"Hanging Gardens" redirects here. For other uses, seeHanging Garden.
This hand-coloured engraving, probably made in the 19th century after the first excavations in the Assyrian capitals, depicts the fabled Hanging Gardens, with theTower of Babel in the background.Timeline and map of theSeven Wonders of the Ancient World, including the Hanging Gardens of Babylon
According to one legend, the Hanging Gardens were built alongside a grand palace known asThe Marvel of Mankind, by theNeo-Babylonian KingNebuchadnezzar II (who ruled between 605 and 562 BC), for hisMedian wife,Queen Amytis, because she missed the green hills and valleys of her homeland. This was attested to by the Babylonian priestBerossus, writing in about 290 BC, a description that was later quoted byJosephus. The construction of the Hanging Gardens has also been attributed to the legendary queenSemiramis[4] and they have been called theHanging Gardens of Semiramis as an alternative name.[5]
The Hanging Gardens are the only one of the Seven Wonders whose location has not been definitively established.[6] No extant Babylonian texts mention the gardens and no definitive archaeological evidence has been found in Babylon.[7][8] Three theories have been suggested to account for this: first, that the gardens were purely mythical, and the descriptions found in ancient Greek and Roman writings (including those ofStrabo,Diodorus Siculus andQuintus Curtius Rufus) represented a romantic ideal of an eastern garden;[9] second, that they existed in Babylon but were destroyed sometime around the first century AD;[10][4] and third, that the legend refers to a well-documented garden that theAssyrian KingSennacherib (704–681 BC) built in his capital city ofNineveh on the RiverTigris, near the modern city ofMosul.[11][1]
Descriptions in classical literature
There are five principal writers whose descriptions of Babylon exist in some form today. These writers concern themselves with the size of the Hanging Gardens, their overall design and means ofirrigation, and why they were built.
Josephus (c. 37–100 AD) quotes a description of the gardens byBerossus, a Babylonian priest ofMarduk,[6] whose writingc. 290 BC is the earliest known mention of the gardens.[5] Berossus described the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II and is the only source to credit that king with the construction of the Hanging Gardens.[12][13]
In this palace he erected very high walls, supported by stone pillars; and by planting what was called a pensile paradise, and replenishing it with all sorts of trees, he rendered the prospect an exact resemblance of a mountainous country. This he did to gratify his queen, because she had been brought up in Media, and was fond of a mountainous situation.[14]
Diodorus Siculus (activec. 60–30 BC) seems to have consulted the 4th century BC texts of bothCleitarchus (a historian ofAlexander the Great) andCtesias of Cnidus. Diodorus ascribes the construction to a "Syrian king". He states that the garden was in the shape of a square, with each side approximately fourplethra long. The garden was tiered, with the uppermost gallery being 50cubits high. The walls, 22 feet thick, were made of brick. The bases of the tiered sections were sufficiently deep to provide root growth for the largest trees, and the gardens were irrigated from the nearbyEuphrates.[15]
Quintus Curtius Rufus (fl. 1st century AD) probably drew on the same sources as Diodorus.[16] He states that the gardens were located on top of acitadel, which was 20stadia in circumference. He attributes the building of the gardens to a "Syrian king", again for the reason that his queen missed her homeland.
The account ofStrabo (c. 64 BC – 21 AD) possibly based his description on the lost account ofOnesicritus from the 4th century BC.[17] He states that the gardens were watered by means of anArchimedes' screw leading to the gardens from the Euphrates river.
The last of the classical sources thought to be independent of the others isA Handbook to the Seven Wonders of the World by theparadoxographer Philo of Byzantium, writing in the 4th to 5th century AD (not to be confused withthe earlier engineer of the same name).[18] The method of raising water by screw matches that described by Strabo.[19] Philo praises the engineering and ingenuity of building vast areas of deep soil, which had a tremendous mass, so far above the natural grade of the surrounding land, as well as the irrigation techniques.
Historical existence
It is unclear 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 Amytis (or any other wives), although a political marriage to a Median or Persian would not have been unusual.[20] Many records exist of Nebuchadnezzar's works, yet his long and complete inscriptions do not mention any garden.[21] However, the gardens were said to still exist at the time that later writers described them, and some of these accounts are regarded as deriving from people who had visited Babylon.[2]Herodotus, who describes Babylon in hisHistories, does not mention the Hanging Gardens,[22] although it could be that the gardens were not yet well known to the Greeks at the time of his visit.[2]
To date, no archaeological evidence has been found at Babylon for the Hanging Gardens.[6] It is possible that 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 little is known about the western portion of Babylon.[23] Rollinger has suggested that Berossus attributed the Gardens to Nebuchadnezzar for political reasons, and that he had adopted the legend from elsewhere.[24]
Identification with Sennacherib's gardens at Nineveh
This copy of abas relief from the North Palace of Ashurbanipal (669–631 BC) at Nineveh shows a luxurious garden watered by an aqueduct.
Oxford scholarStephanie Dalley has proposed that the Hanging Gardens of Babylon were actually the well-documented gardens constructed by theAssyrian kingSennacherib (reigned 704–681 BC) for his palace atNineveh; 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.[1] Archaeological excavations have found traces of a vast system of aqueducts attributed to Sennacherib by an inscription on its remains, which Dalley proposes were part of an 80-kilometre (50 mi) series of canals, dams, and aqueducts used to carry water to Nineveh withwater-raising screws used to raise it to the upper levels of the gardens.[25]
Dalley bases her arguments on recent developments in the analysis of contemporaryAkkadian inscriptions. Her main points are:[26]
The nameBabylon, meaning "Gate of the Gods",[27] was the name given to severalMesopotamian cities.[28] Sennacherib renamed the city gates ofNineveh after gods,[29] which suggests that he wished his city to be considered "a Babylon".
Only Josephus names Nebuchadnezzar as the king who built the gardens; although Nebuchadnezzar left many inscriptions, none mentions any garden or engineering works.[30]Diodorus Siculus andQuintus Curtius Rufus specify a "Syrian" king. By contrast, Sennacherib left written descriptions,[31] and there is archaeological evidence of his water engineering.[32] His grandsonAssurbanipal pictured the mature garden on a sculptured wall panel in his palace.[33]
Sennacherib called his new palace and garden "a wonder for all peoples". He describes the making and operation of screws to raise water in his garden.[34]
The descriptions of the classical authors fit closely to these contemporary records. Before the Battle ofGaugamela in 331 BCAlexander the Great camped for four days near the aqueduct atJerwan.[35] The historians who travelled with him would have had ample time to investigate the enormous works around them, recording them in Greek. These first-hand accounts have not survived into modern times, but were quoted by later Greek writers.
King Sennacherib's garden was well-known not just for its beauty – a year-round oasis of lush green in a dusty summer landscape – but also for the marvelous feats of water engineering that maintained the garden.[36] There was a tradition of Assyrian royal garden building. KingAshurnasirpal II (883–859 BC) had created a canal, which cut through the mountains. Fruit tree orchards were planted. Also mentioned were pines, cypresses and junipers, almond trees, date trees, ebony, rosewood, olive, oak, tamarisk, walnut, terebinth, ash, fir, pomegranate, pear, quince, fig, and grapes. A sculptured wall panel of Assurbanipal shows the garden in its maturity. One original panel[37] and the drawing of another[38] are held by theBritish Museum, although neither is on public display. Several features mentioned by the classical authors are discernible on these contemporary images.
Assyrian wall relief showing gardens in Nineveh
Of Sennacherib's palace, he mentions the massivelimestone blocks that reinforce the flood defences. Parts of the palace were excavated byAustin Henry Layard in the mid-19th century. His citadel plan shows contours which would be consistent with Sennacherib's garden, but its position has not been confirmed. The area has been used as a military base in recent times, making it difficult to investigate further.
The irrigation of such a garden demanded an upgraded water supply to the city of Nineveh. The canals stretched over 50 kilometres (31 mi) into the mountains. Sennacherib was proud of the technologies he had employed and describes them in some detail on his inscriptions. At the headwater of Bavian (Khinnis)[39] his inscription mentions automatic sluice gates. An enormousaqueduct crossing the valley atJerwan was constructed of over two million dressed stones. It used stonearches and waterproof cement.[40] On it is written:
Sennacherib king of the world king of Assyria. Over a great distance I had a watercourse directed to the environs of Nineveh, joining together the waters.... Over steep-sided valleys I spanned an aqueduct of white limestone blocks, I made those waters flow over it.
Sennacherib claimed that he had built a "Wonder for all Peoples", and said he was the first to deploy a new casting technique in place of the"lost-wax" process for his monumental (30 tonne) bronze castings.[clarification needed] He was able to bring the water into his garden at a high level because it was sourced from further up in the mountains, and he then raised the water even higher by deploying his new water screws. This meant he could build a garden that towered above the landscape with large trees on the top of the terraces – a stunning artistic effect that surpassed those of his predecessors.
The gardens, as depicted in artworks, featured blossoming flowers, ripe fruit, burbling waterfalls and terraces exuberant with rich foliage. Based on Babylonian literature, tradition, and the environmental characteristics of the area, some of the following plants may have been found in the gardens:[41][unreliable source?]
The "Garden Party" relief depicting Ashurbanipal with his wife seated under apergola of climbinggrapevines with hanging grapes, also small birds, surrounded with fruiting date palms and pine trees. The head of a defeated king hangs between the 1st and 2nd figures at left. North Palace, Nineveh,c. 645 BC.
^abcStephanie Dalley (1993). "Ancient Mesopotamian Gardens and the Identification of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon Resolved".Garden History.21 (1): 7.doi:10.2307/1587050.JSTOR1587050.
^Finkel, Irving; Seymour, Michael (2008).Babylon: City of Wonders. London: British Museum Press. p. 52.ISBN978-0-7141-1171-1.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)
^See Stephanie Dalley, "More about the Hanging Gardens", inOf Pots and Pans: Papers on the Archaeology and History of Mesopotamia and Syria as presented toDavid Oates on his 75th Birthday, edited by L. al-Gailani-Werr, J.E. Curtis, H. Martin, A. McMahon,J. Oates and J.E. Reade, (London), pp. 67–73ISBN1-897750-62-5.
^Dalley (2013), p. 40. Dalley bases her translation on Brodersen (1992) who uses an early Greek text. A previous translation byDavid Oates, based on a Latin text, is found in Finkel (1988) pp. 45–46.
^Rollinger, Robert (2013). "Berossos and the Monuments". In Haubold, J.; et al. (eds.).The World of Berossos. Wiesbaden. p. 151.ISBN978-3-447-06728-7.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
^Especially: the Iraq Museum prism dated 694 BC published by A Heidel,The Octagonal Sennacherib Prism in the Iraq Museum, Sumer 9 (1953); and the British Museum prism BM103000 of the same date
^T Jacobsen and S Lloyd,Sennacherib's Aqueduct at Jerwan (1935); Reade,Studies in Assyrian Geography, Revue d'Assyriologie 72 (1978); Channel 4 TV programmeSecret History: Finding Babylon's Hanging Garden, 24 November 2013
^AH Layard,Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon, (1853)
Finkel, Irving L.; Seymour, Michael J., eds. (2008).Babylon. New York: Oxford University Press.ISBN978-0-19-538540-3.
Dalley, Stephanie (2013).The Mystery of the Hanging Garden of Babylon: an elusive World Wonder traced. Oxford University Press.ISBN978-0-19-966226-5.
Further reading
Dalley, Stephanie. 1994. "Nineveh, Babylon and the Hanging Gardens: Cuneiform and Classical Sources Reconciled."Iraq 56: 45–58.doi:10.2307/4200384.
Higgins, Michael Denis (2023).The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World: Science, Engineering and Technology. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.ISBN9780197648155.
Norwich, John Julius. 2009.The Great Cities In History. London: Thames & Hudson.
Reade, Julian. 2000. "Alexander the Great and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon."Iraq 62: 195–217.doi:10.2307/4200490.
