ABSTRACT
The king's role in righteously governing the land of Egypt and their god-like status in the after-life justified the construction of their great monumental tombs overlooking the irrigated fields of the Nile Valley from their commanding positions on the deserts edge. Some of the west European megalithic tombs go back to nearly 5000 years BCE and the highly elaborate stone-built temples of Malta and Gozo also predate the building of the pyramids. Philo speaks of the Memphis pyramids and Strabo means the Giza group when he says three of Egypt's pyramids were really noteworthy and two of the three, he adds, were among the Seven Wonders of the World. The Croesus Temple of Ephesus and the elusive Hanging Gardens of Babylon took us back to a mere 600 BCE, only a few centuries in fact before the listing of the Seven Wonders began. Not many subsequent wonders of the world fare so well by these standards, either.
