Hanging Gardens of Babylon

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon were considered to be one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and the only one of the Wonders that may have been purely legendary. They were purportedly built in the ancient city state of Babylon, near present day Al Hillah, Babil province, in Iraq. The Hanging Gardens were not the only World Wonder in Babylon; the city walls and obelisk attributed to Queen Semiramis were also featured in ancient lists of Wonders.The gardens were attributed to the Neo-Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II, who ruled between 605 and 562 BC. He is reported to have constructed the gardens to please his homesick wife, Amytis of Media, who longed for the plants of her homeland. The gardens were said to have been destroyed by several earthquakes after the 2nd century BC.The Hanging Gardens of Babylon are documented by ancient Greek and Roman writers, including Strabo, Diodorus Siculus, and Quintus Curtius Rufus. However, no cuneiform texts describing the Hanging Gardens are extant, and no definitive archaeological evidence concerning their whereabouts have been found.Ancient writers describe the possible use of something similar to an Archimedes screw as a process of irrigating the terraced gardens. Estimates based on descriptions of the gardens in ancient sources say the Hanging Gardens would have required a minimum amount of 8,200 gallons (37,278 liter) of water per day. Nebuchadnezzar II is also reported to have used massive slabs of stone, a technique not otherwise attested in Babylon, to prevent the water from eroding the ground.

Current scholarship and controversy

This copy of a bas relief from the North Palace of Ashurbanipal (669–631 BC) at Nineveh shows a luxurious garden watered by an aqueduct.There is some controversy as to whether the Hanging Gardens were an actual construction or a poetic creation, owing to the lack of documentation in contemporaneous Babylonian sources. There is also no mention of Nebuchadnezzar’s wife Amyitis (or any other wives), although a political marriage to a Median or Persian would not have been unusual.Herodotus, writing about Babylon closest in time to Nebuchadnezzar II, does not mention the Hanging Gardens in his Histories. However, it is possible that cuneiform texts on the Hanging Gardens may yet be found.To date, no archaeological evidence has been found at Babylon for the Hanging Gardens. It is possible that this evidence exists beneath the Euphrates, which cannot be excavated safely at present. The river flowed east of its current position during the time of Nebuchadnezzar II, and consequently little is known about the western portion of Babylon.A more recent theory proposes that the Hanging Gardens of Babylon were actually constructed by the Assyrian king Sennacherib (reigned 705 – 681 BC) for his palace at Nineveh. Stephanie Dalley posits that during the intervening centuries the two sites became confused, and the extensive gardens at Sennacherib's palace were attributed to Nebuchadnezzar II's Babylon.