It is more than 2,000 years since the Colossus of Rhodes, one of the seven wonders of the Ancient World, was brought crashing down by an earthquake. Now another giant may rise above the Greek island’s harbour.

An architects’ proposal envisages a new likeness of the sun god Helios towering more than 135 metres above the port, making it five times the size of the original. The muscular golden statue would straddle two extended outer piers of Rhodes harbour, according to its creators. It would face the Aegean and hold a huge beacon in its raised right hand, visible to passing ships and the Turkish shoreline 35 miles away.

The intention is not to replicate the ancient edifice but to use modern building techniques to