Hanging Gardens Of Babylon

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon is one of the seven wonders that its existence cannot be proof completely. Fruits and flowers... Waterfalls... Gardens hanging from the palace terraces... Exotic animals... This is the picture of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon in most people's minds. It may be surprising to know that they might have never existed except in the minds of Greek poets and historians! Although there are arguments about the existence of this garden, no doubt the garden will always be one of the most magnificent garden. People nowadays can only imagine the beauty of the garden with the help of archaeological discoveries.
The ancient ruins of this famous city lies about 50 miles to the south west of Bagdad in Iraq. The hanging gardens of Babylon were a present to Nebuchadnezzar's wife that contained exotic plants and animals which were imported from all over the world. Babylon during the reign of King Nebuchadnezzar had conquered and controlled virtually all of the then known world and he made use of these conquests in furnishing his garden with decor which made it becomes one of the seven wonders of the world. The garden was destroyed by several earthquakes at the 2^nd century.

History:

The construction of The Hanging Gardens of Babylon has a lot to do with the love story of King Nebuchadnezzar II. Around 604 BC, Princess Amasidia, daughter to King Amasis (the king at the Iran highlands) became his wife. But, once the princess saw Babylon, a plain, but with no green plants, she started to feel homesick. King Nebuchadnezzar ordered his men to build a “hanging garden” at the backyard of the palace to please his queen. The queen was happy once again and her homesickness is cured. 

Description:
Detailed descriptions of the Gardens come from ancient Greek sources, including the writings of Strabo and Philo of Byzantium. Here are some excerpts from their accounts:
"The Garden is quadrangular, and each side is four plethra long. It consists of arched vaults, which are situated, one after another, on checkered, cube-like foundations. The checkered foundations, which are hollowed out, are covered so deep with earth that they admit of the largest of trees, having been constructed of baked brick and asphalt — the foundations themselves and the vaults and the arches. The ascent to the uppermost terrace-roofs is made by a stairway; and alongside these stairs there were screws, through which the water was continually conducted up into the garden from the Euphrates by those appointed for this purpose. For the river, a stadium in width, flows through the middle of the city; and the garden is on the bank of the river.”
"The Hanging Garden has plants cultivated above ground level, and the roots of the trees are embedded in an upper terrace rather than in the earth. The whole mass is supported on stone columns... Streams of water emerging from elevated sources flow down sloping channels... These waters irrigate the whole garden saturating the roots of plants and keeping the whole area moist. Hence the grass is permanently green and the leaves of trees grow firmly attached to supple branches... This is a work of art of royal luxury and its most striking feature is that the labour of cultivation is suspended above the heads of the spectators".

"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.”

More recent archaeological excavations at the ancient city of Babylon in Iraq uncovered the foundation of the palace. Other findings include the Vaulted Building with thick walls and an irrigation well near the southern palace. A group of archaeologists surveyed the area of the southern palace and reconstructed the Vaulted Building as the Hanging Gardens. However, the Greek historian Strabo had stated that the gardens were situated by the River Euphrates. So others argue that the site is too far from the Euphrates to support the theory since the Vaulted Building is several hundreds of meters away. They reconstructed the site of the palace and located the Gardens in the area stretching from the River to the Palace. On the river banks, recently discovered massive walls 25 m thick may have been stepped to form terraces... the ones described in Greek references.