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| The
Hanging Gardens of Babylon |
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The
Babylonian kingdom flourished under
the rule of the famous King, Hammurabi
(1792-1750 BC). It was not until
the reign of Naboplashar (625-605
BC) of the Neo-Babylonian dynasty
that the Mesopotamian civilization
reached its ultimate glory. His
son, Nebuchadnezzar II (604-562
BC) is credited for building the
legendary Hanging Gardens. It is
said that the Gardens were built
by Nebuchadnezzar to please his
wife or concubine who had been "brought
up in Media and had a passion for
mountain surroundings".
While
the most descriptive accounts of
the Gardens come from Greek historians
such as Berossus and Diodorus Siculus,
Babylonian records stay silent on
the matter. Tablets from the time
of Nebuchadnezzar do not have a
single reference to the Hanging
Gardens,although descriptions of
his palace, the city of Babylon,
and the walls are found.
Even
the historians who give detailed
descriptions of the Hanging Gardens
never saw them. |
Modern historians argue that when Alexander's
soldiers reached the fertile land of Mesopotamia
and saw Babylon, they were impressed.
When they later returned to their rugged
homeland, they had stories to tell about
the amazing gardens and palm trees at
Mesopotamia.. About the palace of Nebuchadnezzar..
About the Tower of Babel and the ziggurats.
And it was the imagination of poets and
ancient historians that blended all these
elements together to produce one of the
World Wonders.
It
wasn't until the twentieth century that
some of the mysteries surrounding the
Hanging Gardens were revealed. Archaeologists
are still struggling to gather enough
evidence before reaching the final conclusions
about the location of the Gardens, their
irrigation system, and their true appearance.
Detailed
descriptions of the Gardens come from
ancient Greek sources, including the
writings of Strabo and Philo of Byzantium.
Here are some excerpts from their accounts:
"The
Garden is quadrangular, and each side
is four plethra long. It consists of
arched vaults which are located on checkered
cube-like foundations.. The ascent of
the uppermost terrace-roofs is made
by a stairway..."
"The
Hanging Garden has plants cultivated
above ground level, and the roots of
the trees are embedded in an upper terrace
rather than in the earth. The whole
mass is supported on stone columns...
Streams of water emerging from elevated
sources flow down sloping channels...
These waters irrigate the whole garden
saturating the roots of plants and keeping
the whole area moist. Hence the grass
is permanently green and the leaves
of trees grow firmly attached to supple
branches... This is a work of art of
royal luxury and its most striking feature
is that the labor of cultivation is
suspended above the heads of the spectators".
More
recent archaeological excavations at
the ancient city of Babylon in Iraq
uncovered the foundation of the palace.
Other findings include the Vaulted Building
with thick walls and an irrigation well
near the southern palace. A group of
archaeologists surveyed the area of
the southern palace and reconstructed
the Vaulted Building as the Hanging
Gardens. However, the Greek historian
Strabo had stated that the gardens were
situated by the River Euphrates. So
others argue that the site is too far
from the Euphrates to support the theory
since the Vaulted Building is several
hundreds of meters away. They reconstructed
the site of the palace and located the
Gardens in the area stretching from
the River to the Palace. On the river
banks, recently discovered massive walls
25 m thick may have been stepped to
form terraces... the ones described
in Greek references.
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