The Hanging Gardens of Babylon

Hanging Gardens of Babylon అనునవి   Neo-Babylonian సామ్రాజ్యం యొక్క రాజధాని సిటీ లో చాలా అందం గా అద్భుతం గా తీర్చి దిద్దినవి. ఈ హంగింగ్ గార్డెన్స్ ని Greate king Nebuchadnezzar II (605-562 BCE) ) నిర్మించారు. ఇవి  ప్రాచీన ప్రపంచంలోని ఏడు అద్భుతాలలో ఒకటి, చరిత్ర కారుల్లో దీని ఉనికి  చర్చాంశనీయం అయిన ఏకైక అద్భుతం అని చెప్పవచ్చు.

 

3d Hanging gardens of Babylon

కొంతమంది పండితులు ఈ తోటలు బాబిలోన్‌లో లేవని, వాస్తవానికి అస్సిరియన్ సామ్రాజ్యం యొక్క రాజధాని నినెవెహ్‌లో ఉన్నాయని చెప్తారు. మరి కొందరు దీని అసలు ఉనికి ఎక్కడ అనే దాని కోసం బలమైన రుజువులకోసం ఇప్పటికి ప్రయత్నిస్తున్నారు. మరికొందరు ఈ తోటలు కేవలం ప్రాచీన కల్పనలు మాత్రమే అని నమ్ముతారు. బాబిలోన్‌లోనే పురావస్తు శాస్త్రం మరియు ప్రాచీన బాబిలోనియన్ గ్రంథాలు ఈ విషయంపై మౌనంవహించాయి.  అయితే పురాతన రచయితలు తోటలను Nebuchadnezzar రాజధానిలో ఉన్నట్లుగా మరియు ఇప్పటికీ Hellenistic కాలంలో ఉనికిలో ఉన్నట్లు వివరించారు

The hanging gardens of Babylon are a set of gardens located in the ancient city of Babylon, Iraq. Their beauties make them inscribed on the ancient lists of the wonders of the world, and they appear today on the canonical list. But despite their descriptions by various authoritative people, this wonder of the world is the most questionable. Some even wonder whether they actually existed, for if one has archaeological traces of most other wonders of the world, or at least tangible evidence of their realities, for the gardens of Babylon, it is much more difficult to " evidence.

Babylon & Nebuchadnezzar II  

Babylon, located about 80 km (50 miles) south of modern Baghdad in Iraq, was an ancient city with a history of settlement dating back to the 3rd millennium BCE. The greatest period in the city's history was in the 6th century BCE during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II when the city was the capital of the Neo-Babylonian Empire. The empire had been founded by Nebuchadnezzar's father Nabopolassar (r. 625-605 BCE) after his victories over the Assyrian Empire. Nebuchadnezzar II would go on to even greater things, including the capture of Jerusalem in 597 BCE. The Babylonian king then set about making his capital one of the most splendid cities in the world. The Ishtar Gate was built c. 575 BCE with its fine towers and depictions in tiles of animals both real and imaginary, a 7-20 km brick double wall surrounded the city - the largest ever built - and then, possibly, he added the extensive pleasure gardens whose fame spread throughout the ancient world.

The Gardens

The majority of scholars agree that the idea of cultivating gardens purely for pleasure, as opposed to the production of food, originated in the Fertile Crescent, where they were known as a paradise. From there the notion would spread throughout the ancient Mediterranean so that by Hellenistic times even private individuals, or at least the wealthier ones, were cultivating their own private gardens in their homes. Gardens were not just about flowers and plants, either, as architectural, sculptural, and water features were added, and even the views were a consideration for the ancient landscape gardener. Gardens became such a desired feature that fresco painters, such as those at Pompeii, covered entire walls of villas with scenes which gave the illusion that on entering a room one was also entering a garden. All of these outdoor pleasant places, then, owed their existence to ancient Mesopotamia and, above all, to the magnificent Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon were sometimes referred to as the Hanging Gardens of Semiramis after the semi-legendary and semi-divine female Assyrian ruler thought by the Greeks to have extensively rebuilt Babylon in the 9th century BCE. Herodotus, the 5th-century BCE Greek historian, describes the impressive irrigation system of Babylon and the walls but does not mention any gardens specifically (although the Great Sphinx is also curiously missing from his description of Giza). The first mention in an ancient source of the gardens is by Berossus of Kos, actually, a priest named Bel-Usru from Babylon who relocated to the Greek island. Writing c. 290 BCE, Berossus' work survives only as quoted excerpts in that of later writers, but many of his descriptions of Babylon have been corroborated by archaeology.

Berossus describes high stone terraces which imitated mountains and which were planted with many types of large trees and flowers. Terraces would not only have created a pleasant aesthetic effect of hanging vegetation but also made their irrigation easier. Berossus also explains why the gardens were established, to make a wife of the Babylonian king, a Mede called Amytis, feel less homesick for her green and hilly homeland. Alas, there is no reference to a queen of that name in Babylonian records.

Several other sources describe the gardens as if they were still in existence in the 4th century BCE, but all were written centuries after the reign of Nebuchadnezzar and all were written by writers who almost certainly never visited Babylon and who knew little of either horticulture or engineering. Strabo, the Greek geographer (c. 64 BCE - c. 24 CE), describes the location of the gardens as by the Euphrates, which ran through ancient Babylon, and a complicated machinery of screws which drew water up from the river to water the gardens. He also mentions the presence of stairs to reach the various levels. Meanwhile, the Greek historian Diodorus Siculus, also writing in the 1st century BCE, notes that the terraces sloped upwards like an ancient theatre and reached a total height of 20 metres (65 ft). He describes the terraces as being built on pillars and lined with reeds and bricks.

There are known precedents for large gardens in Mesopotamia which pre-date those said to have been at Babylon. There are even depictions of them, for example, on a relief panel from the North Palace of Ashurbanipal (668–631 BCE) at Nineveh, now in the British Museum, London. Indeed, some scholars suggest that the whole Babylonian gardens idea is the result of a monumental mix-up, and it is Nineveh which actually had the fabled wonder, built there by Sennacherib (r. 705-681 BCE). There is ample textual and archaeological evidence of gardens at Nineveh, and the city was sometimes even referred to as 'old Babylon'. In any case, even if the hypothesis of Nineveh is accepted, it still does not preclude the possibility of gardens at Babylon.