The Hanging Gardens of Babylon: Did This Ancient Wonder Really Exist?

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon: Did This Ancient Wonder Really Exist?

I want turn my attention to one of the most mysterious wonders of the ancient world, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. The story of these gardens has fascinated historians for centuries because they are described as one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, but their exact location and even their existence are still debated. That mystery makes them incredibly intriguing.

We need to step into the ancient city of Babylon in Mesopotamia. The city was located by the Euphrates River in what is now modern-day Iraq. Around the 6th century BC, Babylon was ruled by the famous king Nebuchadnezzar II. Babylon was already remarkable, with enormous walls, grand temples, and busy streets filled with traders, craftsmen, and people who had travelled there from all across the region.

According to later Greek writers, the Hanging Gardens were created during Nebuchadnezzar’s reign for his wife, Amytis of Media. She had grown up in the green mountains of Media and is believed to have missed the landscapes of her homeland. Babylon stood in a hot, flat river valley where the land appeared dry and dusty. The story goes that the king, wanting to comfort his homesick queen, and so he ordered the creation of magnificent gardens that would recreate the hills and greenery of the home she loved.

If these accounts are accurate, the gardens would have been an extraordinary sight. It is described as a series of rising terraces built one above another, almost like a man-made mountain. On each level were trees, flowering plants, and climbing vines that spilled over the edges.  

The gardens must have been remarkable. In a region where shade and greenery was rare, the gardens would have been filled with the scent of flowers and the sound of water. For the people of Babylon, they must have seemed like something almost magical.

But creating these gardens in the middle of the dry land, would not have been easy. One of the greatest challenges would have been the water. Although the Euphrates River was close, moving the water high enough to irrigate the terraces would have needed impressive engineering for the time. 

But the story of the gardens become even more mysterious. There are no clear records describing the gardens. Well at least none have been found. Most of the descriptions come centuries later from the writings of Greek historians. Because of this, some modern scholars wonder whether the gardens were actually located in the Assyrian city of Nineveh under the rule of Sennacherib. Others think that maybe the magnificence of the gardens have been exaggerated.

The legend of the Hanging Gardens has lasted for more than two thousand years. Whether they truly existed in Babylon or were inspired by another remarkable garden elsewhere, we may never know.

Do you think the Hanging Gardens of Babylon really existed, or do you believe they may have been a legend that grew larger with every retelling?

Image info:

Hanging Gardens of Babylon. 

Date: 19th century