Sunday, May 25, 2008

The New Seven Wonders of the World

In trying to come up with a title for this blog, I solicited my husband’s opinion. He suggested something related to the Seven Wonders of the World. So I did a little digging to make sure the title would be justified. I came across this article dated July 9, 2007 at the National Geographic website. Apparently, a phone and internet vote was conducted to pick the new human-made Seven Wonders of the World. The results of the vote were released on July 7, 2007 (07-07-07; coincidence, I think not).

The winners are (in no particular order):

  1. The 105-foot-tall (38-meter-tall) "Christ the Redeemer" statue in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
  2. The Colosseum in Rome
  3. India's Taj Mahal
  4. The Great Wall of China
  5. Jordan's ancient city of Petra
  6. The Inca ruins of Machu Picchu in Peru
  7. The ancient Maya city of Chichén Itzá in Mexico

To my chagrin, The Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt, was not in this list. There was some kafuffle with the Egyptians who were insulted that there was even a contest over this. So, competition organizers withdrew the Pyramids and granted them "honorary wonder" status. As far as I’m concerned, it is still a wonder of the world; seven is too small a number. What about Angkor Wat in Cambodia. The list goes on and is too lengthy to discuss here.

Believe it or not, this is all related to my current knitting project. A while ago, I mentioned that Ruti’s Needlebed is having a knit or crochet purse contest where the theme is “History Lives” in honour of Streetsville’s 150th anniversary. It is interesting to note that of all the items on the original list of ancient wonders, The Great Pyramid of Giza is the only remaining survivor. I would call that “History Lives”. And hence the idea for my purse; pictures to follow next week.

2 comments:

busterwife said...

i just saw Prince Caspian... loved it! it's actually quite different from the book, but i still found it deeply moving.

i'm looking forward to seeing your pyramid creation! :-)

i still haven't posted a single creation. and i've made lot's of stuff now! it seems i don't have enough motivation... so many other things grabbing my attention.

Fran said...

Please do post some of your creations! I can't wait to see them.