Editing Colossus of Rhodes (section)

==Construction==
{{More citations needed section|date=July 2024}}{{ancient_seven_wonders_timeline.svg}}
[[File:Colosse de Rhodes (Barclay).jpg|thumb|Colossus of Rhodes, artist's impression, 1880]]
Construction began in 292&nbsp;BC. Ancient accounts, which differ to some degree, describe the structure as being built with iron tie bars to which bronze plates were fixed to form the skin. The interior of the structure, which stood on a {{convert|15|m|ft|-high|abbr=off|adj=mid}} white [[marble]] [[pedestal]] near the Rhodes harbour entrance, was then filled with stone blocks as construction progressed.<ref>Accounts of Philo of Byzantium ca. 150&nbsp;BC and Pliny (Plineus Caius Secundus) ca. 50 AD based on viewing the broken remains</ref> Other sources place the Colossus on a breakwater in the harbour. According to most contemporary descriptions, the statue itself was about 70 cubits, or {{convert|32|m|ft|abbr=off}} tall.<ref>{{cite web |department=Colossus of Rhodes |title=Description, location, & facts |date=April 2023 |website=britannica.com |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Colossus-of-Rhodes |access-date=2020-03-19 |archive-date=2020-09-24 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200924152907/https://www.britannica.com/topic/Colossus-of-Rhodes |url-status=live }}</ref> Much of the iron and [[bronze]] was [[forging|reforged]] from the various weapons Demetrius's army left behind, and the abandoned second siege tower may have been used for [[scaffolding]] around the lower levels during construction.

[[Philo of Byzantium]] wrote in ''De septem mundi miraculis'' that Chares created the sculpture in situ by casting it in horizontal courses and then placing "...a huge mound of earth around each section as soon as it was completed, thus burying the finished work under the accumulated earth, and carrying out the casting of the next part on the level."<ref name=Vedder-2017>{{cite conference |last=Vedder |first=Ursula |year=2017 |title=Was the Colossus of Rhodes cast in courses or large sections? |editor-last=Daehner |editor-first=Jens |book-title=Artistry in Bronze: The Greeks and their legacy |conference=XIXth International Congress on Ancient Bronzes |publisher=J. Paul Getty Museum, Getty Conservation Institute |location=Los Angeles, CA |page=25 |url=http://www.getty.edu/publications/artistryinbronze/large-scale-bronzes/2-vedder/ |access-date=2021-10-05 |archive-date=2021-10-05 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211005211430/http://www.getty.edu/publications/artistryinbronze/large-scale-bronzes/2-vedder/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

Modern engineers have put forward a hypothesis for the statue's construction (based on the technology of the time), and the accounts of Philo and Pliny, who saw and described the ruins.<ref>{{cite conference |conference=International Symposium on History of Machines and Mechanisms |year=2004 |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-1-4020-2203-6 |title=Engineering aspects of the collapse of the Colossus of Rhodes statue |pages=69–85 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tt9u67U8RW8C}}</ref>

The base pedestal was said to be at least {{convert|18|m|ft|abbr=off}} in diameter,{{according to whom|date=July 2024}} and either circular or octagonal. The feet were carved in stone and covered with thin bronze plates riveted together. Eight forged iron bars set in a radiating horizontal position formed the ankles and turned up to follow the lines of the legs while becoming progressively smaller. Individually cast curved bronze plates {{convert|60|in|m|order=flip}} square with turned-in edges were joined by rivets through holes formed during casting to form a series of rings. The lower plates were {{convert|1|in|mm|order=flip}} in thickness to the knee and {{Convert|3/4|in|round=5|order=flip}} thick from knee to abdomen, while the upper plates were {{Convert|1/4|to|1/2|in|round=0.5|order=flip}} thick except where additional strength was required at joints such as the shoulder, neck, etc.{{Citation needed|date=October 2021}}

Archaeologist Ursula Vedder has proposed that the sculpture was cast in large sections following traditional Greek methods and that [[Philo of Byzantium|Philo]]'s account is "not compatible with the situation proved by archaeology in ancient Greece."<ref name=Vedder-2017/>

After twelve years, in 280&nbsp;BC, the statue was completed. Greek anthologies of poetry have preserved what is believed to be the dedication text on the Colossus.<ref>''Anthologia Graeca'' [https://archive.org/details/greekanthology01pato/page/386/mode/2up vi.171] (''cf.'' H. Beckby (Munich 1957))</ref><ref>Pat Wheatley, Charlotte Dunn, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=ap_gDwAAQBAJ Demetrius the Besieger]'', Oxford University Press (2020), p. 443, note 1.</ref>

{{Verse translation
|lang1=grc | italicsoff = yes
|Αὐτῷ σοὶ πρὸς Ὄλυμπον ἐμακύναντο κολοσσὸν
:τόνδε Ῥόδου ναέται Δωρίδος, Ἀέλιε,
χάλκεον ἁνίκα κῦμα κατευνάσαντες Ἐνυοῦς
:ἔστεψαν πάτραν δυσμενέων ἐνάροις.
οὐ γὰρ ὑπὲρ πελάγους μόνον †κάτθεσαν, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐν γᾷ,
:ἁβρὸν ἀδουλώτου φέγγος ἐλευθερίας·
τοῖς γὰρ ἀφ' Ἡρακλῆος ἀεξηθεῖσι γενέθλας
:πάτριος ἐν πόντῳ κἠν χθονὶ κοιρανία.
|lang2=en
|To thy very self, O Sun, did the people of Dorian Rhodes 
raise high to heaven this colossus, 
then, when having laid to rest the brazen wave of war, 
they crowned their country with the spoils of their foes. 
Not only over the sea, but on the land, too, 
did they establish the lovely light of unfettered freedom. 
For to those who spring from the race of Heracles 
dominion is a heritage both on land and sea.
|attr1=''The Greek Anthology'', [[William Roger Paton|W. R. Paton]], trans., William Heinemann, London (1916), vol. I, p. 387.
}}