Chares of Lindos was commissioned to build the statue after the lifting of Demetrius I Poliorcetes' siege of Rhodes (305BC). It had a bronze core and was reinforced by iron. It stood 70 cubits (105 feet [32 metres]) high and stood beside Mandrákion harbour, perhaps shielding its eyes with one hand, as a representation in a relief suggests. It is technically impossible that the statue could have straddled the harbour entrance, and the popular belief that it did so dates only from the Middle Ages. Construction started in 294 BC and finished 12 years later.