In 654 AD, 900 years after the collapse of the Colossus, the Saracens plundered Rhodes and sold the metallic remains of the colossus. It is said that the buyer used 900 camels to transport the fragments to Syria . Thus the image of the god who once saved the city from the foreign invasion had a fate similar to that of the siege machines of Demetrius, which when sold financed the construction of the Colossus. 