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In search of New Seven Wonders of the World
Take part in the making of history

Taslima Rawshan Tinni

Dear Star Campus readers, I am joining you for the first time with a very interesting item. It's all about The Seven Wonders of the World. We all heard about those many times before. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Lighthouse of Alexandria and so on. All these wonders except the Pyramids of Egypt have been destroyed in the course of time. Now an initiative has been taken to revive the wonders! No, not the ancient wonders. This time people all over the world will elect the new seven wonders through an excellent campaign initiated by The New7Wonders Foundation.

The New7Wonders Campaign
The "New7Wonders Foundation", which is the body behind the New7Wonders campaign, was created in 2001 by Swiss adventurer Bernard Weber, with a mission to protect humankind's heritage across the globe. The foundation aims at documenting, maintaining, restoring and reconstructing world heritage under the motto
"OUR HERITAGE IS OUR FUTURE." The "New7Wonders Foundation" calls on all citizens of the world to support it.

At the end of 2005, the N7W panel, comprising a group of international architects, narrowed down the finalists for the election from 77 to 21. The panel made their decision “based on the architectural and cultural importance, as well as the beauty of the monuments and structures.” The official N7W 21 finalist candidates were announced by the panel's President, Prof. Federico Mayor, on January 1, 2006 in Zurich. The final round of voting for the New 7 Wonders will continue throughout 2006 and half of 2007. Then, on July 7, 2007, the results will be announced in Lisbon, Portugal.

Why New 7 Wonders of the World?
The commonly known Seven Ancient Wonders of the World were all man-made monuments, chosen by Philon of Byzantium in 200 B.C. His list of wonders was basically an old-fashioned travel guide for fellow Athenians (citizens of the city-state of Athens), and the stunning sites were all located around the Mediterranean Seathis area was the whole world that was known to the Greek civilization at that time. The monuments he chose, and wanted to give a special place in history, were:

The Lighthouse of Alexandria, The Temple of Artemis, The Statue of Zeus, The Colossus of Rhodes, The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, The Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, and The Pyramids of Egypt. All were built between 2500 B.C. and 200 B.C. Today, only the spectacular Pyramids at Giza in Egypt remain.

The key difference in the new wonders is that, this time around, they will not be chosen by one man, but rather by millions of people all over the world. The new wonders will be the people's choice and they will be monuments from the earliest time that humans walked upon the earth through the year 2000.

It is, therefore, possible that the only survivor of the original 7 Wonders of the World, the Pyramids at Giza, could be chosen for a second time, taking them well into a third millennium of global fame!

Read next week: Candidates for the 'New Seven Wonders' of the World

Taslima Rawshan Tinni
Dept. of Accounting & Information Systems
University of Dhaka