Jordan Times
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
Petra to compete for New
7 Wonders of the World title
By Dalya Dajani
AMMAN — The ancient Nabataean City of Petra is up against 20 other world
heritage sites this year in an intensive global voting competition to select the
next “New Seven Wonders of the World.”
The competition, organised by the Swiss-based New 7 Wonders Foundation (N7W), is
the first voting campaign aimed at highlighting leading cultural and historical
treasures deemed worthy of global recognition.
Since 2000, a panel of leading architectural experts have been involved in
intensive preparations to come up with a shortlist of prospective sites.
The foundation at first short-listed 77 nominations made by millions of voters
and announced the 21 finalists at the end of last year.
The N7W panel, chaired by the former head of UNESCO Federico Mayor, short-listed
Petra to be entered into the final, with the winners to be announced on Jan. 1,
2007.
Among the finalists competing against Petra are the Great Wall of China, the Taj
Mahal, Sydney Opera House, the Pyramids of Giza and Britain's Stonehenge.
Throughout this year, the public can cast their votes by way of telephone and
through the N7W's homepage at www.new7wonders.com.
The foundation was launched by adventurer Bernard Weber in 2000, during a visit
to Sydney.
Weber, who is also a film producer, author and aviator, explained that the
campaign was not intended to replace the Ancient Seven Wonders, declared by
Philo of Byzantium in 200BC but rather to create awareness on and preserve other
historical landmarks.
“The threshold of the new millennium is the perfect time to celebrate the
world's heritage, and establish a new set of world wonders,” said Weber.
“There has never been any true public declaration in the last 2000 years of
human achievement. The commonly known Ancient Seven Wonders belong to antiquity
and only one, the pyramids of Egypt, remains in existence,” he added.
According to the New 7 Wonders Foundation's website, 50 per cent of all net
revenue raised by the New 7 Wonders Project is to be used to fund restoration
efforts worldwide.
It added that one such project is to recreate the giant Bamiyan Buddha statues
in Afghanistan, which was featured along with the New 7 Wonders project at the
2005 Expo in Japan.
The statues were destroyed by Afghanistan's former Taleban regime in March 2001.
N7W organisers announced that the final year of the campaign will be marked with
a world tour visiting the sites of all 21 finalists, accompanied by a TV series
produced by the television production company Endemol.
Here in Jordan, awareness about the campaign is still in its early stages. This
week a banner was hung in Petra highlighting the competition with the phone
numbers to call and vote.
Jordan Tourism Board Managing Director Mazen Hmoud told The Jordan Times that
the board is aware of the campaign but will not commit itself to promotional
efforts in the country until it completes its investigations of the foundation
in question.
“We are aware of the New 7 Wonders campaign and are in the process of
investigating the foundation... before taking off any national campaign to
create awareness about the project,” said Hmoud.
The JTB official said he had already contacted their JTB office in Zurich, where
the foundation is also based, to facilitate their enquiries.
Nominated sites for New 7 Wonders of the World
The 21 finalists were selected by the New 7 Wonders Panel of experts from a long
list of hundreds of nominations proposed by over 19 million votes worldwide. The
nominations in alphabetical order are as follows:
1 Acropolis, Athens, Greece
2 Alhambra, Granada, Spain
3 Angkor, Cambodia
4 Chichen Itza, Yucatan, Mexico
5 Christ Redeemer, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
6 Colosseum, Rome, Italy
7 Easter Island Statues, Chile
8 Eiffel Tower, Paris, France
9 Great Wall, China
10 Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, Turkey
11 Kyomizu Temple, Kyoto, Japan
12 Kremlin/St.Basil, Moscow, Russia
13 Machu Picchu, Peru
14 Neuschwanstein Castle, Füssen, Germany
15 Petra, Jordan
16 Pyramids of Giza, Egypt
17 Statue of Liberty, New York, USA
18 Stonehenge, United Kingdom
19 Sydney Opera House, Australia
20 Taj Mahal, Agra, India
21 Timbuktu, Mali