A Short history of the Hanging Gardens creation
In the ninth century B. C. the Assyrians achieved their independence, and at last about 745 B. C. under the mighty TIGLATH PILESAR III vanquished their former overlords and absorbed in their empire; the proud city of Babylon then fell from its high estate, Nineveh became the glory of Kingdom.
The triumph of Nineveh endured for rather more than a century; Medes had long been gathering in the mountains to the East … the ever rebellious Babylonians entered into a league with these Medes and in 606 B. C. they fell upon Nineveh and destroyed the city so utterly that until archaeologists began to excavate in Modern Times all knowledge even of its site was lost!
With the fall of Nineveh began the Second Babylonian Empire, the Empire of NEBUCHAD-REZZAR, and then were built the famous Hanging Gardens!
NEBUCHAD-REZZAR in the spectacular manner characteristic of the East, designed them to honor and delight his beautiful Median (Iranian) Queen, daughter of CYAXARES; that prince whose arms and whose Loyal support had raised his house of power.
In all Babylon there was no building to rival the Hanging Gardens! The framework of the Hanging Gardens was made of stone that is not their least remarkable feature; the Hanging Gardens were the only Babylonian structure in which hewn stone was used to any considerable extent.
The Hanging Gardens were a series of wide stone terraces and balconies that raised one above another; that is exactly what the Hanging Gardens were; they comprised in fact a series of wide stone terraces supported by arches, and rose, like a giant stairway; on each of the terraces was a layer of mound, so deep as to make it possible not only for plants and flowering shrubs to be grown, but fruit-bearing trees as well.
The Gardens were irrigated by means of hydraulic pumps which raised water to a reservoir on the highest terrace; on top of the numerous arches the builders laid reeds and bitumen, and above these, thick sheets of lead ….
Picture, in this paradise of sybaritic and oriental luxury, in the heart of Great Babylon, The Median Queen holding her splendid court, then you will be able to appreciate something of the glamour and glory of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon ….
Researcher and Designer: DARIUSH GHASEMIAN DASTJERDI