<P> "The New Colossus' (1883), a sonnet by Emma Lazarus engraved on a bronze plaque and mounted inside the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty in 1903, contrasts the latter with: </P> <P> The brazen giant of Greek fame </P> <P> with conquering limbs astride from land to land </P> <P> While these fanciful images feed the misconception, the mechanics of the situation reveal that the Colossus could not have straddled the harbour as described in Lemprière's Classical Dictionary . If the completed statue had straddled the harbour, the entire mouth of the harbour would have been effectively closed during the entirety of the construction, and the ancient Rhodians did not have the means to dredge and re-open the harbour after construction . Also, the fallen statue would have blocked the harbour, and since the ancient Rhodians did not have the ability to remove the fallen statue from the harbour, it would not have remained visible on land for the next 800 years, as discussed above . Even neglecting these objections, the statue was made of bronze, and engineering analyses indicate that it could not have been built with its legs apart without collapsing from its own weight . Many researchers have considered alternative positions for the statue which would have made it more feasible for actual construction by the ancients . There is also no evidence that the statue held a torch aloft; the records simply say that after completion, the Rhodians kindled the "torch of freedom". A relief in a nearby temple shows Helios standing with one hand shielding his eyes (similar to an American or Royal Navy military salute) and it is quite possible that the colossus was constructed in the same pose . While we do not know what the statue looked like, we do have a good idea of what the head and face looked like, as it was of a standard rendering at the time . The head would have had curly hair with evenly spaced spikes of bronze or silver flame radiating, similar to the images found on contemporary Rhodian coins . </P>

Seven wonders of the world coexisted for how many years until the colossus of rhodes fell