02-08-2025
Seventh heaven! How to explore the Great Pyramid at Giza to the Hanging Gardens of Babylon... from your sofa
It was the world's first bucket list: archaeologists more than 100 years ago discovered the oldest-surviving description of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, celebrating the boldest engineering marvels of the day.
Written on a fragment of papyrus more than 2,000 years ago, and wrapped around a mummified body, it included the magic words: Hepta, which means seven in Greek, and the beginning of Theamata, which means 'Wonders' or 'Sites'.
Now historian, author and TV presenter Bettany Hughes has spent seven years visiting the monuments for her latest book The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, which became a Sunday Times bestseller.
And, in a world first, her TV production company SandStone Global has recreated them with computer generated imagery and augmented reality, teaming up with Snapchat to create an immerse experience.
For the first time in television history, viewers will be able to tune into tonight's episode of 7 Wonders of the World with Bettany Hughes and scan in a QR code to bringing to life the Great Pyramid at Giza and the Great Lighthouse of Alexandria.
Episodes two and three will have augmented reality links to the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, the Statue of Zeus at Olympia, the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, the Colossus of Rhodes.
'It's really genuinely exciting to have this augmented reality companion to the documentary series because what we try to do is transport people through time,' said Bettany.
'So, the QR code pops up on your screen. You can scan it and immediately you have the wonders on your phone and in your own home. You're not just hearing. You're not just seeing. You're actively engaged. You're immersing yourself in real time.
'It's very cool. You literally hold up your phone, like you would scan a QR code on a packet of peas, and then onto your screen, you get the augmented reality version of those CGI graphics.
'So, it means you can zoom into them, you can go inside the Pyramids, you can move around the Colossus of Rhodes. I got stupidly excited when we first did it.
'As I was looking at my phone, the Colossus of Rhodes would appear on my desk, or the Hanging Gardens of Babylon would appear on the bedspread in my bedroom. It looks like you've got a mini version of the Seven Wonders in the room with you.
'You can record it as a video and share it with people. It's the ultimate ancient selfie - you and your family wandering around the Seven Wonders of the World.'
Bettany, 58, came up with the concept after sitting next to a physicist at a wedding, who had teamed up with Snapchat on another collaboration with spectacles.
She and her team then worked with Snapchat's AR Studios in Paris, whom she described as 'guys in garrets with loads of tech doing creative things' to create the augmented reality links.
'What we've done is we've compared them to something that still stands today, so Big Ben in London,' she added. 'This is the first time I've ever seen this kind of augmented reality experience anywhere in the world, ancient or modern.
'It was fantastic working with the AR studio team in Paris because it was a real collaboration. I think for both of us it was incredibly important that this was accurate and authentic, that we were being true to history down to the very last detail.'
7 Wonders of the World with Bettany Hughes airs tonight (Saturday) on Channel 5 at 6.30pm.
