Palace of Sargon at Khorsabad belongs to the years before the Common Era — dated here to c. 706 BCE at Dur-Sharrukin. The date is a scholarly centre of gravity, not a foundation-stone timestamp.
Sargon II founded a new Assyrian capital and wrapped his palace in lamassu, glazed brick, and reliefs of a world being measured.
How it was made
Courts the size of football pitches, a ziggurat, and a city wall laid out as a statement that the king could invent a capital overnight.
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.
He died in battle; the city was abandoned. Botta’s 19th-century CE excavations scattered the wonder into museums.
On dating
BCE in this series means years before the traditional birth of Christ, counted backward. A monument listed as c. 706 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 29 of 100 in The Trend Ledger’s illustrated desk on world wonders raised before the Common Era.