The Colossus of Rhodes was a statue of Helios, in bronze, whose height exceeded thirty meters, the work of Chares. Remembrance of the victorious resistance to Demetrios I Poliorcetes (-305 to -304), erected on the island of Rhodes around -292, this gigantic effigy was overthrown in -227 by an earthquake.
It was the sixth of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
The construction was long and laborious. The colossus was entirely made of wood and bronze. It was first necessary to constitute a wooden core. Once the “skeleton” was in place, the structure was covered with huge bronze plates. The foundry on the island was not sufficient to meet the needs of such an enterprise, bronze was imported in large quantities.
The statue of the colossus is traditionally placed on the large port of Rhodes, where it would have served as a "gateway" (as the engraving opposite suggests). However, according to the static studies of British specialists, the statue could not be on the port in the position attributed to it, because of the excessive distance suggested by such a position. Indeed, the pillars on which the feet of the statue would have rested would have been separated by about forty meters, according to the observations of the seabed in the bay of Rhodes carried out by these researchers. The difference thus observed would therefore not correspond to the height of the statue, which was to be slightly smaller than the Statue of Liberty in New York. In practice, this would have resulted in a distortion between the load and the support points of the statue.
The hypothesis that appeared during the Renaissance of a statue with spread legs and allowing boats to pass under it has therefore fallen into disuse. Today other avenues are being explored:
* One of them wants that the statue was on the heights of the island (or below the acropolis), thus overhanging the whole archipelago, thus giving a particular majesty to Helios and conferring on the statue a superhuman dimension.
* Another theory defended among others by the German architect and archaeologist Wolfram Hoepfner places the Colossus of Rhodes at the entrance to the other port of Rhodes:the military port. According to Hoepfner, the Colossus of Rhodes represented a "saluting Helios" with his right hand.
The colossus was brought down by an earthquake around -225/-227. Technically, the earthquake twisted the statue's knees. The heap of wood and copper thus constituted was initially left in place, because the oracle of Delphi would have forbidden the inhabitants to straighten the statue. Around 654, Arab armies, under the command of Mohabiah, plundered Rhodes and took away the bronze waste. According to legend, 900 camels were used to transport nearly 20 tons.