The Hanging Gardens of Babylon: The Ancient World’s Missing Wonder

this episode is brought to you by curiosity streamer subscription streaming service that offers thousands of documentaries and non-fiction titles right now for a limited time you guys can get 25 off the cost of a subscription more about them in a bit it's one of the most evocative names in all of history the hanging gardens of babylon is a phrase that conjures instant images of vast tears of marble draped in exotic plants rising high into the sky supposedly built by the great king nebuchadnezzar ii they've graced the human imagination for centuries a feat of engineering that projected babylonian might across the ancient world featured on phylo of byzantium's famous list of seven wonders the hanging gardens are up there with the pyramids or the colossus of roads in terms of achievement there's just one little problem we've no idea if they actually ever existed lost way before the beginning of our common era the hanging gardens have drifted today into the world of myth and legend unlike the six other wonders no archaeological evidence or contemporary documentation has ever been found so why should that be and what might it mean in today's geographics we're exploring the mystery of the ancient world's missing wonder it's a question that's dogged tourists since time immemorial how do i know where to take my stupid selfies today most of us rely on stuff like instagram and youtube travel shows to make the choice for us but back in the ancient world they had something a little bit different if you were wondering what to drag your bittogood family to you might have a checklist of themata translated as things to be seen themata were places grouped together by different writers with different interests most famously around bc philo of byzantium or someone claiming to be him at least produced a list of seven today these are known as the seven wonders of the ancient world now philo wasn't the first one to write a list of wonders nor were his chosen seven the only game in town other famous writers to tackle the themata included the epigramist antipater well some versions included lesser well-known sites like the walls of babylon but it's philo's list that eventually became canonical giving us the seven classical wonders that we know today of them the most famous is the only one that's still standing the great pyramid of geezer after that there's another five which likewise lay around the mediterranean the temple of artemis the statue of zeus the colossus of rhodes the lighthouse at alexandria and the mausoleum at halicarnassus but there was one entry off the beaten track one that lay not in the comfortable hellenist sphere but way out on the eastern fringes of the world near the euphrates it was out here in the storied city of babylon that the hanging gardens could be found although babylon had stood for centuries it really exploded into the greek consciousness around 331 bc that was the year that alexander the great conquered the city dying there just eight years later while alexander's death would see his empire shatter into warring fragments by the time of philo babylon was firmly in the grasp of the seleucid empire hellenistic in nature the seleucids were friendly enough to let travelers in yet also remote enough to seem impossibly exotic in fact they were so remote that it seems philo never actually traveled there instead his inclusion of the gardens like others who wrote later lists was probably based on written accounts few of which survived today alexander the great's biographer cleet harcus for example gave one of the first descriptions in the 4th century bc a hundred years later the babylonian priest barrosas fleshed things out further philo's readers then weren't getting first-hand knowledge of this particular wonder well so what you might be thinking 80 of travelistical writers have probably never left their basements let alone gone to all the places that they're banging on about the difference is that today it's pretty easy for you to just jump online and confirm both what the eiffel tower looks like and where it actually exists by contrast centuries of searching in the modern era have uncovered no ruins of the hanging gardens or even confirmed accounts of anyone seeing them firsthand among the seven wonders this is unique and it begs a rather interesting question where the hell are they [Music] depending on which version you believe the tale of the hanging gardens construction comes with varying degrees of plausibility some greeks refer to them as the hanging gardens of cemeramus reflecting the belief that they were created by the 9th century bc queen of the same name but since semaramis is a semi-mythological figure it seems more likely that people just attributed stuff to her in the same way we attribute any old witty quote to oscar wilde the much more common story of the gardens involves a historical personality who we know a lot more about and that is nebuchadnezzar ii the longest lived and greatest of the neo-babylonian kings nebuchadnezzar was born in 630 bc to a general in the neo-assyrian empire once an independent city-state babylon had by this stage been absorbed by the neo-assyrians keeping it that way was the job of nebuchadnezzar's dad naboo palace at least that's how his employers understood it but when the assyrian emperor kicked the bucket nabo uncrossed his fingers and declared himself the king of babylon the subsequent war saw the new assyrians smashed and the neo-babylonian empire rise up in their place but nebopalasa barely got a chance to enjoy his shiny new toy before dying in 605 bc passing babylon onto his son and that son was all about mad building projects during his long reign nebuchadnezzar ii would build the fabled gate of ishtar the walls of babel on an engineering feat so impressive it made some versions of the seven wonders list but it was nebuchadnezzar's most romantic construction project that would become his most famous of all the story as it's most commonly told goes that nebuchadnezzar was married to the median princess ametus dispatched from her forested mountain home to the flat dusty plains of modern iraq amateurs soon began to miss things like trees and the shade and the color green so nebuchadnezzar decided to build amethyst a home away from him a vast artificial mountain covered in plants trees and grasses from media he would call this engineering miracle the hanging gardens although the tale sometimes makes out like nebuchadnezzar was the first person to attempt anything like this the reality is that grand gardens had existed long before their neo-babylonians the idea is thought to have first appeared in the fertile crescent a swath of burdened land in mesopotamia today considered one of the cradles of civilization known as paradises these gardens slowly crept out of the east and into the hellenistic world originally there were grand affairs owned by kings and filled with artificial water features statues and sculptures by filo's time though had become a lot more domestic although still the preserve of the wealthy gardens were now owned by private citizens and for the ancient worlds not quite so rich classes that made them aspirational possessions in some places the insides of villas would be decorated on one wall with a giant fresco mimicking a garden so people could look at it and pretend their home opened into a little slice of paradise for ancient readers then the idea of the hanging gardens was like a vision of something they loved turned all the way up to 11. perhaps it's no surprise that it made it onto the canonical list of wonders that's especially true when you realize what they must have looked like although no single definitive description of the hanging gardens has survived to today we do have scattered versions from different authors but all agree on one salient point whatever the truth of their construction babylon's gardens were awesome [Music] when kids first hear about the hanging gardens the obvious question is hanging what does it mean the thing is no one actually knows that's because the published description's enough that it could mean one of many things philo's description of the gardens for example suggests that they really did hang in his telling babylon's great gardens were raised up on stone columns across which a whole load of palm branches were laid and reinforced with reeds these reeds were then covered in soil and this soil planted with trees and flowers that grew directly above the heads of visitors for this version of the gardens the wondrous part was the sheer variety of plant life hanging over the edges for all to see the irrigation system by contrast was relatively simple philo wrote of water collected on high in numerous ample containers suggesting the whole thing was kept alive by rainfall at this point you may be hearing some alarm bells in the rational part of your brain the area of mesopotamia babylon stood in isn't exactly known for its heavy rainfall it's certainly not wet enough to capture and store enough water to keep a massive garden alive what it is known for though is its position right alongside the euphrates river which may be why diadorus account includes no mention of water being collected on high instead the first century bc historian wrote of machines raising the water in great abundance from the river like a complex set of archimedes screws that actually predated archimedes nor was it only in water harvesting that diodorus version differed from philos while pilots hanging gardens were basically a fancy trellis diodorus were a pyramid rising in tears to a height of 20 meters or 65 foot in old money rather than being simple soil laid on reeds each level was reinforced by brick and led to stop the moisture escaping giant stone hallways allowed people to walk among the plants in the shade enjoying a view across babylon as they did so meanwhile the archimedes screws were hidden in the walls giving a sense of serene impossibility to the whole place it's a breathtaking description and one that still powers most images of the hanging gardens today but it's worth pointing out that diadorus also never visited babylon like philo he was working from other sources the same goes for all the other writers who tried to describe the seventh wonder in the first century ad the geographer strabo wrote his own accounts mentioning machines to raise river water and sweeping stairways leading up but he mostly seems to have been drawing on diadorus josephus likewise mentions the garden stating that they were located in the main palace but there's no evidence that he visited them either in fact pretty much all exact accounts of the gardens run into the same basic problem as far as we can tell none of the surviving descriptions were written by people who'd actually been to babylon we don't even know what precise era the gardens may have existed in even if someone like diodoras had gone to the trouble of hauling his ass east to check them out there's no guarantee they'd have still been standing and it's at this point that our video is going to get a little bit wild if no one actually saw the hanging gardens of babylon or did they really exist and what a cliffhanger that is and we'll be returning to it in just a moment but first a quick word from today's excellent sponsor curiosity stream curiosity stream is a subscription streaming service that offers thousands of documentaries and non-fiction titles from some of the world's best filmmakers including exclusive originals think of it as the netflix for nerds the hulu for history buffs curiosity stream is available on many platforms and web app roku android xbox one smart tvs ios chromecast amazon fire amazon apple tv if you've got a device with a screen you're probably going to be able to watch it it's offered worldwide and it's constantly updated with amazing timely content for example if you're looking forward to shark week and why wouldn't you be then you might want to take a look at the secret lives of sharks which was just added last month now if you're enjoying this episode of geographic centered around the hanging gardens why not check out curiosity stream's 10 episode series ancient engineering if you're looking for more content on these seven eight wanderers of the world then you can't go wrong with that you can go to curiositystream.com forward slash geographics for unlimited access the world's top documentaries and non-fiction series and right now for you guys just use the promo code geographics and you'll save 25 off the cost of an annual membership fantastic makes it what 14.99 a year amazing click the link below or just go to curiositystream.com forward slash geographics let's get back to it [Music] the first major issue with the tale of the hanging gardens is that there are no contemporary babylonian sources that mention their existence nebuchadnezzar ii was a king who liked to boast we have comprehensive brags carved in stone listing everything he ever achieved from big ass stuff like the gate of ishtar to little ass stuff like naming the streets of babylon basically he was the sort of king who'd get his scribes to write a poem celebrating him taking an incredible sh yet somehow he forgot to mention those world famous gardens that he built which doesn't really make a lot of sense likewise writers after nebuchadnezzar's time were conspicuously silent about the gardens at an engineering marvel one stood in babylon you'd think it'd be mentioned even in a ruined state but neither the neo-babylonians or scribes from the subsequent achaemenid or seleucid empires ever write about the elevated gardens the second major problem is that we can't trust the hellenistic sources that do mention them nebuchadnezzar ii died in 562 bc when herodotus came to write about babylon in his histories the best part of a century later he never once mentioned the hanging gardens it's not until you reach the 4th century bc that people begin referencing spectacular gardens in the city and even those writings no longer survive the first unequivocal mention of the hanging gardens in an ancient source only arrives in the 3rd century with barossa's cost a babylonian priest who spent most of his life as his name would imply living on the island of coss barasas was working a bit less than 300 years after nebuchadnezzar's death to put that in perspective traveling back in time nearly 300 years would land you in george washington's childhood he was in no way a contemporary source he also got quite a lot wrong remember that tale of amethyst the homesick princess nebuchadnezzar built his gardens for well turns out no amitis or median princess appears in any of those extremely detailed babylonian records either she only exists in stories of the hanging gardens nor was borosus the only one to make major mistakes in the same text he talks about the gardens diadoras also talks about the walls of babylon describing in great engraved detail scenes of royalty hunting leopards as you can probably guess there's no other evidence pictures of leopard hunting ever appeared on babylon's walls the last nail in the coffin of the hanging gardens of babylon comes from much closer to our own time in the early 21st century dr stephanie dally of oxford university did a detailed study of babylon's topography and concluded that no matter how many fancy screws nebuchadnezzar had getting enough water out of the river up into the air to nourish an entire garden would have just been impossible so well i guess that's it then is it proof that the hanging gardens of babylon never existed and all those theme marta writers were basically the ancient versions of the chumps back in 2003 who fell for the bonsai kittens well not exactly see the non-existence theory also has a lot of holes in it a major one being that the greeks could travel to the seleucid empire meaning someone would have eventually reported back on all the confused babylonians being like gardens nah never heard of the mate that leaves two possibilities well three if you include aliens did it proof of extraterrestrial intervention so two possibilities one the garden did exist but on a much smaller scale than we've been led to believe their size and grandeur exaggerated with each retelling until they became semi-legendary or two the hanging gardens really were as spectacular as we've heard but they were not in babylon before we start digging into where the gardens may have been we should probably talk about attempts to find them that's because archaeology has a track record of digging up some random bricks in the iraqi desert and bellowing behold i have found the gardens when they hadn't the first person to do this was robert cold dewey who gets a massive pass for also being the first archaeologist to actually examine the ruins of babylon born on september 10th 1855 in what is now germany called dewey grew up in an era in which babylon's existence was disputed although it was widely referenced in ancient works and the bible there was no pile of identifiable ruins someone could point to and say that that is babylon right there carl duarte would change all of that after initially working as an archaeologist in modern-day turkey he abruptly switched his focus to southern iraq in 1897 specifically to a site theorized to be the location of babylon there over a period of 15 years 18 years in some tellings he uncovered treasures the likes of which the world had never seen it was called dewey's team who uncovered the ishtar gate the foundation to the great ziggurat dedicated to marduk for the first time humans could see and understand the geographical reality of this biblical city then col dewey's team even topped that by managing to find the hanging gardens when cold we uncovered the arched structure built of water-resistant carved stone dotted with deep wells and situated right next to the palace he basically bellowed something really loud in german about discovering the hanging gardens sadly later digs would uncover uniform tablets in these gardens inscribed with amounts of stuff like grain and oil as a result modern scholarship now thinks this was probably just a warehouse disappointing next up was the british archaeologist leonard wooley like cal dewey woolley also gets a life pass thanks to his real discoveries born in london in 1880 he led some majorly significant excavations at the sumerian city of uh but he also had his own behold moment when he dug up the ruins of ziggurat the bricks used in the cigarette's construction were all bored with holes while wooly initially thought this was to help with drying he soon changed his mind and decided they were evidence of a drainage system the sort of system that you guessed it could have supported the fabled hanging gardens or could it later analysis suggested that this would have left the building dangerously unsound and prone to collapse and the collapsing gardens of babylon just doesn't really have the same ring to it does it there have been other claims too some far less outlandish remains of an irrigation system and a possible reservoir were uncovered near the palace leading to renewed speculation that the gardens were as tangible as the pyramids yet despite well over a century of interest the archaeological smoking gun has never been found at least not at babylon less than 10 years ago a new theory started making the rounds one heavily backed by a wealth of evidence what if the seventh wonder of the world wasn't really at babylon but nineveh dr stephanie dally is someone with an interesting claim to fame she may be the person who finally discovered the location of the missing gardens of babylon in 2013 after nearly two decades of intense research the oxford university professor published a book in which she laid out evidence that the gardens were attributed to the wrong city the results were somewhere between convincing and well god damn mind-blowing nineveh was the one-time capital of the neo-assyrian empire the guys who ruled babylon before nebuchadnezzar's dad revolted and kicked them out almost exactly a century before nebuchadnezzar's reign that capital was home to one of ancient mesopotamia's greatest kings senator here's where it gets interesting sennacherib was like nebuchadnezzar a prodigious boaster but he was also a great engineer while nebuchadnezzar's archives are full of him bragging about building giant walls cedar cherubs are filled with boasts about aqueducts and clever irrigation systems one such aqueduct was built from two million bricks and brought water right across the german valley there's even evidence that senator may have invented the archimedes screw in other words the exact mechanical device you need if you want to transfer water up into some terrace gardens but the real kicker comes in the annals of santa cherub's reign in particular one where he declares i raised the height of the surroundings of the palace to be a wonder for all peoples a high guard and imitating the amanus mountains i laid out next to it with all kinds of aromatic plants if you think that sounds a little like the hanging gardens well you are not alone dr dally also zeroed in on this nor does her evidence stop there there's the sketch of a now lost bass relief from nineveh which showed trees growing atop a roof held up by several stone pillars there's the later relief still extinct showing sennacherib's grandson among what appears to be a mountain of trees rising in tears and then there's the circumstantial proof in 698 bc solo cherub's army attacked babylon although his men sacked the city the king himself evidently liked what he saw when he returned to nineveh he renamed places and streets after locations in babylon and started using the names of the babylonian gods dr dally has found evidence that nineveh itself started to be called babylon in this time a name that may have stuck to it even as the real babylon returned to power in other words those who originally wrote of the hanging gardens of babylon may have meant an entirely different babylon one that we know as nineveh lastly there's the matter of the original hellenistic sources remember way back in chapter one when we said how the first now lost accounts of the gardens came from dudes like alexander's biographer cleotarkis while alexander and his men camped right near nineveh in 331 bc just before a major battle it's possible they saw cena cherubs still surviving gardens and carried the knowledge of them back to the hellenistic world if this theory is true then the most mysterious wonder of the ancient world has been hiding under our noses this whole time somewhere in the ruins of nineveh we may yet find the last traces of the gravity-defying garden that wowed the ancient greeks the hanging gardens of nineveh we can't say for certain if this really is the case although the evidence is pretty plausible it's not our job here to make a judgment one way or the other but we can leave you with a tantalizing description of what a nineveh version of these gardens may have looked like imagine an artificial hill built of stone colonnades rising in tears 25 metres into the sky on top of each colony trees and flowers grow in abundance seemingly defying gravity down the sides clear streams of water trickle brought in fresh on a giant aqueduct then raised up from a reservoir by bronze cast archimedes screws among the terraces walk the rich and powerful of nineveh relaxing in the shade of the colonnades looking up in wonder at the plants that seemed to hang in the sky and at the center of it all stands the man who built this thing to be seen not epicness of the second but santa cherub and as he watches the subject admiring his handiwork the old king allows himself the faintest of smiles so i really hope you found that video interesting if you did please do hit that thumbs up button below don't forget to subscribe please do check out a fantastic sponsor curiosity stream as well link to them below thank you for [Music] watching

Channel: Geographics

Views: 471,157

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Id: KT3i57lkIQk

Length: 23min 4sec (1384 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 29 2021