Temple of Aphaia on Aegina belongs to the years before the Common Era — dated here to c. 500 BCE at Aegina, Greece. The date is a scholarly centre of gravity, not a foundation-stone timestamp.
A late Archaic temple whose pediment sculptures sit between stiff smiles and the Parthenon’s motion — a missing link in marble.
How it was made
Local limestone coated in stucco, a sponge-like island sanctuary to a goddess later merged with Athena.
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.
Munich has the sculptures. The temple still holds the pine-scented plateau.
On dating
BCE in this series means years before the traditional birth of Christ, counted backward. A monument listed as c. 500 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 62 of 100 in The Trend Ledger’s illustrated desk on world wonders raised before the Common Era.