Close to 2,300 years ago the Colossus of Rhodes was built to celebrate the island’s victory over invading forces sent by Antigonus the One Eyed, who ruled large parts of modern day Turkey, Greece, Cyprus and the Levant. Standing 33 metres high, the statue of the Greek sun-god Helios stood at, not astride as it is often depicted, the entrance to Rhodes Harbour. The tallest statue in the world at the time, it was tragically destroyed only 50 years after being erected in an earthquake in 226 BC.