Colossi of Memnon belongs to the years before the Common Era — dated here to c. 1350 BCE at Thebes, Egypt. The date is a scholarly centre of gravity, not a foundation-stone timestamp.
Two quartzite giants of Amenhotep III sat before a mortuary temple that flood and stone-robbing later erased.
How it was made
After an earthquake, one statue “sang” at dawn — a tourist miracle for Greeks and Romans who renamed them Memnon.
Why it still counts as a wonder
It never needed a Greek list to be a wonder: the labour, the alignment, or the survival is enough.
The temple is a footprint; the colossi remain as the front door of a vanished house.
On dating
BCE in this series means years before the traditional birth of Christ, counted backward. A monument listed as c. 1350 BCE may have been founded earlier, rebuilt later, or famous only in one phase. Where ancient writers disagree — as they do for Babylon’s gardens — we say so.
This is story 17 of 100 in The Trend Ledger’s illustrated desk on world wonders raised before the Common Era.