"Since Philon of Byzantium named the original Seven Wonders of the World in 200 B.C., the Western world has relegated them to an awed mental pedestal and then promptly forgot what was on the list.
In those centuries, six vanished.Still with us are the Pyramids at Giza
Earthquakes leveled the Lighthouse of Alexandria. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon may never have existed. Crusading Maltese knights purloined blocks from the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus to build a fortress.
Other Wonders met more elaborate fates. The Colossus of Rhodes was felled by earthquake, left prone by oracle's decree and hauled off on mules by invading Arab merchants. A disaffected Ephesian burned the Temple of Artemis, after which it was razed by Goths.
Caligula tried to appropriate The Statue of Zeus, and broke it. A Roman successor closed its temple, which later suffered earthquakes, landslides and fire."
The Great Pyramid of Cholula in Mexico is the largest pyramid in the world by volume, even bigger than Egypt's Great Pyramid of Giza. It is so overgrown that it looks like a hill.
The Great Pyramid was the tallest human-made structure in the world for about 3,800 years, until England's Lincoln Cathedral spire surpassed it in the early 1300s.
Archaeologists now believe the pyramids were built by paid Egyptian laborers rather than slaves, based on workers' tombs and villages discovered near Giza in the 1990s.
The Great Pyramid was originally covered in smooth, polished white limestone casing stones that made it shine in the sun. Most were later removed for other buildings.
The Diary of Merer, discovered in 2013, is the oldest known inscribed papyrus. It records an official's work transporting limestone blocks for the Great Pyramid.