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What were they?
Fruits and flowers... Waterfalls... Gardens hanging from the palace terraces... Exotic animals... This is the picture of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon in most people's minds. It may be surprising to know that they might have never existed except in the minds of Greek poets and historians!
Location
On the east bank of the River Euphrates, about 50 km south of modern Baghdad, in Iraq. In ancient times, this was the kingdom of Babylon.
History
King Nebuchadnezzar II (604-562 BC) is credited for building the famous Hanging Gardens. It is said that the Gardens were built by Nebuchadnezzar to please his wife who had been "brought up in Media and had a passion for mountain surroundings".
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 think that when Alexander's soldiers reached the fertile land of Mesopotamia and saw Babylon, they were amazed. 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 put all these elements together to produce one of the World Wonders.
Description
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 Hanging Garden has plants cultivated above ground level, and the roots of the trees are growing in an upper terrace rather than in the earth. The whole mass is supported on stone columns... Streams of water come from high up the building and flow down sloping channels... These waters irrigate the whole garden and keep the area moist. 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 it is suspended above the heads of the spectators".