The Colossus of Rhodes

Abstract

AbstractThe Colossus was a huge bronze statue of Helios that stood near the harbour of Rhodes. The most important ingredient of bronze was copper, which came from deposits on Cyprus originally formed on the seafloor by “black smoker” hot springs. Tin was also needed, but we still do not know where it came from, maybe along extensive trade routes from the Far East. The statue was made of bronze panels cast using the lost-wax process and affixed to an iron framework. Its location beside the sea made it susceptible to corrosion, which may have made it vulnerable to an earthquake that felled it some sixty years after it was completed. Although we have no contemporary description of the seismic event, we can reconstruct the movement from the topography of the modern coastline and the archaeology of the harbour.