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Selects: How the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World Work, Part II · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Chuck here.
• 0:01
  Speaker 2: I hope everyone's doing well on this lovely Saturday. I
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: gotta say, if you've been sitting around for two weeks
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: wondering what the other seven Wonders of the Ancient World are, well,
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: that is some serious patients, my friends. So here it
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: is Part two, continuing from two weeks ago, How the
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: Seven Wonders of the Ancient World work. Welcome to Stuff
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
• 0:35
  Speaker 3: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and
• 0:38
  Speaker 3: there's Charles w O'Bryant, and there's guest producer Noel again.
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: And that makes this Stuff you Should Know Part two.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: Did you ever see hot Shots Part two? The sequel?
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: No, you know, I didn't see a lot of those
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: movies at all, except for the airplane movies and the
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: naked gun movies.
• 0:59
  Speaker 3: The hot Shots movies were worth seeing.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: Did not see those. Did not see any of the
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: scary movies.
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: Oh, the scary movies? You haven't seen those?
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: Nope?
• 1:09
  Speaker 3: All of them are good, Like every single one of
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: those are good.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: Really?
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: I did record a movie crush yesterday with uh for the.
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: Movie Scream though, Oh yeah, with who Nate Bargatzi uh
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: huh comedian. Sure, so we It was interesting that I
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: had to do Scream research in like that movie changed
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: like horror movies were on their last legs.
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: Yes, they were.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: Not to say that something else might not have come along,
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: But it was Scream that like revitalized a genre.
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: Yep, that's pretty cool.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was kind of a watershed movie.
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: Did we talk about that in the horror movies that
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: changed the the genre? I'm pretty sure we had to.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: Boy, if we didn't, we missed out.
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: Well. If we didn't, we probably just said and obviously
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: Scream we don't even need to mention that.
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: Well, it launched the Scream franchise. It launched the scary
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: movie franchise in a way m hm oh yeah, and
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: relaunched a genre.
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so scary movies we're seeing hot shots is worth.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: Seeing naked guns were seeing.
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: Of course, although I would put either one of the
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: hot shots up against the third naked gun any day
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: of the week. That's that's that's my.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: Bookie over the third naked gun. Yeah, okay, that's fair.
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and then don't get me started on what was
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: it like the god Son? But what the god Son?
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: I don't know what that is.
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: It was like a Godfather spoof that Leslie Nielsen was
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: in with Dom de Luise. I haven't even seen five
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: minutes of it.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: I don't even know what that is. And you stump me,
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: Oh good, thank you. Well, that's a good start to
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: this episode. Do you think you're welcome?
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: Thank you? Uh so, Chuck, Yes, we're moving on. We've
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: already talked about the Great Pyramids at Cufu, we talked
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: about the Hanging Gardens of Babylon and the Temple of
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: Artemis at afisis right, all three of them top top notch.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: And if you don't know what we're talking about now,
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: and this is your first episode of stuff, you should know. Ever,
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: this is the second of a two part episode.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: There you go on the.
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: Seven Ancient Seven Wonders the Ancient World, and here's part.
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: Two, right, and we're going to start with the statue
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: of Zeus at Olympia.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: To say it like that, there's no other way to
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: say it.
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: That's how Well, who's the guy's name, the the boxing guy.
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: That guy I don't know his name.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he used to stand at the statue of Zeus
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: and say that on an hourly basis.
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: Yep, it's pretty pretty amazing stuff.
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: So this one is one of my favorites, but not
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: my favorite. I promise that my favorite was in here,
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: but this is not quite it. Okay, although it's close,
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: because you know, this is this is the main deal here,
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: Olympia Zeus. This is now run of the mill god
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: and some cast off city.
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: No, it was the sight of the first Olympics, so
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: it was a pretty important city.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: Very important it was.
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: It was nowhere near Mount Olympus though, curiously, but it
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: was pretty pretty important, right, Yes, this one, to me
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: is the most ho hum of them all. Oh yeah,
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: I'm not quite sure why, but I am just kind
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: of like whatever about it?
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: All right? Well the temple. Let's talk about the temple
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: at first.
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: Okay, And also I should warn you that this article
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: has the proportions wildly incorrect.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: Oh the how tall it was?
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: All right? What is it? For real?
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: This thing? This article says it was two hundred and
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: ten feet tall. That's a twenty story building. Yeah, the
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: temple was not as tall as a twenty story building.
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: It was sixty eight feet tall.
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: How did they get it that wrong?
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: I don't know. I just don't know, it's staggering. It's
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: as staggering as this temple would have been had it
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: been two hundred feet tall.
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: And it doesn't even say it was somewhere between sixty
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: eight and two hundred and ten feet, right, it's weird.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's annoying.
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: Everything else is right about it though. Okay, so it
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: was sixty eight feet tall. Still pretty impressive, sure.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: For the time.
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: Well yeah, but I would have to say if somebody,
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: if you were driving through Dunwoodie he saw a sixty
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: eight foot tall temple, yeah, you would probably still be impressed,
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: even though somebody just built it. So I think it's
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: still impressive even today.
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: Yes, so the temple's frail impressive, But inside we're talking
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: about the statue mainly the Greek artists. Phidias was commissioned,
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: and I imagine these artists were paid pretty handsomely for
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: these jobs.
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, because you know, there's only a few of them
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: who are capable of doing this at the time.
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean there are only a few people in
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: the world could do this now, right on something of
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: this scale. So they said, hey, Zeus is the man.
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: We want a statue of Zeus. And he said yeah,
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: I can knock that out. It's four fifty BC. Shouldn't
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: take me too long. Eight years later he was finished.
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: Right, and he used some really weird materials. Like so
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: the temple itself, it was like a standard temple, sixty
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: eight feet tall, like all of them were a bunch
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: of columns, that kind of thing. But the statue inside
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: is apparently what was the big draw. And one of
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: the reasons why it was something to see was because
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: Phidias used ivory and gold rather than marble, which is
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: it was pretty much what you used to make a
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: statue back at that time. And they think one of
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: the reasons why he used or not ebony, but ivory
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: and gold was right. But the reason why they thought
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: that was because he was building a statue to Zeus, right,
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: so it needed to be special. This is like the
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: king of the gods.
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and ivory was definitely something that people would travel
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: to see a statue made of ivory of Zeus. So basically,
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: Zus is sitting down in this statue, and he's sitting
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: just straight up. He's not like like you know how
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: the Lincoln and his memorials kind of chilling in his seat.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: Zeus is not chilling. He's sitting up ready for action.
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he's like, what'd you say? What'd you say?
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: Kind of The statue itself was about fifty feet high,
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: which is super impressive. Like when you see a rendering
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: of what someone look like standing at the base of
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: this thing, it's really pretty striking.
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: And one of the things they said about it was
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: that if he stood up, he would have his head
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: would have burst through the roof of the of the temple. Yeah,
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: which was probably pretty cool to see too.
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: He was sitting down at fifty feet right, totally would have.
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: Right, he would have just been like Sue smash. So
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: he's holding in one hand a statue Nike, So it's
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: a statue holding a statue, and Nike is a wing
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: goddess a victory, right, so it's kind of like his
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: version of tinker Bell hanging out in his hand. And
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: on the other hand he's holding a scepter, which is
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: pretty appropriate for the King of the gods. And again
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: he's seated on this throne. And yeah, if you look
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: at artists rendering of them, we should say here, most
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: of this stuff, by the time these lists were written
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: were already aged and then they crumbled over time, so
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: we actually don't know exactly what they looked like. Some
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: people saw him firsthand, but a lot of this information
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: comes from second hand sources or even further down the
• 8:40
  Speaker 3: chain than that, so we're not exactly certain of what
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: they looked like. But for most of these, because they
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: were so widely regarded as seven Wonders of the ancient world,
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: that you have to see that enough people wrote about
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: him talked about him that if you really spent some time,
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: you could put these sources together and come with probably
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: an accurate description of what it looked like.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure.
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: The remarkable thing about this one is, apparently, was the
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: expression on Zeus's face. Not only is he sitting straight
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: up ready for action, he just had this look on
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: his face.
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: It was kind of intimidating.
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: I guess you could say, you've disappointed me and your mother.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: That's what it.
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: Said, and the legend has it, and I don't buy
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: this at all, But Phidias said that once I'm finished
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: with this saying, he asked for Zeus's blessing on the sculpture,
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: and a bolt of lightning struck the temple at that
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: very moment.
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: I don't believe it.
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: No, No, as a matter of fact, if you do
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: believe that, right in so we can tell you that
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: you're wrong. So there were a couple of issues with
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: this statue. Number one, it was built a couple hundred
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: years a few hundred years before Christianity began and then
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: started to spread in the area. Once that happened, the
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: worshipers of Zeus who still remained, said we need to
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: get this out of here. These Christians, they don't play around.
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: They're going to get rid of this thing, right, And
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: they moved the statue to Constantinople and it stayed there
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: safe for a while, actually apparently housed in a palace.
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: But one of the things about the statue was it
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: was made of gold and ivory, but those things were
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: overlaid on top of a wooden sculpture. Yeah, which is
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: kind of like it's pretty slack phidious. Maybe you should
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: have stuck with the marble. Maybe, But the palace in
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: Constantinople caught fire.
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah that's a problem because marble doesn't burn, doesn't.
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: No, it doesn't.
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So it would have survived, but he cheaked out,
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: let's be.
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: Honest, Yeah, he phoned this one in.
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and they were right to have moved that thing,
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: because the Christians did come in and take care of business,
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: shut down that temple in three ninety one a d.
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: But by that time the statue was gone at least.
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: But yeah, burned it fire. So earthquakes and fires are
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: taking out all of the wonders.
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: Earthquakes, fires and Christians. Yeah, the great level is pretty
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: much so back in I think in nineteen fifty, this
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: guy and again like this stuff just sat in the
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: realm of legend for a long time. Although I think
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: the I think the ruins of the temple itself are
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: still around, aren't they that?
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure.
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: I think they might be. I like, over the last
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: two days, I've seen so many pictures of ancient temple
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: ruins that I'm like, which, wait, which one is that? Yeah,
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: bush right, I think this one may still be around
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: in Olympia, the ruins of the temple, like you can
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: still make out a couple of steps leading up to
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: that kind of thing, and there's like the posts of
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: a couple of pillars or whatever. But they found in
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: nineteen fifty the workshop that Phidias used beside the temple,
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: and apparently we're able to recreate using the molds that
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: they found probably what the statue looked like, which is
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: pretty impressive, just working from old molds.
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Not only that, but.
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: These were on coins, right, Oh, yeah, that's right, that's
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: the other one. Yeah, they were on Greek coins. So
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: this isn't one where you really had to guess so
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: much what it looked like because on those coins there
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: there's a lot of detail about what it looked like.
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: And because coins, you know, they were originated there, just
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: where they ended up eventually would give a little indication
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: on how far people had traveled come see this saying
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: when they carry those coins.
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: Back, Yeah, it made me wonder, like were those coins
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: currency or were they like souvenirs, like if you go
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: to Dollywood or Kennedy Space Center or something like that
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: and get a coin made.
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I didn't think about that.
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: I wonder because I mean, this was an age where
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: there were tourists and they were already selling the replicas
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: of the Temple of Artemis as tourist mementos. I wonder
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: if these coins were that team. Yeah, pretty pretty neat
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: to think about ancient tourists.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: Should we take a break, Yeah.
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: All right, I'm gonna contemplate that, and we'll be back
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: right after this.
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: Okay, chuck, here's my second favorite.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: Let's hear it.
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: This is in your favorite Huh Are you sure you
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: have a favorite?
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: I do. We're not there yet.
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: Okay, all right, well this is my second favorite, the
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: mausoleum at Halikar Nassas.
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: Okay, you don't like this one?
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: That was?
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: All right? Masoleums, I don't know. You see one, you
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: see them all?
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: Well, this is the original one. Like the word mausoleum
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: came from this structure.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that only goes so far with me. Oh, I
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: love that, the original thing.
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I thought I thought you were like an etymology
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: kind of guy. Oh I can be, but just not
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: with mausoleum.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I don't know.
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: There's something about mausoleums that bugged.
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: Me because there's dead people interred inside.
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: There's just a lot of a lot of hubbub for
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: a dead body.
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: Oh I see, I see. Yeah that makes sense.
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't want to knock it though.
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: Well, okay, we'll just stop right here.
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: Then, if you're King Masulis, you deserve to to have
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: this named after you.
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: I would say that, especially if you're married to your
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: sister and she's madly in love with you, and you've
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: just died.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that was a little weird.
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: He was the Persian king of Karia, and he was
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: indeed married to his sister Artemisia.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and she.
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: Really really was in love with her brother.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah and husband.
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: And he was from what I understand, he seemed like
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: a pretty successful ruler. They had the mausoleum under construction
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: while he was still alive, and he died while before
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: it was finished, obviously, but his sister Artemisia, sister wife,
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: Artemisia was so broken up by it. She said, all right, stop,
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: stop what you're doing. This is not good enough. This
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: has to be the most amazing memorial anyone's ever made
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: to their husband. Brother. I've got to get in touch
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: with all of the greatest sculptors of the realm. And
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: she did. She got in touch with at least five
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: of the greatest sculptors alive at the time, and they
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: were headed by a guy named Pitheus, who not only
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: was one of the sculptors, he was the overseeing architect
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: of the entire project.
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so like he architected the whole thing. And then
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: she got a one sculptor per Si to embellish the
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: outside scope us Brexis, Reaxis, Leo, charis ole A, and Timothia.
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: That one's easy.
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: That one is easy, and this one has often been
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: called because she had all these different people working on it.
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: And not only that, but I think for years afterward
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: it became a place where artists could exhibit and showcase
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: their work. So in the end this thing ended up
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: being I think, not as coherent is what you would
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: think something might be when you just hire one person
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: to work on it.
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: For this episode and the last one, I went to
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: the site on museum. Have you ever heard of it?
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: I think so.
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: They were very helpful in researching this. And one of
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: the things the way they put it was that so
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: during construction, Artemisia died before it was completed, and the
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: five sculptors who were running the show looked at each
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: other and they were like, let's keep going. We could
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: stop here and leave it unfinished. But it became don't
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: do that though, well no, no, not true. Ones. It
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: became a temple, a monument, not just to Mazillius and
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: Artemesia who were entombed inside, but it became a monument
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: to art as.
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: Well, that we can do whatever we want now, guys.
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: Right, And they did so, they went ahead and they
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: completed it, and it was a pretty impressive structure.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: The structure yourself, was about one hundred and forty feet tall.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: Is that right?
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I believe though that's a relief.
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: The base was about one hundred feet twenty four steps tall.
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and then on either side of the steps, flanking
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: the steps were crouched lions, which is pretty cool.
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: It's always cool.
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: Around the outside of the second the second tier where
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: you would walk into on all four corners there were
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: soldiers bounded on horseback, sculptures of them protecting the place.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, what else?
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: Pliny the Elder said, this thing is four hundred and
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: forty feet and the perimeter the thing is four hundred
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: and forty feet So it was large, thirty six columns.
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: It was a big structure, very impressive. I didn't get
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: from the pictures that I saw of renderings. It didn't
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: look too busy to me.
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: No, I'm not sure. The only place I saw that
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: kind of shade being thrown at it was in this
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: house stuff Works article.
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I know that there were different people
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: working on it, but it didn't look like I expected
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: when I saw it to look.
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: Like a big mess, and it did not look like
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: a big mets.
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: No, it looked pretty neat and tidy. Right, Yeah, So
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: one of the things that I love about this thing
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: so again, Ardemisia and Masilius are entombed inside this thing.
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: But it's also like just a place you would go,
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: you know, take a date or something on a Sunday
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: afternoon in the city of hell canisis Helicarnassis, Right, One
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: of the cool things about this is that this structure
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: stood for hundreds and hundreds of years after the city
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: of Helicarnassis fell to ruin around it.
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that is so cool.
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: Just the imagining this abandoned, ruined town and in the
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: middle of it is this one hundred and forty foot
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: tall mausoleum, the world's first mausoleum, with all these ornate
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: sculptures around it. This is almost completely out of context
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: with its surroundings now that the town is falling to ruin.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that is pretty cool for sure.
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: But like all these other ones, earthquakes would eventually take
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: care of business in the fourteen hundreds and shake this
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: thing down and again, like a lot of these other stories,
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: in fourteen ninety four, they used the Knights of Saint
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: John of Malta said hey, let's take all this scrap
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: and use it for our own castle.
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, a city as Helicarnassis fell to ruin. Another city
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: nearby grew up called Bodrum, and the ruins at Helericarnassus.
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: You would go to Bodrum today to view the ruins
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: of Helicarnassis. The mausoleum, i should say, but the big
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: draw apparently is the Knights of Saint John's castle, and
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: to build that castle, some of the scraps that they
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: used were from the mausoleum. So you can still see
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: original parts of the mausoleum, but they've been incorporated into
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: the structure of the castle that you would view. Yeah,
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: which is cool. So it's still around in some way, shape.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: Or form totally. That's very cool.
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: But that earthquake that got it in the fourteen hundreds,
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: it actually had a weird way of preserving some of it.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, So there are three big things that keep
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: coming up.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: There is earthquakes that keep happening. There's people using scraps
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: to build other cities nearby, and then there's the British Museum.
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: Those three things figure into the Seven Wonders of the
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: Ancient World big time because there's a piece of one
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World somewhere in
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: the world outside of its original location. It's probably in
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: the British Museum. And that's the case with some a
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: few things from the mausoleum at Helicarnassis. They think that
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: what happened was the earthquake toppled the sculpture of Masulis
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: and Artemisia riding a chariot pulled by four horses. It
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: was very famous that was on the top of the mausoleum,
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: that it fell and was covered by rubble so that
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: it was protected until it was finally excavated in the
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: nineteenth century when they found huge old chariot wheel. And
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: then they think the two sculptures of Artemisia and Mausoleus
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: and now they're all in the British Museum. But they
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: think that earthquake had a weird way of protecting it
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: from looted and reused by the Knights of Saint John
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: later on.
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: Amazing, I'm telling you that's why it's my second favorite. Well,
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: we're coming upon my favorite. I wondered if this was it,
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: the Colossus of Rhodes.
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: It's a good way to say it.
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: So yeah, I like this one.
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: This was ancient Greece, and this one was the granddaddy
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: of them all statue wise, this one was even bigger
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: than the statue of Zeus at Olympia. Third century, and
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: Rhodes was an island, still as an island, and Macedonians
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: came knocking on the door, and they were angry, and
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: they wanted the help of the people of Rhodes because
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: Ptolemy was Ptolemy one that is was was conquering, and
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: they said, we need your help here. And the people
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: of Roads said, hey, we're not really, we don't want
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: to get involved in all that. We kind of like
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: it here on the island, living our peaceful lifestyle here.
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: Well. Plus, if they was in anybody they were allied with,
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: it was Ttolemy. Yeah, yeah, but they wanted to stay
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: out of any wars.
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: They just weren't into it, right, So they rebuffed the
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: Macedonians and they left, but they left behind a bunch
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: of supplies and equipment.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure why they did that actually.
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: So this article is so bizarre.
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: Man.
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: The Macedonians besieged roads for over a year, and they
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: had these huge war machines that were made of like
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: bronze and wood and metal, and they would pull these
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: huge machines up to the city walls and like they
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: had catapults on top, and they were trying to crush
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: the city for a year. And when the Roodians finally
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: overcame the Macedonians, they were like, well, we're just leaving
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: the stuff behind. It's too big to move. It didn't
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: work anyway, so we'll leave it. Yeah, that's why they
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: left it. This article puts it in a really weird way.
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree. Yeah.
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: So they ended up using like selling away that stuff
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: right to make the money to build in part the statue.
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and they reused some of it directly for the statue.
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: Like that huge thing that they used to besiege the
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: city they pulled up to the walls, they actually used
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: that as scaffolding to build the statue with. Heck, yeah, yeah,
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: it's making plowshers out of uh, I don't know. Guns.
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: So they used the sculptor Charros of Lindos, and he said,
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: I got this one under control, and he used all
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: these different materials iron, bronze, stone, and this one I'll
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: have wrapped up, oh in about twelve years, which they said,
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: that's about right.
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's not bad for what they did here.
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean this was one hundred and ten feet tall.
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it had a skeleton of iron, and inside the
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: skeleton for structure, it had huge stone columns running through it.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: And yeah, it was like the actual statue itself was
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: about as big as the Statue of Liberty is today
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: and followed like a pretty similar structure, but like a
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: thousand or so years before, a couple thousand years before.
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, people think from written accounts that it was holding
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: a torch like Lady Liberty does, and that the face
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: was modeled after Alexander the Great. Some say, and here's
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: where it gets interesting to me is if you look
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: up pictures of this thing, you will likely see it
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: standing a straddle the entrance to the harbor, so literally
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: standing there like kind of with his legs spread, and
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: you would have to sail a ship between his legs to.
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: Get into the harbor.
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: You shouldn't look up, Yeah, don't look because the detail
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: was really amazing.
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: Very amazing, and one hundred and ten feet high, like
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: you know what you're going to be staring at. So
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: there are accounts and there are plenty of illustrations and
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: other things that support this, and it looks trust me,
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: if you look it up, it looks very cool. Like
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: you know, they into they were into making things this tall,
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: just because it was so mind blowing.
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: But also they were thanking their patron god Helios for
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: spading them from having to go to war, which is
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: pretty cool. I that's one of the reasons I like
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: this one is they were saying, like, you know what,
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: we stayed out of war, we managed to remain at peace.
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: We're going to build a monument to our god who
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: we assume helped us out.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: But when they did these things, like with most of these,
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: I love that they were just like, well, you know,
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: twenty foot high statue will be great.
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: That's impressive.
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: Like they would try and build things as large as
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: humanly literally possible engineering wise at the time.
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: I see your point. Yeah, that is pretty neat.
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: So when you look at pictures of this straddling the harbor,
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: it's just like it's enormous. It's huge, Unfortunately, that's probably
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: not what he how he stood, right. That's the downer
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: here is that they didn't really have the the materials
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: or the knowledge or the skill to do something like that.
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: Like the reason that statues back then were basically straight
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: up and down is because that you needed that those
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: legs to support the rest of the statue.
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and they were atop a pedestal that could hold
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: the weight of the statue above it.
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: They would Also if each foot was on either side
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: of the harbor, that's usually not the strongest solid ground
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: you can find, no, no way, So they wouldn't have
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: had any means of reinforcing the ground beneath it, So
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: it would have just sunk or fallen right over.
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: And plus the other thing too, Chuck, was that it
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: would have closed the harbor down, and they relied on
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: the harbor for their economy.
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's probably unlikely that it looked as cool
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: as it looks in pictures. And what happened to this
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: one fifty three years later?
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: Yes, earthquake? Yep, fifty three years that is so quick.
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that didn't last long at all.
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: No, So the thing fell and they think that it
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: probably was located closer to the center of town. Yeah,
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: somewhere inland. But that when it fell, it crushed a
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: bunch of people's houses and businesses, and some of it
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: probably fell into the harbor itself.
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: And this one was notable because I think because it
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: was so young when it fell. It's still it's not
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: like they were like, oh, let's get rid of this thing.
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: They let it lay there as a tourist attraction in
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: its prone state for many, many years, and people would
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: come far and wide to go visit the fallen statue.
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, for almost a thousand years. It's crazy. Yeah, it
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: still stated a tourist attraction. Like apparently the cool thing
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: to do was to try to put your arms around
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: the thumb.
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the thumb was bigger than most statues.
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: Right, Like people couldn't get their arms, they couldn't touch
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: their hands around the thumb.
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: Amazing.
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: And apparently also the arms fell off pretty They may
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: have even fallen off first during the earthquake. But did
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: you say it broke off at a the knees, just
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: below the knees, no, so those probably stayed for a while.
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: But the they like.
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: From the knee down, yeah, yeah.
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: I'm sure, which looks a little weird, Like that picture
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: of the person who suffered spontaneous combustion all that was
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: left their one leg, I'll bet it looked kind of
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: like that. But the stuff that was on the ground,
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: like you could see into like the armholes, and apparently
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: even that was just his breath ticking cavern. It was
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: just such a massive structure.
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: They're like, have you seen in those armholes?
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: Yes?
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: I have.
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: I've seen all the armholes all over the world. I'm
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: the best tourist ever.
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: Have you tried to hug that thumb?
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: I have a subscription to Monocle Magazine. I'm just as
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: cool as they come.
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: And so the final nugget on this one that I
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: thought was pretty fun was in six fifty three, these
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: invading Arabs sold, like all the rest of these stories,
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: sold the scrap metal, and they sold it to a
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: Jewish merchant who apparently used nine hundred camels to take
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: this stuff away.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: Good lord, So how about that?
• 30:02
  Speaker 3: So nine hundred camels are like just a few camels
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: who had to make nine hundred trips total, You.
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: Don't know, said nine hundred camels?
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: This is plus I mean, if this is a Jewish
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: merchant buying the scrap metal of the Colossus of Rhodes.
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: He probably owned nine hundred camels.
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: Gotcha, you know, and think of all the poop that
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: generated around there. Man, there's a lot of camel poop.
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: All right, Well, let's take one more break. We'll come
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: back and we'll finish up with the final wonder of
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: the ancient worlds right after this.
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: Alright, all right, chuck, we're at the last one.
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: This one's pretty neat too.
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: I don't think we ever said when the Colossus of
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: Rods was built, did we?
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: Oh? Jeez, did we not?
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: So it would have been in the fourth No, the
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: third century, No, the fourth century BCE is when it
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: was built.
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: Four.
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: So this this is Remember we've been going chronologically through
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: all of these, and this is then the youngest of
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: the ancient wonders.
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the little baby of the of the group, the
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: Lighthouse of Alexandria. And you know, I've got a lighthouse thing, sure, uh.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: And this one's a pretty great one.
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: Was This was notable as one of the angers wonders
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: of the ancient world because it was the only one
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: that actually had a practical use and it wasn't just
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: some monument or temple, you know.
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: Right, it served a purpose. Who was it that said
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: nothing useless can ever truly be beautiful? Or was it
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: just a movie line that I remember?
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: I think that was John Cusack.
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: Okay, what nothing useless can ever be beautiful?
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah? Man, I wish I could remember what that's from,
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: because I'm sure we're going to get a lot of
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: email about it. But they said in the movie, they
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: say somebody said nothing useless can ever truly be beautiful?
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't buy that.
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's an opinion. There's a well put opinion, which
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: is how it ends up in a movie, you know
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: what I'm saying. Yeah, so this one, this one did
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: have utility and it was kind of beautiful too from
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: the artists renderings I've seen. I liked it.
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, pretty pretty sweet lighthouse.
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: So the Lighthouse at Alexander is supposedly it's got a
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: pretty cool backstory to it. Allegedly, Alexander himself had a
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: dream and in the dream they said, Alexander, you need
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: to go find the Island of Pharaohs. And he said why.
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: They said, it doesn't matter, just do what we say,
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: and he woke up in a cold sweat, and he
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: like trembling, lit a cigarette and he said, I gotta
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: find Pharaohs. And that's how it started.
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, pretty much located off the coast of ancient Egypt.
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: He said, you know what, uh, Ptolemy, since we're ptold
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: me is such a cool name, I'm gonna choose you
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: as one of my generals to go and habit and
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: settle this place. Take care of it for me and
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: told me, he said, I'm all over it.
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: But you know.
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: What pharaohs needs though, It needs like an identifier, something
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: that you can see from a long way, something symbolic,
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: something that literally helps you identify it because it's you know,
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: tough navigating around those shores. And Alexander said, well, I
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: don't know if it was Alexander, in my mind it was.
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: He said, how about a lighthouse.
• 33:43
  Speaker 3: Well, supposedly it was either Ptolemy or the Mausean, which
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: is the predecessor to the museum, which is basically like
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: a brain trust to think tank, an early prototype of
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: the university where the Library Alexandria was housed. Either Ptolemy
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: came up with it or the Mausean came.
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: Up with them, that's right, And it's a great idea.
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: Put a lighthouse because it serves a function, and it
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: can be tall and grand, and the island will then
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: be known for this right, and it most certainly was.
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: I have to say. One of the things that I
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: love about these is how some of them are tied together.
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: Like this is the same Ptolemy that the Macedonians were
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: fighting and tried to bring Rhads into roads, had been
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: conquered by King Musulis, and then was later reconquered by Artemesia.
• 34:34
  Speaker 3: Like all of these things kind of fit together, and
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: when you start to learn about one, you learn about
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: the story of the people who built them and how
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: they relate to the stories of people who built other
• 34:44
  Speaker 3: amazing wonders of the ancient world. It's just such a
• 34:46
  Speaker 3: cool history lesson.
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: Have you seen the new Noah Bomback movie on Netflix.
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: Noy's called The Meerwitz Stories.
• 34:53
  Speaker 3: No, I haven't seen it.
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: It's on Netflix. It's funny. It's Adam Sandler, his Adam.
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: The guy's not in the movie, but Adam Sandler neighbor.
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: He references a lot. His name is Ptolemy, so he
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: just keeps saying, well, you know, Ptolemy says this and
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: that without the movie, it's pretty funny and a reminder
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: that Adam Sandler should only play these roles.
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he definitely well that or the original Billy Madison
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: happy Gilmore role. He was pretty good that too.
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: Man, he's so good in these kinds of movies.
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: I know these.
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so good.
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: And this character is sort of like a grown up
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: version of that punch drunk love character.
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: A little bit to me. Good movie.
• 35:36
  Speaker 3: Check it out.
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, thanks, so, uh it told me?
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: Which has got a silent p by the way, Yeah,
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: it's a cool name, which is why it's such a
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: great name. It's Potolemy me so Potolemy is on the island.
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: They get this thing built around two eighty five BC.
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: They begin construction. Uh, there's a a dude named Sostrates
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: of Nidos. Sure, and they don't know what part he
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: played other than the fact that it was important. He
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: could have been the architect, could have been the financier,
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: could have been both. Yeah, absolutely could have been both.
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: But he was definitely important to that project.
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: So supposedly this project they actually have a monetary value
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: for how much it costs. They said it costs eight
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: hundred talents, which is a word for bars of silver,
• 36:30
  Speaker 3: and apparently that's about three million dollars today. This is
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: not bad for this lighthouse. Three million. Oh yeah, not
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: bad at all.
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: You couldn't build half a lighthouse today for that.
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: No, no, not one like this. So apparently it was
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: about four hundred and fifty feet tall. And one of
• 36:48
  Speaker 3: the reasons they built this too is not just to
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: put Pharaohs on the map or Alexandria on the map.
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: Alexandria was already like a pretty important city or it
• 36:59
  Speaker 3: was becoming in a important city port city, but having
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: a lighthouse there just helped navigation, which only helped the
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: economy boom. And actually after the lighthouse came into operation,
• 37:11
  Speaker 3: the economy did boom as a result of that.
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, and four hundred and fifty feet is really
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: really tall.
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 37:17
  Speaker 3: They said that you could see this thing's light from
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: one hundred miles away.
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I saw the ones that said it was more
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: like thirty or forty still, but yeah, that's a pretty
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: high functioning lighthouse.
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: One hundred miles away. Is more believable than the Temple
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: of Zeus being struck by a bolt of lightning after
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: it was completed agreed, so you could see this thing
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: thirty miles away. We'll even go with twenty miles away. Okay,
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: I'm not even going above that. And the reason why
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: you could see that is because atop this four hundred
• 37:46
  Speaker 3: and fifty foot structure there was a polished disc of
• 37:49
  Speaker 3: some sort they think it was probably bronze, and during
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: the day they moved it so it would reflect the
• 37:55
  Speaker 3: light of the sun, so you could see it then,
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: and then at night they had of fire going all
• 38:01
  Speaker 3: the time. And there were structures within this amazingly tall
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: structure that were basically what you would call dumb waiters
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: or that type of elevator on pulleys where you could
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: raise and lower get to bring like firewood or animal
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: dried animal dung up to it.
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I don't think we said that.
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: One of the things that makes this so cool to
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: me is it's not just a big cylindrical lighthouse like
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: most of them.
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: You see.
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: It is three different levels of three different shapes. So
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: you've got your huge rectangular base, then you have the
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: second level, which is octagonal, and then that third is cylindrical.
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: So it's just really cool looking.
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: And apparently you could even up to that first level,
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: which I mean had to be over one hundred feet
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: high in itself. You could bring carts and work horses
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: and stuff all the way up to that level because
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: they had a bunch of storage up there, right, this
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: is pretty cool, and then dumbwaiters to take stuff to
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: the highest hours.
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: Right, And.
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: They had like those ramps and like kind of circular
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: or spiral staircases going around it to help to maximize
• 39:11
  Speaker 3: the space that you use to get things up. Yeah,
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: it was very clever structure for sure.
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's very cool and you can there are some
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: cool renderings of this online as well.
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: So this thing was a solid piece of work. Apparently
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: it's it survived as tsunami in three sixty five CE.
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: Oh wow, but what got it? Chuck earthquake? Earthquake yep,
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: and thirteen oh three, so it's.
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: After like dozens of earthquakes.
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so it was. It was built around two to
• 39:42
  Speaker 3: eighty BCE. It stood until thirteen hundred thirteen hundred, right, amazing,
• 39:49
  Speaker 3: and finally some earthquakes took it down. And the other
• 39:53
  Speaker 3: thing that happened they reused some of it as a
• 39:55
  Speaker 3: fort which is still around today. But the cool thing
• 39:59
  Speaker 3: about it. In nineteen ninety four, there was an underwater
• 40:02
  Speaker 3: expedition around Pharos and they found what they're almost positive
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: are original blocks from the from the lighthouse itself, original blocks. End.
• 40:12
  Speaker 3: I think statues too, Oh wow, yeah, sculptures, I should say.
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I did look at some of the underwater pictures.
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: It's pretty cool.
• 40:19
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, it's just as cool as it gets. Man,
• 40:21
  Speaker 3: anything that's underwater now that used to be and was
• 40:24
  Speaker 3: meant to be above water, so cool, so creepy. I
• 40:29
  Speaker 3: was reading this really interesting article about the Andrea Doia,
• 40:33
  Speaker 3: you know, the luxury liner family that I think it's
• 40:36
  Speaker 3: sunk in the fifties or early sixties, but it's like
• 40:39
  Speaker 3: this incredible reck site that people dive and they call
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: it like the underwater Everest because if you're an underwater
• 40:47
  Speaker 3: reck diver, that's like, it doesn't get any better than that. Yeah,
• 40:51
  Speaker 3: but you know it's also extremely dangerous. I read this
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: really well written article about I can't remember who wrote it,
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: but to start reading Andrea d'oria article everybody and you'll
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: find the one eventually.
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: Well, we'll do a podcast on it, how about that.
• 41:04
  Speaker 3: Okay, let's do it. And that's it. We did the
• 41:06
  Speaker 3: Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: Finally, huh, that's the last One's that's it, everybody, that's
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: the big one.
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: That's a Chevy Chase quote, is it? Yeah? From Christmas
• 41:18
  Speaker 3: Vacation when he reveals the pool. Oh right, it's so
• 41:21
  Speaker 3: awkward the way he says it.
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: It's perfect.
• 41:23
  Speaker 3: That's it. That's a big one. Well, at any rate,
• 41:27
  Speaker 3: Christmas is coming gone, Chuck. But this is the last
• 41:29
  Speaker 3: episode that we're going to release this year, So I
• 41:33
  Speaker 3: think we should wish everybody a happy New Year. Yeah,
• 41:35
  Speaker 3: Happy New Year everybody. Thanks for sticking with us this
• 41:38
  Speaker 3: twenty seventeen, and we'll see you in twenty eighteen. On
• 41:42
  Speaker 3: a personal note, happy happy birthday to my sweet wife.
• 41:45
  Speaker 3: You me, And we'll see you guys next.
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: Year, right, I sure hope. So.
• 41:51
  Speaker 3: So in the meantime, it's time for listener mail.
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: That's right, We're going to finish out this two part
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: with a single listener mail about.
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: Bath salts.
• 42:05
  Speaker 3: Appropriately that's why not.
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: Hey, guys, I'm not wanting to take hard drugs often,
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: but my friend and I were going to an EDM
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: festival and decided to take what we believed was molly.
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: The drugs were crystalline, and we took them orally yuck.
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: The experience did not go as planned. A few days later,
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: we used a drug testing kit on the remaining crystals
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: and find out dunt dun da bath salts. That's scary.
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: I'll take that. That looks like a drug.
• 42:33
  Speaker 3: Sure it's crystalline.
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, sure.
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: Unlike any other party drug that might make you feel
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: ready to dance, this stuff gave my friend and I
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: this sensation that our feet were stuck to the ground
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: by a magnetic force and lifting them was almost impossible.
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: This made dancing very difficult, as all we could do
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: was awkwardly move around with the top.
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: Half of our bodies.
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: Additionally, we felt super paranoid that everyone around us was
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: watching us and judging and laughing at our pitiful attempts
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: to dance. By the way, Anonymous, no one noticed you.
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: I can go ahead and tell you.
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: That right now, right it was impossible to enjoy the
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: music with my mind racing these unpleasant thoughts, and the
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: feeling lasted for the full day. After the disappointing day,
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: we headed back to the apartment ready to get some rest.
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: Tackle the next day drug free but No, the Basalts
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: would not let us sleep, try as we might. All
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: night long, we lay there wide awake, part of the
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: song turned down for what by DJ Snake layed over
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: and over in my mind for eight hours straight.
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: This sounds really bad, it does.
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: My eyes were closed and it felt as though I
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: was watching a show of squiggly neon colored shapes pulsating
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: in rhythm to the incessant music in my mind.
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: Somehow we managed to.
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: Get to the festival the next day, but we felt
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: like zombies and we were not even at the cannibalism
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: stage yet.
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure what that even means.
• 43:46
  Speaker 3: Well, you know the whole face eating bath Salt's ledgend
• 43:49
  Speaker 3: Oh gotcha. She's like, we weren't even there yet.
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, still was terrible.
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: She didn't even get the pleasure of eating someone's face, right,
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: so just from experience all well. Second, when Josh and
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: Chuck said and urged steer clear, that is from Anonymous.
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: Thanks a lot, Anonymous, appreciate that those the bore you
• 44:06
  Speaker 3: know or No, that's one to grow on.
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: That's one to grow on.
• 44:10
  Speaker 3: If you want to send us one to grow on,
• 44:12
  Speaker 3: hit us up. You can send us an email to
• 44:15
  Speaker 3: stuff podcast at HowStuffWorks dot com and as always, joined
• 44:18
  Speaker 3: us at our home on the web but Stuff you
• 44:20
  Speaker 3: Should Know dot com.
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.