Lamassu of Dur-Sharrukin belongs to the years before the Common Era — dated here to c. 710 BCE at Khorsabad. The date is a scholarly centre of gravity, not a foundation-stone timestamp.
Human-headed winged bulls stood in gateways with five legs so they looked complete both in front and in profile.
How it was made
Alabaster monoliths weighing tens of tonnes were floated and dragged from quarries, then carved in situ as apotropaic machines.
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.
They are the Assyrian answer to the Sphinx: hybrid guardians for an empire that thought in thresholds.
On dating
BCE in this series means years before the traditional birth of Christ, counted backward. A monument listed as c. 710 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 32 of 100 in The Trend Ledger’s illustrated desk on world wonders raised before the Common Era.