Ancient Wonder Recreated By 3D Printer

One of the seven wonders of the world has been recreated with a 3D printer. But the new version of the Statue of Zeus is only around an eighth the size of the original.

The Millennium Gate Museum in Atlanta commissioned the new statue to tie in with an upcoming exhibition on the Olympic Games (modern and ancient.) As well as displaying genuine artifacts from ancient Greece, the museum wanted to commemorate Zeus, the God that the original Olympics celebrated.

The original Zeus statue was destroyed in a fire in the fifth century. It stood 13 meters tall and was made of gold, ivory and wood.

The recreation is a more modest 1.8 meters and took almost three days in total to print using thermoplastics. How accurately it matches the original (size apart) is hard to tell as despite the statue’s importance, no replicas survived. The design used for the “reprint” is based on imagery on ancient coins and written descriptions from the period.