Do you think the Hanging Gardens of Babylon really existed?

[Julie4]

[Screenwriter]

Seems the location is at issue. Not Babylon but elsewhere.

There is no written record or physical record of any type of gardens at Babylon.

"Oxford scholar Stephanie Dalley has proposed that the Hanging Gardens of Babylon were actually the well-documented gardens constructed by the Assyrian king Sennacherib (reigned 704 – 681 BC) for his palace at Nineveh; Dalley posits that during the intervening centuries the two sites became confused, and the extensive gardens at Sennacherib's palace were attributed to Nebuchadnezzar II's Babylon.[1] Archaeological excavations have found traces of a vast system of aqueducts attributed to Sennacherib by an inscription on its remains, which Dalley proposes were part of an 80-kilometre (50 mi) series of canals, dams, and aqueducts used to carry water to Nineveh with water-raising screws used to raise it to the upper levels of the garden."

[purplepoppy]

Gardens were a way of displaying your wealth and power. It takes a lot of effort to grow stuff in a desert region so gardens tended to be the reserve of kings. Even the garden of Eden was probably just a kings garden.

I can't think why the gardens couldn't have existed and think it's likely they did.

[RavVid]

There is some evidence for the garden of eden in that there are geological features that match up with those given in the bible. If you are interested I'll try to refind a youtube I thought somewhat convincing.

Babylon was on a flat aluvial plain and there wasn't building stone so the used adobe to build. A terraced garden would have been entirely practical so I agree it would have been a great way to express power. It would have been cool.

[RavVid]

Babylon has a mystique and the hanging gardens are probably what most commonly comes to mind. There is only one ancient source and Horodotus did not mention them. It seems that wealthy people did have irrigated gardens.

But it is quite another thing to incorporate gardens into a building structure and streams like in the pic are quite beyond a bucket brigade of slaves. Most of the sedtime we kept water out of the structure rather than invite it. OK they had bricks and it wasn't just adobe but I think it would be highly impracticable back then. It is nearly impracticable at present but then I am biased as I have spent 8 years of my life on rectifying failed courtyard waterproofing.

Love the concept but I have to vote no.

[monorprise]

The fact that such structures would have been expensive to maintain does not mean they did not exist. Remember this was an age of empires and all powerful kings in this case Nebuchadnezzar II. They had more than enough power to build and maintain such a structure at such cost.

Your experience with water simply helps illustrate why it no longer exist.

[Curmudgeon]

I could see them existing in a more modest form than illustrators draw. Like a city block tops, and certainly not anything near an acre?

[Curmudgeon]

And @monorprise sums it up. if the ruler can command the manpower to build it and uphill rivers are nearby, why not?

[RavVid]

@monorprise I am more questioning whether such a building could exist rather than if maintenance would be expensive. i would agree an Emperor would have the disposable slave hours to do what was possible.

It is one thing to make adobe bricks by drying them in the sun but they aren't going to be impervious. They did bake bricks but that would have been expensive because wood came from Lebanon and otherwise they had reeds. Any kilns would not have been high temperature. Terracotta is permeable; you would need to fire at 1300 Celsius to get past terracotta.

Even 20th Century bricks from pre war WW2 were rubbish - I have crumbled bricks from then in my hands. What mortar options did they have? I think bitumen was available and used.

[RavVid]

@Curmudgeon Or a terraced irrigated garden? We seem to know from archaeology they had that. Terracing could give a visual effect of hanging.

I think this more likely.

[Curmudgeon]

Fair enough. The description might be lacking in the ancient wordings. Nevertheless, something akin to it was certainly possible, even with the more primitive technology of the time. And at less cost than the Pyramids, even for gardens of some size.

[RavVid]

Thanks for MHO

[Soteris]

Probably but also not in the shape we know of it. It appears to be mostly spoken of by foreign people rather than the Babylonians themselves which either indicates its fake but my opinion is that its probably a misinterpretation or otherwise overgrandized story of something that did exist but not in the form that we know of today.

[Anonymous]

Probably, the tecnoligy and political will likely existed to make this possable. It really would not have been too complicated.
They build structure with soil on top and use aqueducts for water to irrigate it. Given it was done in Babylon a flat area water would have to be carried to the top using either buckets or Archimedes's screws. This is entirely within the power and tecnoligy of the civilizations at the time.

[rigmarole]

There are ziggurats in Iraq... For example the Ziggurat at Ur just west of the Eufrates.

[rigmarole]

[rigmarole]

Ziggurats are just big mounds of dirt with some retaining walls... You know like what plants can grow in. They were the center marvel of their cities... When it rains water runs down hill... Being that they were worship sites, is hard to believe they'd put plants in the mounds of dirt to make them beautiful and take care of them like any other holy site... The Babylonian worshiped demons and false gods (idols) which is exactly what happened on top of their false mountains we call ziggurats... Before they migrated to Mesopotamia they use to worship on top of real mountains to be closer to the heavens...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Rv2bxH2Oqc

[rigmarole]

*is it...

[Cheerfull009]

I also read some where, that hanging gardens were in present Iraq, in very ancient, but people who visited Iraq and worked in Iraq, they say there is nothing like garden there

[rigmarole]

@Cheerfull009 It's an arid location suffering from a lot of desertification. Their is forest in Iraq to some extent, but they could improve their situation with the right motivation. For example look at what Geoff Lawton id in Jordan. With some basic knowledge it's possible to garden in the desert.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VGHoxpYlWQ

[rigmarole]

*There
*did

[LaFemmeFatale_1]

I would love to live in the time, where men built you huge gardens as a sign of love.

[KostasKouvalis]

Why not? Other ancient people built elaborate gardens like this and continue to do so to this day. So it's not shocking at all that the Babylonians did the same. It was a fertile area back then.

[AviatorTom]

Yes, but they probably were not as exotic as they are often betrayed.

[KatherineJ]

I’m sure they are based on contemporary accounts. Maybe it’s our interpretation of what was described that needs to be questioned?

[love_conquers_lust]

Symbolic of ascending to the heavens. The rest of the peasants got to clean sand from their cracks

[DJB72]

Why not? It's referenced in source documents of the time.

[Still-alive]

Yes i would say so. There’s probably loads of other unofficial ‘wonders’ we don’t even know about yet. Lost to time.

[Anonymous]

There has been no evidence and no trace of it ever existing

[Forceinhand]

Archeologically and historically speaking there's little that speaks against it.

[RyanEC]

Maybe but I think they may have been overly exaggerating.

[Pudsmucker]

According to my history instructor in college the hanging gardens did exist

[007kingifrit]

interesting that they may not be real, i never knew

[BLP11520]

I believe so. Lying about a garden seems unlikely

[leahzrc]

why would it have never existed?

[sheikalana]

It was probably real.

[RedInnocent68]

Yes. And they were amazing.

[Twalli]

Yes, there are trusted accounts they did

[msc545]

Probably - I hope so!

[Evelyn99]

Yeah

[caramelcake37]

Sure I think