Suppose some rich billionaire decides to replicate seven world wonders in his backyard. What’s the cost of doing so with modern technology and equipment? What’s the cheapest and most expensive set of 7?
When you say ‘modern technology’, do you mean cranes and trucks, or will you permit the great pyramid to be constructed from cast concrete blocks?
Cheapest, I suppose, would be the Hanging Gardens. The wonder of it, in ancient times, was transporting the water required to keep all the plants alive. This required many slaves working round the clock. With modern technology it would be simple.
Yeah. we’d give the slaves carts with wheels. And digital clocks to work around.
The precious materials in some of these are not available in the modern world. (Ivory, for example was a very large element of the Statue of Zeus, and the quality of marble, chalcedony etcetera are greatly reduced from two thousand years of world demand) Also, where exactly the Billionaire’s back yard is is of some consideration, since even billionaires have to trouble themselves with licenses and permits, and dragging multi-ton granite blocks along the interstate might pose a legal problem.
I doubt that the Pyramids would cost as much in terms of effort to erect, but the transport costs would be even higher than they were for the Egyptians. Quite aside from the “were they slaves” debate, the workers who made the Great Pyramids were not members of the International Brotherhood of Masons, and Carpenters, and were not covered by health insurance, or unemployment.
And then there are the legal and political fees, including nuisance suits, and bribes. And the inspections! My god, the delays! This better be a very young Billionaire.
Cost estimates would, of course be revised upwards by a factor of not less than half, three or four times before completion. Unless it was a Government project, in which case it would be double the projected cost for every decade of time.
I think each one would start out as a two or three billion dollar project, and, when finally completed, range from ten to thirty billion each. Of course, this is an completely wild ass guess, and is therefor probably far below the actual cost.
Tris
“Sic transit gloria mundi. And Tuesday’s usually worse.” ~ Robert A. Heinlein ~
I’m confident neither would be a problem. With enough money you could certainly get the ivory; there are still lots of elephants around. Having big granite blocks transported isn’t a big deal, either; today’s trucks haul immensely heavy loads as it is.
I think this is probably a wild overestimate. While I realize every structure is different, they build wonders NOW, and manage to do so economically despite the nuisance lawsuits, regulations, et al. Structures such as the CN Tower, Golden Gate Bridge, and almost any skyscraper were cheaper to build than you’re describing.
Yes, cranes and trucks are considered modern technology. The C-130 is also fair game, but be sure to add its rental cost to your estimate.
As for using cast concrete, I think that leads to a slippery slope of cutting costs. After all, we wouldn’t want a Spinal Tap-esque $10 Stonehenge model made of styrofoam.
We want to replicate the original size and materials for a newly constructed wonder. So, Khufu’s Great Pyramid would be made of limestone, basalt, and granite, with the outer casing cover stones of limestone. We don’t need to recreate the erosion or even the precise state of the Pyramids today. However, it should contain the rooms and access shafts that we know about.
It should look “correct” to observers and the owners should be able to tout the pertinent features of the wonder, but we understand it’s a replica and therefore cannot be an exact copy. But visitors should not be able to complain that your replica does not have a known feature of the original wonder. So, if we know about a gold sarcophagus or hieroglyphics or whatnot, they need to be in there.
If we’re going for expense, feel free to throw in the entire Giza complex if you feel that’s part of the wonder. As to what constitutes a wonder, I would go with anything widely regarded as a wonder, ancient or otherwise. But feel free to choose your own wonder criteria. And let us further state that we need 7 different wonders.
The pyramids would be far and away the most expensive to replicate.
The lighthouse, the hanging gardens, the mausoleum, and the temple of Artemis are all relatively modest structures by modern standards and even with exquisite worksmanship could be duplicated for tens, or at most a few hundred millions. The statue is Zeus is even cheaper – assuming you can get the ivory – definitely doable for under ten million. The colossus is equivalent to a little version of the Statue of Liberty and could probably be built for a few hundred million.
The pyramids though … even with modern technology you still have to shift all that stone and cut it. Four years ago in a similar thread we came up with a figure of $5 billion.
I’m suprised there is no “7 Wonders of the World” resort/casino in Las Vegas complete with replicas of all 7. Even if they weren’t made out of the exact same materials it would be neat to seem them all full scale.
Well, just for a start, some of them it’s only speculative what they looked like. It’s not known with any certainty what the Colossus looked like, or even if it existed at all. It could be a total myth.
Contruction costs were astoundingly lower even a few decades ago than they are now.
Most large projects today, even single buildings, are in the billion dollar range.
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Why not use poured cement in some of the construction of the pyramids? It worked well enough for the Hoover Dam (which is a Wonder in Civ II. 
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Some time ago, I came across an article where an author of some engineering skill was convinced that (some of? most of?) the limestone portions of (some of? most of?) the Egyptian pyramids were poured cement. I think I remember this conclusion was based on the composition of the blocks. It could be far-out nutbaggery, I don’t know. Does anyone recall the specifics of this analysis?
I remember reading somewhere that the pyramids might have actually been a form of unemployment dole: if you were otherwise unemployed, you went and worked on the pyramids. Has this been debunked?
[National Pride] I think Machu Picchu would be a tough one, too [/National Pride]
That’s interesting. Is the increase in price because of materials costs? Land? Regulations which would apply more in the developed world than elsewhere? Labor costs? How does inflation factor into it?
Huh. That’s actually quite a lot for me to ask. I’d be content if you just pointed me in a direction where I could find out more about this.
In Egypt, as in every other ancient civilization, the vast majority of the people worked as farmers. Only a tiny percentage lived in cities. There never was a large group of unemployed people to put into use.
What this may be a garbled version of is that farmers were used in the off-seasons from active work on their crops.
I think it’s pretty much agreed these days that working on the pyramids was an honor and that most appropriately aged men were happy to be called to the task. It wasn’t a task for slaves or the unemployable, but a form of what we might now call “national service.”
And there were probably fewer workers needed at any one time than previously thought. The Labors of Pyramid Building. Many of these, moreover, were a cadre of skilled professionals whose profession was pyramid building and who were treated, well, royally.
I read the major business magazines and the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times business section because I find the subject fascinating and because I realized that you can’t understand today’s world without trying to get a thorough grounding in business and finance. All I can do is summarize what I’ve been reading. And that basically says that all costs are going up quickly. Land values have been skyrocketing in center cities. Materials costs have responded to the law of supply and demand as China now sucks up one-third of the world’s supply of major commodities. Regulations play a role and so does labor costs.
Poking around the internet I found a technical page, Costs Associated with Constructed Facilities, with scads of general information. And a specific example that is telling.
An estimated doubling in four years for something only half again as large.
Extrapolate this out with the faster increases since 2003 and inflation is only one of several major factors in the increae in costs.
Both Strabo and Pliny the Elder describe viewing the ruins of the Colossus, thus it was almost certainly real. What it looked like,whether it straddled the harbour and even what it was made out of, are all debated, however.
They have discussed rebuilding it "There has been much debate as to whether to rebuild the Colossus. Those in favour say it would boost tourism in Rhodes greatly, but those against construction say it would cost too large an amount (over 100 million euro). This idea has been revived many times since it was first proposed in 1970 but, due to lack of funding, work has not yet started."
The Colossus of Rhoes would be relatively cheap, there’s no way it would have been as large as the ‘Angel of the North’ which stands out for miles around.
And before anyone comments on the materials, or even that the Coossus was a casting, well we don’t know that, the steel used in the Angel is probably of far far better quality than anything that could have been produced back then, and it would not be too hard to create a figure that straddles across two piers.
Cost, few milllion at most.