Stuff You Should Know - How the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World Works, Part I

Episode Date: December 26, 2017

Long before slide rulers and pocket protectors, civilizations across the world used their noggins to build some impressive structures. Almost all have crumbled to ruins over the millennium, but thanks to the earliest tourists, we admire them still today. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called, David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s.

We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass

and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, ya everybody, about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say. Bye, bye, bye.

Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Hello, San Francisco, Seattle, Portland. We're coming to see you guys this January. It's coming up soon, isn't it, Chuck? That's right, it's our annual visit now to San Francisco Sketch Fest.

For my money, the best comedy festival around. And they have us back kind of every year now, which is great. Oh yeah, it's an annual tradition these days. And we're gonna be there on Sunday, January 14th at the Castro Theater. And there are tickets left, but they're going fast. Portland, you guys are sold out, have been for a while, hats off to you guys.

And Seattle, we're coming to see you guys January 15th, and there's even fewer tickets left than there are for San Francisco. That's right, that's in the Moore Theater, and you can get all the ticket information at sysklive.com, our live touring home on the web. Yep, so happy holidays and hurry up. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know

from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. And there, wait, wait, I know you thought I was gonna say Jerry, but you're wrong, because it's Noel today, guest producer Noel. And that makes this Stuff You Should Know. That's right.

How you doing? I'm good, Noel, who is the... The eighth wonder of the ancient world. He is, and the modern world, too. He spans space and time. Yes, like the Colossus spanned the harbor of roads. Or did it? It didn't.

We're gonna learn a lot, Chuck, I'm so excited about this one. Oh, yeah, these two, you mean? These two, that's right. Yeah, I hit upon it, and I'm like, this is a two-parter right here, and I can't believe we haven't done this already. Like, everybody knows about the seven wonders of the ancient world, but nobody knows

about the seven wonders of the ancient world. You know what I mean? Nobody knows about them at all. It's like a perfect Stuff You Should Know episode, if you ask me, times two. Yeah. The sequel. That's right.

So, to get started, let's just give a brief overview of the seven wonders, okay? Let's do it, you just wanna name them? Yeah, and we're gonna do them chronologically, too, okay? Oh, is that how they're listed for me? Yeah. Okay. Well, then, first up, we have the Great Pyramid,

the Great Pyramid of Giza. Right, and then after that, again, chronologically, there's the hanging gardens of Babylon, and apparently, there used to be the walls of Babylon in addition to the hanging gardens of Babylon, but they were removed later. Right. And then, what's next, Chuck?

The Temple of Artemis at, here we go. The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus. Either one. Artemis at Ephesus. Nice, man. And then, there's the statue of Zeus at Olympia, which I have to admit I had not heard of before. I had heard of that one.

I think a couple of these, I felt bad, because maybe I had disregarded some of the seven wonders of the ancient world, because a couple of these were news to me. Oh, yeah. Okay, so that one was for me. The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus was also new for me, too. Yeah, Colossus of Rhodes, old hat.

Sure, everybody knows that one, come on. Yeah, like, I've got Colossus of Rhodes underwear on right now. I know. You got that whole style where you wear the sag, and you show your underwear, too. That's right. And then finally, the Lighthouse of Alexandria,

which is, I think I had heard of that one, but when you put these all together, it is no small list. No, and so this list, you may wonder who put this list together, you know? Maybe Jacques Cousteau, maybe Bertrand Russell, who knows? It's actually way, way, way older than that. This list goes back to the time of ancient Greece, actually,

and they're not entirely certain who wrote the first one, but there were several people who kind of took the list and added to it or subtracted to it, and there's a bunch of candidates for who had written the list. The one I saw that's pretty roundly considered, probably the first one to have written a list is Deodorus Sicilis, or Deodorus of Sicily. Yeah.

And the reason that these lists were made was because at the time, Greece had done a pretty good job of subjugating a lot of the areas around it, like Turkey, Persia, Babylon, and these places were now safe for Greeks to go visit, and because the Greeks were wealthy and had a lot of leisure time, they actually became some of the world's first tourists,

international tourists, and that was basically the point of the list of the seven wonders of the ancient world was, hey, you should go visit these things, go to these places and see these things, and so some people would go do. I think it was probably a point of pride to be able to say I've seen all seven,

what they called Theamata. Yeah, Theamata translates as things to be seen, or if you want to get even more modern, it's literally like, here are your must-sees. If you're going on vacation, it was kind of like the first travel website. Kind of, but it was just a list. Yeah, I mean, it wasn't on the web yet.

That would take a couple of hundred years. Sure, at least a couple of hundred, because these guys, they did live in like the third, fourth, fifth centuries BCE, right? Yeah. So over time, this list, like I said, it started out, I think, with the Great Pyramid has always been on there,

hanging gardens have always been on there, Temple of Artemis, Statue of Zeus, the Mausoleum, the Colossus of Rhodes, and then I think the lighthouse at Alexandria may not have been on, and it was the walls of Babylon, and they said, we've already got Babylon covered, you guys, this lighthouse is to be seen.

So it was eventually compiled, and that list, so the list itself is pretty ancient too. Yeah, and Babylon, if they had one motto, it was, come for the gardens, stay for the wall. Sure, you know? Yeah. So out of all of those, the only ones that are still around, actually,

is the Great Pyramid. Yeah, I mean, there are bits of some of these in various museums, most notably the British Museum. Yeah, and there are some ruins on the site still. Yeah, here and there, some ruins under water, here and there. I used to, have you been to a lot of ruins? I've been to Pompeii, Yumi and I went.

It was kind of the fulfillment of a lifelong dream. Yeah. Yeah, have you been? To Pompeii? Yeah. No. What ruins have you been to? Just your garden variety ruins, like in Rome,

that kind of thing. Oh yeah, man, the Colosseum, yeah. That was something to be seen, huh? Yeah, I mean, it's part of me, like when I go to see ruins, it's really cool, because I try and take myself back to that time, but then when I stand back and look at it,

and it's in its current surroundings, sometimes I get a little sad. Cause there's a lot of people like chewing gum and on their phone and stuff. Yeah. Yeah. You know? Yeah, man.

And especially, well, we'll talk about the pyramids, but have you seen the famous Pizza Hut pictures? No, what are you talking about? Well, you know the pyramids. Oh, is that photoshopped? No, it's not photoshopped. The pyramids back right up, or I guess front right up to Cairo. So you'll always see the image

looking at the pyramids from Cairo. If you see the image looking the other way, there's like a city right button up against it. Right. In an ancient Egyptian, in the foreground, turns to the camera with the single tear coming down his cheek. But he was really Italian.

Right. So, no, there's a literally a Pizza Hut KFC. Which you could do worse. Facing. It could be a Burger King. Facing the great pyramids of Egypt and the Sphinx. And one of the windows of the Pizza Hut, there's the Pizza Hut logo.

And if you stand inside that Pizza Hut, you can take a photograph of that Pizza Hut cap and logo kind of sitting on top of the pyramid. Neat. And so, you know, there are all kinds of photos now of Pizza Hut. And it's just, it's sort of, you know, it's not, it speaks of the times, you know?

Sure. Which is what I talked about, being a little sad. There's a Pizza Hut. There's a friggin' Kentucky fried chicken. Yards from the great pyramids. Yeah. I just don't know how I feel about that. I guess it's, well, I think it's pretty clear

how you feel about it. You don't like it. I don't know, but I mean, you can't say like, no. What are you gonna do? You can't have a restaurant here. You can't do anything. It's just, it is what it is, you know? Yeah.

I mean, it's not like you're gonna live without KFC for a second. That's true. I would challenge some KFC if I was over there. I would too. The very famous one by the pyramids. I know what you mean though, sure. You know, it's just a little weird.

But at the same time, you're like, wow, you know, this thing was built by slaves who died working. So maybe the KFC is actually preferable in some ways, you know? Yeah, and maybe that's what I should feel sad about. Sure. Just feel sad about both. Okay.

So let's go to the great pyramids of Giza. And there's actually, if you go, oh, we're gonna really wear out the way back machine, huh? Yeah, this thing, we gassed it up, it's ready. And I got a new air fresher and you like it? I'm not big on the pineapple, but it's all right. I love pineapple. We can swap it out for the second part, okay?

Okay. So we're gonna get in the way back machine and if you go, we're actually just gonna go back a couple days because we're going in modern times. But if we're gonna look at the great pyramid at Giza, there's actually just one of them that's on the list of the seven wonders of the ancient world. It's one particular one, the pyramid of Khufu,

or Kops is what the Greeks call them. And his is the biggest pyramid of them all. Yeah, I mean, there are more than, more than or exactly 80 pyramids scattered across Egypt. Various sizes, and I imagine they're all pretty great to go look at, but the big daddy of them all, like you said, is Khufu, K-H-U-F-U. And it is the one that you can get

with a Pizza Hut cap on top. Right. It's the main dude there with the three pyramids, with the Sphinx standing by, watching over Kentucky Fried Chicken to make sure nobody robs it. Well, it actually would work really well for that Pizza Hut cap because it's the one of the three,

you always see the three together. Yeah. The other two are the pyramid of Menkuar and the other one is pyramid of Khafri. And they're smaller, but if you'll notice, those two have points. The biggest one, the pyramid of Khufu, has a flat top. Like it just knew that that Pizza Hut

was coming in 4,000 years, right? But so we know so little about this pyramid that they're not entirely certain if this is true or not, but there's a pretty widespread theory that that pyramid was actually unfinished. Oh, really? Mm-hmm. They couldn't bring those final stones, huh?

Maybe everybody involved died or there was a change in dynasty or something, but they think, and there's other evidence we'll talk about, but it seems like it might have been unfinished. Didn't Napoleon shoot off the nose of the Sphinx or is that an old wives' tale? No, that was ISIS. Oh, okay.

Probably. So Chuck, one of the things that's so great about this pyramid is just how massive it is, right? Yes. It's tall, it's very tall. It's like 480 feet tall, which that's a substantial height if you ask me. Yeah, I mean, for a long time it was one of the tallest,

or the tallest building in the world, which is amazing. Yeah, until the 14th century when Lincoln Cathedral in England finally topped it. So for almost, for about 3,400 years, it stood as the tallest structure, the human-made structure in the world. That's hard to believe. Yeah, it's pretty cool.

And then at side, each side at the base is about 755 feet long. So just massive, massive structures. Yeah, and you know how I was talking about the fact that it just butts right up against Cairo. At least it's not surrounding, like the city is not just on all sides. So if you do look at it from the city,

it's on the Giza Plateau. And that is still, you know, I'm not sure how far it goes back, but you know, nice wide aerial shots looks like most of that plateau is pretty preserved, at least. So the whole thing, the pyramid was built sometime during the reign of King Khufu, appropriately enough.

And the King reigned from I think 2589 to 2566. So it's a pretty old pyramid. And it's, you know, and it's made of just a ton of blocks, cut blocks, right? So one of the things like if you go on some sites, you'll find people who just kind of poo poo the pyramids are like, it's just piles of stone really. But it's actually pretty clever engineering,

especially considering how long ago it was built. It's not just a pile of stone. There's a lot of corridors and shafts and rooms. And the engineers had to take into account where to place these things so that the structure didn't collapse in on itself as it, you know, aged. So it is a pretty big feat of engineering

just in addition to its size, you know? Yeah, I mean, there are more than 2 million pile of stones. Who says that? Some people online. Yeah, more than 2 million limestone and granite blocks, the weight of about 6.5 million tons. And these things are engineered such that they, that it's about a 51 degree slope on each side.

And each side is faces exactly to the four cardinal direction. So it's pretty impressive. Yeah, that's no accident. It's not like it just happened to land that way. It was all done very much on purpose. These rocks fit together, the blocks really, really tightly, less than a 50th of an inch separating them. So that right there is why these things

are still standing, you know? Right, and so when you look at the pyramid, it's actually, so I think I said 480 feet. I think it's 455 feet. At its height, originally it was 480 feet. And it was also encased in limestone. Well, did it originally have the point then? I don't think so.

No. Because I think they would, I think, there's some other stuff that suggests it was unfinished too. I don't know if it ever had the point. I don't know if anybody knows for certain, but it seems like it hadn't been put on yet. Like an inscription at the top that says not quite done? Well, that's one of the things,

that's one of the reasons why they think that it wasn't done is because it's lacking inscriptions that other pyramids have inaces. Oh, they say they're like, would you finish your work? No, more like we dedicate this to the Sun God Ra in the name of King Khufu and... Blah, blah, blah. Right, yeah, the huge.

So it's lacking any kind of inscriptions. The King's Burial Chamber, the actual sarcophagus, which is just this huge, massive stone that they actually built the chamber around. It's not like they built the room and then imported this thing. It's bigger than any entrance to the room, but it's kind of rough.

It's got some cut marks still showing and it was obviously not finished. And then the other reason why they think that it wasn't ever finished, Chuck, was that there's no evidence that anyone ever found any treasure, loot, bodies, anything. Yeah, so they would've done that afterward. Yeah, it's like it's this dead, empty place

that has never been used, ironically, to entomb dead people into. It was just never finished. Right. So that's one theory that it was finished and never used. Another one is that it actually was looted and it was looted so thoroughly that there's just not even evidence of it being looted.

Whoa. And then the, yeah, that's kind of impressive. And then the last one is that it is finished and that all of these shafts and walkways and crawl spaces that we found are actually meant to distract you from the real places where the tombs are that we've just not found yet.

Couldn't they find those by now, though? Not necessarily. They're still finding like secret rooms and passages that are hidden from view. They're just starting now apply the technology to seeing through stone, literally. Just get up the x-ray camera. Right.

And just stand at pizza hut, zoom in. Right. And just see what's in that thing. You don't even need that. You can send off for some of those x-ray specs from a comic book. Exactly. I don't know why no one else has thought of this yet.

So I have a question then. They said it's originally covered in limestone in that casing. Does that mean that originally it was not in a step pattern and it was just smooth on the outside? Yes. How in the world did they get up there? Would they just slide back down?

Well, the answer is obvious. It was aliens that helped them. That's right. That's it, that's the answer. All right. I can buy that. I have no idea, Chuck. That's a really good question to tell you the truth.

Maybe there's a passageway inside. Right, that they come out the top? Yeah, come out the top, pull the limestone up into place and then slide down it and start the process over again. Interesting. But if you want to see kind of probably what it looked like, just go look at the Iron Maiden Power Slave album cover. Oh yeah, let's see.

It's kind of like smoothly covered. It's not stepped really. I mean, there's steps, but they're meant to be like a staircase, it's not steps on the outside. Oh yeah, that makes sense. So yeah. So in the 14th century, there was an earthquake and as you'll see, that becomes a pattern here

with a lot of these ancient wonders that would become ruins because of earthquakes. Most of these in the Middle East, it's a volatile area, tectonically speaking. So over the course of thousands of years, things are gonna tumble over time, you know? Yeah, and that's what happened in this case. It's basically earthquakes, earthquake, earthquake,

earthquake over and over again. It's the great leveler of monuments, right? Yeah, but the Khufu Pyramid stood, it was stood that earthquake because it's just more than a pile of rocks. It is so big and so grand and so heavy I guess and probably a little luck came involved as well. Yeah, but it was also really good engineering too, for sure.

But the earthquake did get it in that it did level Cairo when they went out to the pyramid and took the limestone off of it and used it to rebuild Cairo. Yeah, and that's another common refrain of notices. A lot of these would be toppled and then people would come in and say, hey, let's use this stuff for the city

instead of just some monument to a ruler. Yeah, and if you, are you ever gonna go see the pyramids? I was, it was sort of on the old bucket list until I saw the Pizza Hut thing today. Oh man, that's funny. And I read an article where someone was like, don't do it, just don't go. Really?

Yeah, but I mean, that's just one person's opinion. We also had people that said the northern lights aren't that impressive. Yeah, that one person. Yeah, we got shouted down for that. Oh my God, it still happens from time to time. Yeah, so if you do go though, Chuck, the way that you go into the pyramid as far as you can,

it's actually, no one's figured out how to go in the way that it was intended. It's that that entrance is lost to history as far as I know. The entrance that you use is actually carved tunnel through the pyramid from the ninth century from this guy named Abdullah al-Maman who oversaw a looting expedition. And he's one of the reasons why they think

that it was unused because even back in the ninth century, this guy couldn't find anything in the sealed pyramid. Interesting. And you gain access to that through the bathroom of pizza? That's right. With your x-ray specs. Wow. You want to take a break?

Yeah, let's do that. Let's do it now. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars,

friends, and nonstop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting Frosted Tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist?

So leave a code on your best friend's beeper because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing. Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it, and popping it back in as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s, called on the iHeart radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road. OK, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass

and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. This, I promise you. Oh, god. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh, man.

And so my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yeah, we know that, Michael, and a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life, step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general, can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life.

Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Hey, everybody, we're back. Yes, we are.

No more poo-pooing of modern things next to old things. I sound like an old man, crabbing, crabbing along. It's all right, man. Uh, and this next one is interesting, The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, because this is one that, I don't know if you've heard of it, but I've heard of it. I've heard of it. I've heard of it.

I've heard of it. I've heard of it. I've heard of it. I've heard of it. I've heard of it. I've heard of it. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, because this is one that may not have even existed.

Um, these, this is the, we're going chronologically, like you said, so the second oldest, if it was real, built in about the sixth century, and obviously these don't exist anymore in any shape or form, but the deal is that these, this was in like modern day Iraq, and they were gardens that, it was really about the building. Um, it's kind of like the first big botanical garden. Right.

It wasn't just things hanging from the sky. It was plants and trees and everything planted in this grand, big building that had water flowing through it. Yeah. In the desert. Yeah. So if it was in Babylon, it would have been about 90 miles or 90 kilometers, I can't remember which one, outside of

Baghdad, modern day Baghdad, right? Yeah. And if it wasn't Babylon, they think that maybe King Nebuchadnezzar built the gardens. This is according to legend at least. Sure. He built the gardens for his wife, Amethyst, who was from the north, where it's much more fertile and green.

And apparently Amethyst missed her homeland, so the king built her the hanging gardens. And again, this is in the desert. So to, to, and Babylon was a magnificent place in and of itself. Again, like their walls were once on this list of seven wonders to go see, right? Yeah.

But supposedly it was just this enormous building tiered with huge walkways. Yeah. And they, they, they planted it with dirt and trees. And there is a, a quote that was said, it was thickly planted with trees of every kind that by their great size or charm could give pleasure to the beholder. That was Deodorus who said that.

And he was writing like a while after they would have been built. But the idea that you could just walk down tree line avenues in this building in the desert is pretty neat. Yeah. I mean, I get the sense that in today's terms it would be like a sort of a nice office park. Yeah, I guess so.

Now we just take them for granted. But back then it was a big deal. You didn't have these structures with all these plants in the middle of the desert like this. Right. And it was along the Euphrates River, most likely. And we're talking about, I mean, it looks, any of the pictures that you've seen, it really looks like it was

something else. About 75 feet tall, like you said, tiered this brick structure with plants and waterfalls coming off of it. And 22 foot thick walls, 400 feet wide and all, all manner of flora all over the place and irrigated from that Euphrates River. Right. If, if again, it wasn't Babylon.

But there's a couple reasons why that whole thing is, why it's questioned, right? So on the one hand, there's no evidence of it. No one said this is where it was. Right. And other people say, well, of course you can't say that. These were plants.

These were gardens. There's not going to be any trace of it left. Maybe, you know, we found the building and we don't even realize it. Right. The reason why they think it might not have actually existed in Babylon is because first of all, King Nebuchadnezzar loved to boast about all of the stuff

he did. Yeah. He left inscriptions and cuneiform basically everywhere. He's like, you know, let out like a 30 second belch today, King Nebuchadnezzar. He would have stuff like this inscribed, right? Yeah. I can't think of anyone today who I could like in that

too, but yes. Right. Exactly. Like he was one of a kind. No ruler ever has bore any resemblance to him. But he'd ever mentioned the gardens of Babylon and any cuneiform tablet that's ever been discovered. Yeah.

He did not tout it in writing, which is very, very unusual. And then there's another guy Herodotus. He was a historian from Greece and he wrote basically a monograph on Babylon 100 years after Nebuchadnezzar. And he didn't mention the hanging gardens at all. No gardens, no legend of a garden, no talk of a garden, no garden.

I visited nothing about gardens. Yeah. And the idea that he would have passed over one of the great wonders of the ancient world when he's writing about the town that contains it, it's pretty questionable. So some people say, well, maybe it wasn't in Babylon. Maybe it was in another place in Assyria. Yeah.

Maybe the Assyrian queen built it. Maybe the ruler of Nineveh whose name and these names, I just love ticking through all these names as if Nebuchadnezzar wasn't good enough. Sinakarib. That's great. The ruler of Nineveh may have built them. I had always thought these were real, but I tend to

think that maybe Nebuchadnezzar didn't have anything to do with it because it doesn't, you're right. I don't think it makes any sense that it was not mentioned in any of these accounts. Right. And it wasn't just Nebuchadnezzar. All this stuff, like keeping records, it was all very new.

It was like the hot thing to do. Sure. Right. And so they wouldn't just say, oh, by the way, we failed to mention, we built this, what would eventually be a wonder of the world, but we just didn't think it was important enough to write down. Yeah.

And this is from Nebuchadnezzar who used to leave inscriptions in the blocks of buildings saying, built by Nebuchadnezzar, ruler of Babylon from sea to sea. Even if he didn't build it. Right, exactly. He would have mentioned it, right? So if it was in Nineveh, it would have been close to present-day Mosul in northern Iraq, right?

Right. And if it was in Nineveh, then we've actually already found the gardens of Babylon because they discovered a structure that was clearly something similar to what the gardens of Babylon have described. There was a structure that had irrigation brought to it that used water screws to pump water. Yeah.

Remember from our Archimedes death ray episode? Uh-huh. To pump it upward to this thing. So we found a garden, basically a botanical garden structure in Nineveh. So if it is there, we now know where the hanging gardens were. Yeah, and that is the idea is that they took this

water up from the Euphrates into these big holding tanks, these big cisterns essentially on top. And then it would use a very clever system of gravity to then feed down and irrigate all the different areas as it flowed downward. Right. Really something to see. I can't imagine what it must have been like.

Like I literally can't. Especially there. You know? I'm kind of disappointed now. I have to admit. Why? Well, because it doesn't sound like it was there or maybe even real.

Yeah, but it could have been in Nineveh. I think it was real. I think it was in Nineveh. You think? Yeah, because if you look at the, if you look at so, I think it was Deodorus' writing from Sicily, the guy from Sicily. Yeah.

He says that there were hanging gardens, but they were built by a Syrian king. So I'm pretty sure that's it. So they were real Chuck and we know where they are. And then you want to do one more for this episode? Yeah. Let's take a break and we'll come back and finish up with the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus.

Right for this. We lived it. And now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends, and nonstop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64?

Do you remember getting frosted tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper, because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing. Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge

from your Game Boy, blowing on it and popping it back in as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s, called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your podcasts. Seriously, I swear, and you won't have to send an SOS, because I'll be there for you. Oh man.

And so will my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yep, we know that, Michael. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boybander each week to guide you through life, step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life.

Oh, just stop now. If so, tell everybody, ya everybody, about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say, bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Okay, Chuck, and we're back.

Yes. This one, this might be my fave. Do you have a favorite one yet? Uh, my favorite one will be in the next episode. Oh, okay, cool. How's that for a tease? That's a great tease. This one's pretty good though, because this took,

by all accounts, over 120 years to build, and just one night to go bye-bye. Yeah. Which is how it goes sometimes. Yep. Especially when there's someone with pyromania involved. Yeah, exactly. So, uh, Ephesus, Ephesus.

Ephesus, that's what I'm going with. All right. How about you? Artemis at Ephesus. Yeah, that sounds better. I think that might be it. So Ephesus is, um, it's actually a pretty well-known city of the ancient world, and I think it's still around

in some way, shape, or form. But it used to be a fabulously wealthy port city in, um, what's today Turkey, but it was under the control, basically, of Greece. Yeah. From what I understand, it was allowed to remain an independent city-state, but it was still like that was at the pleasure of Greece and then later Rome.

But they managed to be an important place of, um, finance and law, too. I think that's where a lot of the courts were, was in Ephesus. But it was also well-known for all of its magic cults. Right? Yes. That's where the magician's mansion was located

back in the ancient world. Yeah, so when they call it the city of magic, they mean that literally. Right. Not magic city. But it had, like, a quarter of a million residents at its peak or at the time when the Temple of Artemis was in full swing.

And it was originally built this temple, this massive, huge temple, um, back in 550 BCE by a guy named King Croesus. They think that that might be old King Cole. Did you know that? Oh, really? Mm-hmm. Huh.

That's what I've always heard. So, King Croesus of Lydia. And this one, if you look it up under the images, it is, it looks like you're, you're kind of classic Greek temple. It's rectangular. It measures about 350 by 180 feet. And the thing about this one that has,

has really jumped out at me were the columns. And there are more than a hundred columns and they're marble. And it's not just, like, everything had columns. Mm-hmm. So that's, that's all fine and well. It's like enough with the columns. These are the Ionic architectural style columns.

But these were, like, if you look at it, they're like the two rows of columns on the front to me. Like, the fact that they doubled them up and offset them is just really kind of striking looking. It is. It's gorgeous. And if you just, the size of this thing too, 350 feet in length, right?

Yeah. Or in depth. It's like one in, one in more than one football field, American football field, which is, this is a pretty good size temple. Yeah. It's, it's not as massive as you might think initially, but it's still pretty big.

Well, I mean, you've got to, you have to think all of this in ancient standards. Sure. Like today you look at a building in size of a football field and it's not that big of a deal, but it's still large. But by those standards back then, it was enormous. Right. Which I'm, I'm, I'm happy with saying it's massive.

Yeah. Put on your ancient hats folks. Plus also, plus also just the, the ornate detail that was carved into the structure in every single spot. It was pretty neat. And then if you looked at the pediment of the temple, the base, there was a door and two windows. I believe the windows were on either side of the door.

That was not for you, Pion. That was for Artemis to enter and leave her temple at her whim. That's right. So Artemis herself, this is, this is one of the reasons why this is my favorite. Artemis herself was the Greek precursor to the Roman Diana. Okay. Yeah.

She was the goddess of fertility, of the hunt, and I believe the moon too, right? Right. And she was Apollo's twin sister. She was the daughter of Zeus and Lido. So she was a pretty important deity, but she was kind of cobbled together at the temple of Artemis with an already much, much, much older deity for the area.

And her name was Sybil. And Sybil was based on an ancient like fertility goddess from 9,000 years ago. So they took Sybil and they took Artemis, who basically represented the same thing, but to two different cultures. And they put it together at this temple of Artemis at Ephesus. Yeah, and we're talking about a statue.

I don't even think we said that. Oh, yeah. No, we didn't. We weren't talking about some kind of weird voodoo black magic. Right. It's a statue built from gold, silver, ebony, and some other stuff they had laying around. Pull tabs from tabcans.

Sure. It was like a found object thing. Basically. But this, what's amazing about this one, you can actually look up the statue even though these are just, I don't know, were there ever pictures of it, or is this just called from writings? I don't know, man.

I'm not sure if it was just from writings, or if they do have it somewhere. Well, the cool thing is, is the statue has this row of bulbs hanging from her body. And if you look at it, it looks like she's wearing a, a tunic made of avocados. Or like water balloons. Sure.

But what they are is up for debate. Some people say, well, they're obviously breasts. They're actually the ability goddess for pizza. It would make a little bit of sense. It does. It would make even more sense if it weren't for the fact that Sibyl's cult was known to castrate bulls as sacrifice. So they think they were probably bull testicles.

Right. And the, actually the, the Sibyl cult high priests would castrate themselves so they could be more like Sibyl. Yeah. I.e. without testicles. Yeah. Remember our castration episode? Oh, do I?

Boy. We've talked about a lot of stuff, Chuck. We have. So you've got this amazing, wonderful, super cool statue in an already amazing temple. Yeah. And it's not just me who thought that, um, that it was the most amazing one of all.

There was another guy who wrote, uh, his name was Antipir of Sidon. He says, I, and this is, he's writing back in, um, you know, I guess BCE still. Yeah. Because he was an ancient Greek, but he said, um, I've seen the walls of unbreachable Babylon. Remember that was originally one of the Seven Wonders.

Yeah. Along which chariots may race and the statue of Zeus by the river Alphaeus, the hanging gardens and the Colossus of the sun, the great man made mountains of the lofty pyramids and the gigantic tomb of Mosulis. But when I saw the sacred house of Artemis reaching the clouds, the others paled. Yeah.

And that was Antipir of Sidon, right? So he's saying like, I've seen all the wonders and to me, the temple of Artemis at Ephesus is the best. And he said, you got to see it. She has bull testicles hanging around her neck. You've never seen anything like it. Uh, so this thing was very, I mean, it was, it was a legit tourist destination.

People would travel long distances to come to this place to see the statue and the temple. And it was, I mean, it's hard to believe, but even back then, they had, it boosted the local economy and was literally supported by like gift shops selling little statuette recreations of this thing. Yeah. And this was already a wealthy area.

So the tourism was so big that that was still significant that the replicas, the sale of the replicas still made that much of a splash on the local economy. That's how many were sold. Like you go to New York City and you go to a gift shop at the Statue of Liberty and you buy the little replica. That exact thing was going on thousands of years ago. Yeah.

There's nothing new. I want one of those. That would be great. If you're looking for something for me for Christmas. An original replica from the BCE of the Temple of Artemis. I would love that. All right. So you just want a gift that's priceless?

Basically. Okay. So this story gets a little more interesting here. You mentioned a pyromaniac earlier. In July, 356 BC, there was a man named, and we almost didn't know his name, Herostratus, who was a pyromaniac who burned this temple down for the, by all accounts, for the sole reason of living in infamy.

Yeah. And there was a decree that his name shall never be recorded at all. So he wouldn't even earn that, but someone did. Well, that was punishable upon death to even say his name afterward. Yeah. But yeah, a guy named, who was it?

Theopompous was the one who wrote it down, who recorded the act. And so what's his name? Herostratus. Yeah. Was recorded in infamy just like he wanted. That's right. He was an ancient jerk, I think, is what you'd call it. And the temple, this is, the story gets even better because the

temple burned the same day that Alexander the Great was born, which was amazing. And the temple, they would later rebuild the temple and Alexander said, yeah, you know what? Why don't I pay for this thing? All you got to do is like, I don't know, just throw my name on it somewhere. Right.

And they said, yeah, that's nice, but we'll just build it on her own. Right. But then they back slowly out of the room like, okay, that's okay, right? You're not going to kill us, are you? Yeah. And I couldn't find a bunch of places that said that he wanted

his name on the temple, except for our article. So I'm not sure that's true. Did you see that in other places? I did not. Yeah, that's the story goes. I'm not sure about that though. That's according to how stuff works. Yeah.

So they rebuilt it. They eventually did rebuild it. And I think it was somewhat, yeah, it was somewhat shortly after, I'm not sure actually how long it was after it was burned. Yeah, no one knows. They said they don't know the date. Okay.

But it was rebuilt. And I think it was rebuilt even bigger than before. Sure. But then in 262 CE, the Goths raided Ephesus, led by Robert Smith and Peter Murphy. And they burned that thing to the ground. That's right. They actually broke the thing up and used the marble to build

the city. After what, Chuck? An earthquake. Yep. A bunch of earthquake. That's right. It's the great leveler. And then I saw another thing that said, and this wasn't our

article either, but it said that it was rebuilt again even after that. And then Christian mob came along and destroyed it. Oh, is that right? That's what I saw. I've not seen that one. I did see that Ephesus was an important city in the Bible because I think Paul came and was proselytizing there and

started a riot because everybody's like, oh man, your God sounds so great that it's going to undermine our Artemis and our local economy is going to fall to pieces. My ancient religion was so interesting. It really was. You know? Yeah. All right.

You got anything else on that one? No, I don't, man. I think we've reached the end of part one. Hooray. And if you're waiting while you're waiting for episode two to come out, you can get in touch with us. You can join me on Twitter at Josh Clark. There's also the S-Y-S-K podcast Twitter handle.

You can join Chuck at facebook.com slash Charles W. Chuck Bryant or facebook.com slash stuff you should know. I've got my own website. It's called ruceriousclark.com. We also accept emails by the oodles at stuffpodcast.howstuffworks.com. And as always, join us at our home on the web, stuffyoushouldknow.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new I Heart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass.

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