The Mystery of the Hanging Garden of Babylon: An Elusive World Wonder Traced
The locations of most of the seven wonders of the ancient world were known, but not that of the fabled Hanging Garden of Babylon, when Dalley embarked on research into it. A scholar of cuneiform texts, Dalley interprets many pieces of such archaeological evidence, but initially she reviews the descriptions of a fabulous garden given by ancient Greek and Roman authors. Only one, Josephus, specified Babylon as the location, a minority voice that provokes Dalley’s suspicion that it was built elsewhere. As prelude to tackling that mystery, she discusses irrigation in ancient Mesopotamia, delving into detail about the water-raising device known as the Archimedes screw. Royal boasts in cuneiform about construction projects inform Dalley’s discussion, which strives to dispel confusion among the experts about which monarch built what palace and grounds. Dalley’s assessments induce her to propose that the garden was built by Sennacherib at Nineveh and probably was destroyed along with the rest of the city in 612 BCE. Loaded with illustrations, this work makes an intriguing argument as it accesses a special subject for general readers. --Gilbert Taylor