colossus of Rhodes built over 2,000 years ago.
- Wars of the Successors followed Alexander the Great’s death.
- Rhodes, a maritime power, had strategic importance.
- Rhodes associated with Ptolemaic Egypt, irked Antigonus.
- Antigonus attacked Rhodes with a massive army in 305 BC.
- Rhodes defended itself against the siege.
- Siege engines, including the Helopolis, were used.
- Siege tower Helopolis couldn’t conquer Rhodes.
- Demetrius’ army left, Rhodes sold the siege equipment.
- The money received funded a statue of Helios.
- The sculptor Chares of Lindos built the statue.
- Construction began in 292 BC, took 12 years.
- The statue was a colossal bronze figure.
- Known as the Colossus of Rhodes, it stood 32 meters high.
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The Colossus and The Statue of Zeus are the ancient wonders that are only known through written accounts. There are no traces of the objects which archeologists can study, so it’s all just legend, more or less.
The Colossus was most certainly salvaged and repurposed into bronze age weaponry. The Statue of Zeus was made out of wood and Ivory, so it either rotted or was burned, probably destroyed by Christians.
My wife likes lighthouses. One year I bought her a replica rendition of the Colossus of Rhodes that stands about 8” high from a local Hallmark store.
It’s one of the cooler pieces she has.
Apparently this ancient statue was the inspiration for some big similar colossus in “Game of Thrones”, and I suspect the Argonath in the books and movies of Lord of the Rings.
https://search.brave.com/images?q=movie+colossus+of+rhodes
The statue showed he wore no pants.... He was er.... Colossal!
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