The Hanging Gardens of Babylon are considered to be one of the original Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. They were built in the ancient city-state of Babylon, near present-day Al Hillah, Babil, in Iraq.
The gardens were supposedly built by the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II around 600 BC. He is reported to have constructed the gardens to please his homesick wife, Amytis of Media, who longed for the trees and fragrant plants of her homeland Persia.[1] The gardens were destroyed by several earthquakes after the second century BC.
This legendary garden, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, was built on the banks of the Euphrates river circa 600 B.C. It may never have existed except in the imagination of Greek poets and historians although archaeologists claim to have found the remains of its walls. Most scholars attribute its construction to King Nebuchadnezzar II to console his Median wife, Amytis, who missed the mountains and greenery of her home land. Others contend that it was the work of the semi-legendary Assyrian Queen Sammu-Ramat (Semiramis in Greek). The Gardens didn't really "hang" but were built on terraces which were part of the ziggurat and was irrigated by water lifted up from the Euphrates. There is not a single mention of a "hanging garden" in the Babylon cuneiform record but this is probably because it was considered part of the ziggurat structure and not a separate entity in itself. The images you see below are artistic recreations of the gardens based on descriptions of ancient Greek historians and poets.
"The Garden was 100 feet (30 m) long by 100 ft wide and built up in tiers so that it resembled a theatre.
Vaults had been constructed under the ascending terraces which carried the entire weight of the planted garden; the uppermost vault, which was seventy-five feet high, was the highest part of the garden, which, at this point, was on the same level as the city walls.The roofs of the vaults which supported the garden were constructed of stone beams some sixteen feet long, and over these were laid first a layer of reeds set in thick tar, then two courses of baked brick bonded by cement, and finally a covering of lead to prevent the moisture in the soil penetrating the roof. On top of this roof enough topsoil was heaped to allow the biggest trees to take root. The earth was leveled off and thickly planted with every kind of tree. And since the galleries projected one beyond the other, where they were sunlit, they contained conduits for the water which was raised by pumps in great abundance from the river, though no one outside could see it being done."
The Hanging Gardens of Babylon which was one of the ancient seven wonders of the world.
This wonder`s history you can see here:
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