SOUL FOOD:Religion’s role in the Ancient Wonders

The seventh day of the seventh month of the seventh year of a century rolls around only once every 100 years. Only once in a lifetime for those whose lifespan straddles the century right.

For us, the rare day was last Saturday, prompting — among other events — more weddings than the average Saturday among couples who believed the 7-7-7 day to be uniquely blessed or lucky. Seven brides and seven grooms tied the knot on a Six Flags roller coaster in Bowie, Md., named of all things, Joker’s Jinx.

In more traditional venues, couples got hitched in record numbers. Saturday evening at a concert at the San Juan Capistrano Library I met a postman who told me about a church on his route that crammed so many weddings into the day he couldn’t get his mail truck anywhere close to it. The ceremonies were held back-to-back, flooding the streets and the parking lots with crowds and cars. The draw was apparently tied to the symbolism of the number seven in the Bible.

In the Bible, the number seven represents completion or perfection — the ultimate realization of God’s plan. So 7-7-7 portends the unimaginably divine, the antidote to 6-6-6, which as the sign of the Beast, portends unspeakable evil.

Gamblers in places like Las Vegas and Laughlin threw money hand over fist at potential colossal jackpot winnings as if some god might smile on them on this day more than others. The website americancatholics.org does, after all, list St. Bernadine of Sienna as the patron saint of compulsive gambling.

Meanwhile, in Portugal, Bernard Weber’s New7Wonders foundation announced the winners of its seven-year contest by popular vote to create a modern list of man-made marvels to parallel, if not replace, the list of Seven Ancient Wonders (most of which have vanished) compiled in the Middle Ages.

The campaign, which began in 1999, gathered votes from around the world by Internet and phone “American Idol” style. I learned of it late last year.

By then, close to 200 nominations had been whittled down to 21 contenders. I favored nine that I had seen. But in the end only two of them — Petra in Jordan and the Roman Colosseum in Italy — made the final list after some 100 million votes were cast, according to Weber’s foundation.

The other five: the Great Wall of China; India’s Taj Mahal; Machu Picchu in Peru; Brazil’s statue of Christ the Redeemer; and Chichén Itzá in Mexico. The list was revealed at a Lisbon ceremony that promised to be star-studded (Hilary Swank, Jennifer Lopez, tenor Jose Carreras and others). It garnered less attention than I expected. The list drew complaints.

There were sore losers: Africa with its Great Pyramids of Giza (of the Seven Ancient Wonders, the only one still largely standing) and Timbuktu in Mali; Turkey (represented on the list of Ancient Wonders by the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus and the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus in what is modern-day Bodrum) with its beloved Hagia Sophia.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) repeated its early objections to the popular vote-style contest, which it called “mediatized.” With archeologists, it raised concerns that increased tourism at the New7Wonders sites might cause them harm rather than help preserve them, as was the expressed aspiration of the New7Wonders Foundation.

A rather more scholarly process adds sites to UNESCO’s much lengthier World Heritage list. And countries whose man-made wonders make the list must make a well-planned commitment to their preservation.

What struck me most about the new list of Seven Wonders was how much religion ran through it. With the statue of Christ the Redeemer, it’s obvious; were the statue on our soil, the ACLU would likely be in court trying to topple it.

Of the New Seven Wonders, perhaps only China’s Great Wall does not readily divulge the influence or purpose religion brought to it. The pervasiveness of religion in human history ran through the Seven Ancient Wonders of the World like silk thread through pearls.

And here it is again, this new list of wonders built by human hands in seven countries and several continents. Machu Picchu, discovered in 1911 by U.S. explorer Hiram Bingham, is a 16th-century Inca citadel.

It is home to a sacristy, where priests prepared for sacred rites, a sacred plaza and numerous temples.

Among them are those known as Temple of the Sun, Temple of the Moon, Temple of the Condor, Temple of Three Windows and Principal Temple with their many niches for idols and offerings.

Chichén Itzá in Yucatán, Mayan and many centuries older, also houses temples — Temple of the Warriors, Temple of Tables, Temple of the Jaguar, Temple of the Bearded Man — a sacred natural sink hole and a pyramidal Tomb of the High Priest.

The religious artifacts at Petra could fill a book. The form Nabatean gods are etched into countless niches. At its city center is the Great Temple (1st century B.C.), the Temple of the Winged Lions (1st century A.D.) and the Palace of the Pharaoh’s Daughter, a misnomer for another 1st century Nabatean temple.

But there are also Byzantine churches and monasteries, and Islamic shrines, like the domed Shrine of Haroun. It’s easy to spend a week wandering Petra and barely go deeper than its ancient façade.

The elaborate mausoleum known as the Taj Mahal is a testimony to Islam and its Quran. Yet the decorative aspects of its Diwan-I-Khas feature Hindu, Christian and Buddhist as well as Muslim symbols.

At the monument’s center are the words “Help Us Oh Lord To Bear What We Cannot Bear.” Flower symbols and Quranic calligraphy all point to God. Its Jami Mosque, which shelters the white marble and mother-of-pearl tomb of the Sufi saint Salim Chishti, is immense.

Rome’s greatest amphitheater, the Colosseum, is of course infamous for its fights to the death between gladiators and men and beasts. It is said that Emperor Vespasian built it with booty from the A.D. 70 Roman defeat of the Jews at Jerusalem: some 50,000 kilograms of gold and silver taken from Jerusalem Temple.

Stone panel reliefs portray animal sacrifices to Roman deities such as Apollo, Diana and Hercules. In 1749, though, the amphitheater was dedicated to the Passion of Jesus.

Few guidebooks to China mention the religious sites in and around the Great Wall but they are many and some are impressive. The Yungang Grottoes protect 5th-century stone carvings of Buddha that, since the destruction of those in Afghanistan by the Taliban, are now the largest in the world.

The new Seven Wonders list is a testimony: where humanity is, it says, there also is religion. That’s the way it has been. The way, perhaps, it will always be — for better or for worse.