On all this again earth had been piled to a depth sufficient for the roots of the largest trees and the ground, when levelled off, was thickly planted with trees of every king that, by their great size or other charm, could give pleasure to the beholder. The roof above these beams had first a layer of reeds laid in great quantities of bitumen, over this two courses of baked brick bonded by cement, and as a third layer of covering of lead, to the end that the moisture from the soil might not penetrate beneath. Furthermore, the walls, which had been constructed at great expense, were twenty-two feet thick, while the passage-way between each two walls was ten feet wide. When the ascending terraces had been built, there had been constructed beneath them galleries which carried the entire weight of the planted garden and rose little by little one above the other along the approach and the uppermost gallery, which was fifty cubits high, bore the highest surface of the park, which was made level with the circuit wall of the battlements of the city. The park extended four plethra on each side, and since the approach to the garden sloped like a hillside and the several parts of the structure rose from one another tier on tier, the appearance of the whole resembled that of a theatre. “There was also, beside the acropolis, the Hanging Garden, as it is called, which was built, not by Semiramis, but by a later Syrian king to please one of his concubines for she, they say, being a Persian by race and longing for the meadows of her mountains, asked the king to imitate, through the artifice of a planted garden, the distinctive landscape of Persia. 60–30 BC) seems to have consulted the early 4th century BC texts of Ctesias of Cnidus for his description of the Hanging Gardens: This he did to gratify his queen, because she had been brought up in Media, and was fond of a mountainous situation.” ĭiodorus Siculus (active ca. “In this palace he erected very high walks, 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. Berossus described the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II, the king he credits with the construction of the Hanging Gardens. These writers concern themselves with the size of the Hanging Gardens, why and how they were built, and how the gardens were irrigated. There are five principle writers (including Berossus) whose descriptions of Babylon are extant in some form today. In ancient writings the Hanging Gardens of Babylon were first described by Berossus, a Babylonian priest of Mardukwho lived in the late 4th century BC, although his books are known only from quotations by later authors (e.g., Flavius Josephus). Hanging Gardens of Babylon, 20th century Interpretation 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. Estimates based on descriptions of the gardens in ancient sources say the Hanging Gardens would have required a minimum amount of 8,200 gallons of water per day. Īncient writers describe the possible use of something similar to an Archimedes screw as a process of irrigating the terraced gardens.
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However, no cuneiform texts describing the Hanging Gardens are extant, and no definitive archaeological evidence concerning their whereabouts have been found. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon are documented by ancient Greek and Roman writers, including Strabo, Diodorus Siculus, and Quintus Curtius Rufus. The gardens were said to have been destroyed by several earthquakes after the 2nd century 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 attributed to the Neo-Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II, who ruled between 605 and 562 BC. 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. They were purportedly built in the ancient city-state of Babylon, near present-day Al Hillah, Babil province, in Iraq.
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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. A 16th-century hand-coloured engraving of the “Hanging Gardens of Babylon” by Dutch artist Martin Heemskerck, with the Tower of Babelin the background