For the multitudes of ethnic differences that exist throughout human civilisation , we do deal a exclusive , world-wide goal : to make stuff bigger and better than the schmucks next door . Every individual one of the seven wonders of the ancient world was create as a chest - thumping , neighbour - assume will to its builder ’s awesomeness . That lofty tradition bear on even today with Saudi Arabia ’s monumental Mecca - clock , a horologe so tremendous it almost end Greenwich Mean Time .
The clock sits atop the Abraj Al - Bait ( Mecca Royal Hotel ) Clock Tower in Mecca , Saudi Arabia — steps aside from the world ’s big mosque and Islam ’s most sacred situation — and is surrounded by the five - star Makkah Royal Clock Tower Hotel which supply to wealthy pilgrim move through the holy land during the Hajj . Saudi Arabia ’s with child construction firm , the Saudi Binladin Group , built the hotel building complex for an estimated $ 15 billion . The Fairmont group do by the hotel ’s daily operations .
At 1,972 pes , the Makkah clock tower is the tall edifice in Saudi Arabia and , worldwide , is second in stature only to the Burj Khalifa in Dubai . That total height does include a 233 - foot tall spire used to help track the moon during Islam ’s Holy Months , but even without , it ’s still the worlds tallest clock tower and a technological wonder . Designed by the Swiss engineering firm Straintec , each of the clock ’s four faces quantity 141 feet squared ( make them the world ’s largest ) , are comprised of 98 million glass mosaic pieces , and are outfit with two million LED lights in addition to a 56 - foot hour bridge player and 72 - foot moment hand . Another 21,000 white and green luminosity run along the top of the clock and flash during the day ’s five calls to prayer . These orison lights are visible up to 18 miles aside .
In the political campaign up to the hotel ’s curtain raising in 2012 , many speculated that the clock would be set to local Mecca Time . The clock ’s proprietors , in fact , hoped that the structure would be so awe - inspiring that people around the world would forsake Greenwich Mean Time , the 125 - yr - onetime chronological “ shopping center ” of the Earth , in favor of Mecca Mean Time . Plus , according to popular Egyptian divine Yusuf al - Qaradawi , the clock ’s location is “ in perfect conjunction with the magnetic north ” a flimsy slice of blank space where magnetism purportedly does n’t exist . “ That ’s why if someone travels to Mecca or live there , he lives longer , is healthier and is less touched by the earth ’s gravity , ” he said . “ You get charged with energy . ”
However , after a bit of cursory Googling revealed that magnetic North actually sits on a longitude that passes through the United States , the clock was set to Arabia Standard Time . [ PopSci – Wikipedia – Telegraph – Skyscraper Center – Fairmont Hotels – Image : King Eliot , Fadi El Benni/ Al Jazeera English ]
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