What was hanging gardens

Toggle navigation. Even though there is no proof that they actually existed, they are considered to be one of the Seven Wonders of the World. It is called the Hanging Gardens because the gardens were built high above the ground on multi-level stone terraces. The plants weren't rooted in the earth like a traditional garden.

If it existed it was likely the most beautiful man-made gardens ever created. There is no documentation in Babylonian sources that the gardens ever existed.

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Amid the hot, arid landscape of ancient Babylon, lush vegetation cascaded like waterfalls down the terraces of the foot-high garden. Exotic plants, herbs and flowers dazzled the eyes, and fragrances wafted through the towering botanical oasis dotted with statues and tall stone columns. To make the desert bloom, a marvel of irrigation engineering would have been required. Scientists have surmised that a system of pumps, waterwheels and cisterns would have been employed to raise and deliver the water from the nearby Euphrates River to the top of the gardens.

Upon all these was laid earth of a convenient depth, sufficient for the growth of the greatest trees. When the soil was laid even and smooth, it was planted with all sorts of trees, which both for greatness and beauty might delight the spectators.

Diodorus tells us they were about feet wide by feet long and more than 80 feet high. Other accounts indicate the height was equal to the outer city walls, walls that Herodotus said were feet high. In any case the gardens were an amazing sight: A green, leafy, artificial mountain rising off the plain. Were the Hanging Gardens Actually in Nineveh? But did they actually exist? Some historians argue that the gardens were only a fictional creation because they do not appear in a list of Babylonian monuments composed during that period.

It is also a possibility they were mixed up with another set of gardens built by King Sennacherib in the city of Nineveh around B. An interpretation of the gardens by the 16th century Dutch artist Martin Heemskerck. Stephanie Dalley, an Oxford University Assyriologist, thinks that earlier sources were translated incorrectly putting the gardens about miles south of their actual location at Nineveh.

King Sennacherib left a number of records describing a luxurious set of gardens he'd built there in conjunction with an extensive irrigation system. In contrast Nebuchadrezzar makes no mention of gardens in his list of accomplishments at Babylon. Dalley also argues that the name "Babylon" which means "Gate of the Gods" was a title that could be applied to several Mesopotamian cities.

Sennacherib apparently renamed his city gates after gods suggesting that he wished Nineveh to be considered "a Babylon" too, creating confusion. Is it possible that Greek scholars who wrote the accounts about the Babylon site several centuries later confused these two different locations? If the gardens really were in Babylon, can the remains be found to prove their existance?

Archaeological Search These were probably some of the questions that occurred to German archaeologist Robert Koldewey in For centuries the ancient city of Babel had been nothing but a mound of muddy debris never explored by scientists.

Though unlike many ancient locations, the city's position was well-known, nothing visible remained of its architecture. Koldewey dug on the Babel site for some fourteen years and unearthed many of its features including the outer walls, inner walls, foundation of the Tower of Babel, Nebuchadnezzar's palaces and the wide processional roadway which passed through the heart of the city. While excavating the Southern Citadel, Koldewey discovered a basement with fourteen large rooms with stone arch ceilings.

Ancient records indicated that only two locations in the city had made use of stone, the north wall of the Northern Citadel, and the Hanging Gardens. The north wall of the Northern Citadel had already been found and had, indeed, contained stone.

This made Koldewey think that he had found the cellar of the gardens.