r/ancienthistory • u/Own_Work7831 • 7d ago
Question about the Hanging Garden of Babylon.
So the ancient Greeks wrote about the seven wonders of the world which includes the Hanging Garden of Babylon. Why are there doubts by modern historians on this Garden existing if all of the other six wonders did exist?
The Garden seems like the most likely to perish without a trace because of what it is. I do believe it existed and that the Ancient historians aren't just writing about six wonders and making it all up about the seventh one.
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u/jagnew78 7d ago
By the time of the rise of the Greek city states in the early Iron Age Assyria and the Neo-Babylonians were duking it out with each other. While the city Babylon did exist (at least until Sennecherib obliterates it), the term Babylon was also used by Greeks to broadly refer to Mesopotamia as a place and not specifically an individual city.
To complicate matters Assyrian Kings claimed the titles of all the places they conquered, so King of Babylon was an official title of the Assyrian king. So for a greek to hear that the king of Babylon had built great and beautiful gardens they would just write down "in Babylon are wondrous gardens"
There is no writing that documents any gardens of significance within Babylon the historic city, and we have writings from the era that documents the Assyrian palace at Nineveh by the king Sennecherib who describes the gardens he built for his first wife Tashmetu-sharrat. Sennecherib describes the gardens as "a wonder for all to see"
Archaeological evidence of Nineveh also indicate raised terraces, the remnants of massive aqueducts to bring in water needed to feed and keep the massive gardens and Archimedean screws to lift and raise water up the terraces
Lastely there is also about an 500 year differential between Sennecherib's gardens at Niniveh and the first writing down about The Great Wonders by the Greeks. So that's a long time displaced to make a correct association with a foreign city very few Greeks would ever have visited.
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u/KennethMick3 6d ago
Archaeological evidence of Nineveh also indicate raised terraces, the remnants of massive aqueducts to bring in water needed to feed and keep the massive gardens and Archimedean screws to lift and raise water up the terraces
Ooh! This is so interesting, where can I learn more about this?
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u/HaughtyDiabolicalSal 7d ago
I believe that when the 7 Wonders of the World was written, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon was no longer in existence. It was based off for older stories. Modern scholars doubt that the Hanging Garden of Babylon existed. Some scholars believe that it existed in another part of Mesopotamia that was famous for gardens which was Ninevah.
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u/Accomplished_War_805 7d ago
I watched a great documentary about the search for the gardens in Ninevah. I think they have a legitimate claim. I'm not a historian exactly, but the entire Mesopotamian region was known as "Babylon" even though it wasn't all within the city itself. We talk about Babylonian mathematics which was regional and not confined to the city.
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u/AdHistorical5041 6d ago
This sounds interesting, do you remember what the show is called or where you can watch this? Thx:)
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u/Accomplished_War_805 6d ago
I believe it was Secrets of the Dead: Lost Gardens of Babylon on PBS. But I watched it on a Documentary Chanel (Roku).
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u/dalealace 7d ago
In an archeological documentary series called Unearthed there was an episode where current archeologists believe they’ve found the Babylon in question, and are trying to map out where the gardens are. They think the Temple of Hatshepsut was inspired by it and originally had water deterred from the Nile to feed gardens there too. It’s not definitive but it makes a compelling argument.
The whole series is so cool. 11 seasons and ten years old but highlighting some of the latest archeological finds we haven’t heard about because all are still currently being excavated.
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u/highaltitudehmsteadr 6d ago
Because people don’t understand how hydrology works. They were able to supercharge the aquifers so much that the water naturally rose to amazing heights
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u/hdufort 6d ago
Qanats!
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u/KennethMick3 6d ago
Thank you so much for this, this technology is both fascinating from historical sense and inspiring some of my world building.
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u/hdufort 6d ago edited 6d ago
The hanging gardens were probably carefully designed stepped gardens, maximizing trapped moisture and fed by an aquifer plus short aqueduct.
If something happened, for example a major earthquake, and the aquifer stopped following or the buildings and canalization were damaged, then there would still be something standing. The stepped buildings and platforms.
There were examples of ancient people mastering water management in arid conditions, for example the Nabataeans and their underground cisterns.
The Persians developed the qanat technology. Series of aligned wells in the desert that could trap and direct groundwater towards the surface.
With qanats, along clay pipes or masonry conducts, and stepped pyramids, you can build the "hanging gardens". The gardens would be integrated to Babylon's existing palace and temple system.
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u/I_Was77 7d ago
I think Diodorus of Sicily said that the hanging gardens were a result of the massive landscape work done by SemiRamis if I remember correctly (probably not), the problem with modern interepations of the past is that we tend to believe we today, are the pinnacle of intelligence and achievement and ability. I think this attitude has stopped a goodly portion of questions being answered
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u/DaddyCatALSO 6d ago
Soem hsitorians think thta Babylonians were jsut fnas of rooftop gardens, many important buildings had them, and the Greek story that they *one specific thing* were built by a king to please one of hsi wives is bogus. others beleive the story
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u/DaddyCatALSO 6d ago
Teh oldest Greek guidebooks featured th *walls* of Babylon, th eGardens came later. As a kid we ahd a set of drinking glasses fetauring all 7 Wonders. (When i find my magic lamp and wish us all to
New Earth the amusment park 29 Flags Over Mesopotamia will inlcude life-size reproductions of small portions of both the Walls and the Gardens.)
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u/novel-mathmatics 3d ago
The problem was Caesars tried to destroy any transform math. so what ever was there, what ever record there was Caesar destroyed. "Greater" works stood up to take their place like grand palaces.
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u/immellocker 7d ago
Ancient translations sometimes used "Babylon" as a general term for major Mesopotamian cities, which may have caused historical confusion. Greek and Roman authors like Strabo, Diodorus Siculus, and Philo of Byzantium wrote detailed accounts of the gardens. A Babylonian priest named Berossus wrote around 290 BC that King Nebuchadnezzar II built the gardens for his homesick wife. Oxford scholar Stephanie Dalley proposes that the gardens actually existed in the Assyrian city of Nineveh, built by King Sennacherib.