The Colossus of Rhodes was a 30-m (100-ft) bronze statue of the Greek sungod Helios, erected about 280 BC to guard the entrance to the harbor at Rhodes; itwas destroyed about 55 years later.

The Colossus of Rhodes was a great bronzestatue, erected in about 280 BC by the citizens of Rhodes, capital of the Greek islandof the same name. It represented their sun-god Helios and was said to be 105 feethigh. According to legend, it straddled the harbor entrance, but it is more likelythat it stood to one side. The statue was overthrown by an earthquake in 224 BC butits huge fragments long were regarded with wonder. Nearly a thousand years later,in AD 656, a Muslim dealer bought the fragments as old metal and carried them awayto be melted down.

The old engraving of the Colossus of Rhodes is purely imaginaryand is based on the legend that the statue stood astride the harbor entrance.