Michael Johnson

Tuesday, March 6, 2007
Six of the Seven Wonders of the World have long since gone with the wind. The Giza pyramids of Egypt are the sole survivor — and now they are threatened by modern Cairo's rapidly spreading urban sprawl.

But the reliability of the original Seven Wonders list, drawn up by the architect Philon of Byzantium in about 200 B.C., was suspect anyway. Did the hanging gardens of Babylon ever exist? The Tower of Babel? The Colossus of Rhodes? No traces remain.

Philon kept within his known world — the Mediterranean basin — so manmade constructions like the Great Wall of China and Angkor Wat in Cambodia never made the grade.

Today our world is so loaded with wonders that, uncomfortable with the gaping lacunas in Philon's legacy, a Swiss-Canadian filmmaker, Bernard Weber, is conducting a popular vote on the Internet to update the list. He says his project is the world's first global ballot on any subject.

Weber has spent the past six years drumming up interest and is now in the home stretch. On July 7 (that's 07/07/07) he will announce results of the vote for the world's favorite "New Seven Wonders" at a ceremony in Lisbon. His stated aim is to celebrate and protect the greatest man-made monuments on the planet.

Not everyone thinks this makes sense, notably the Egyptians, who bristle at what they see as a challenge to the international standing of the pyramids. A few weeks ago the country's culture minister, Faruq Hosni, denounced the competition as "absurd," and Dr. Zahi Hawass, head of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, said he stands by the ancient listing. "It's ridiculous. They don't need to be put to a vote," he said.

Several blogs related to the contest are going strong with arguments over its merits and shortcomings. One suggested a rival competition, "The Seven Wonders of Ohio." Another, from Nairobi, complained, "Lots of Western institutions make up stupid lists like that all the time. It's pretty annoying."

But most bloggers are offering passionate calls for why their favorite sites should top the list. A Californian wants to include San Francisco's Lombard Street — which he says is the most crooked in the world. A Russian blogger wants Lake Baikal included on the list because "it is the world's dippest lake."

Organized by Weber's Zurich-based New Open World Corporation, the voting can be carried out by telephone or online. The first vote is free and additional votes may be purchased by ordering an official voting certificate.

Be prepared for cries of foul when the results are in.

As July 7th approaches, the tally has reached well over 25 million ballots. Heaviest volumes have come in from China, India and Latin America, says Tia Viering, a spokeswoman for the group, speaking by phone from Machu Picchu in Peru, one of the candidate sites. Countries with longer Internet experience seem less enthralled, although Viering sees signs of a late surge from such places.

Weber's team launched the project with a list of 177 sites, then whittled it down to 77, and a shortlist of 21 survived for the final round that was launched about a year ago. Cast out are Philon's entire original catalogue of marvels — except for the pyramids.

The finalists can be viewed and voted upon via the project's Web site, www.new7wonders.com. Choices are largely predictable — the Acropolis in Athens, the Coliseum in Rome, the Great Wall of China and Kyomizu Temple in Kyoto among them. Somehow, the Sydney Opera House ended up on the list, as did the Eiffel Tower and the Statue of Liberty. The timeframe for candidate sites was the span of human existence up to the year 2000.

Half of all net revenue raised by the New 7 Wonders Project will be plowed into the restoration of selected monuments worldwide, including the giant Bamiyan Buddha statues in Afghanistan, destroyed by the Taliban.

Ruminating over these new wonders, I felt I had the right to submit a few of my own:

The worldwide wireless telephone network. I wonder, will private conversations ever be private again?

The Channel Tunnel. As a feat of engineering, it rivals anything the ancients had to offer, but I wonder why Britain and France can't seem to make money from it.

And, although it's not man-made, the Pacific Ocean. The Russian blogger liked this one, too, because it is the largest of the oceans. And the dippest.