The Hanging Gardens of Babylon are described as a “remarkable feat of engineering” with an ascending series of tiered gardens containing a wide variety of trees, shrubs and vines resembling a large green mountain constructed of mud bricks. It was said to have been built in the ancient city of Babylon, near the present day Hillah in Iraq.
They were built by King Nebuchadnezzar for his Queen wife, Amytis because she missed the green hills of her homeland. Interestingly there is no evidence that they existed and three theories have been suggested:
1- They are purely mythological and they represent a romantic ideal of a garden in ancient Roman and Greek writings.
2- They existed in Babylon, but were totally destroyed sometime around the First Century AD.
3- That the legend refers to a well-documented garden that the Assyrian King Sennacherib built in his capital city of Nineveh on the Tigris River near the current city of Mosul.
Video- 2:27
Let’s talk and discuss……
- Are there any special ‘gardens’ that you can think of that celebrate something in our present world today ?
Student Art Gallery……
Thank You to Mosier Community School for this student art of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.