Babylon Wonders facts

While investigating facts about Babylon Wonders, I found out little known, but curios details like:

The Great Pyramid at Giza is the oldest of the Seven Wonders and the only one still standing today. The Colossus of Rhodes, the Lighthouse of Alexandria, the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, the Temple of Artemis, the Statue of Zeus were destroyed. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon is still unknown.

The "Hanging Gardens of Babylon", despite being one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, may in fact be purely mythical, as there is no mention of them in Babylonian texts, and no definitive archaeological evidence has ever been found.

In my opinion, it is useful to put together a list of the most interesting details from trusted sources that I've come across. Here are 21 of the best facts about Babylon Wonders I managed to collect.

1. The biggest wonder about the Hanging Gardens of Babylon is that those gardens were not in Babylon at all – but were instead located 300 miles to the north in Babylon’s greatest rival Nineveh, according to a leading Oxford-based historian.

2. Between 1899 and 1917 a German archaeologist Robert Koldewey may have unearthed the Hanging Gardens. What he unearthed resembled what Diordorus Siculus had described. In the bottom of the ‘hanging gardens" there were three strange holes in the floor that would have worked well for a chain pump irrigation system. This would have made it possible to irrigate the plants.

3. There is no documentation in Babylonian sources that the gardens ever existed. There is also no solid archaeological evidence that they existed.

4. The most popular theory is that the gardens were built by king Nebuchadnezzar II to make his wife happy. She was homesick for the plants and gardens of her homeland.

5. The word ‘hanging" comes from the Latin word ‘pensilis" or the translation of the Greek word ‘kremastos". It actually means overhanging instead of just hanging.

6. The Hanging Gardens are the only one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world that may not even have existed.

7. King Nebuchadnezzar II ruled Babylon from 605BC, for a period of 43 years. It was during this time that he is said to have had the Hanging Gardens built.

8. In the ‘Hanging Gardens", the plants did not actually hang. They grew from many different levels of terraces (similar to balconies).

9. The gardens were thought to be about 75 feet high. The water would have had to have been carried up or transported to the top of the gardens by a primitive water irrigation system.

10. There are many clay tablets that exist from the time period when the Hanging Gardens would have existed. None of these ancient tablets mention the Hanging Gardens.

What is true about babylon wonders?

You can easily fact check it by examining the linked well-known sources.

Recent excavations have found traces of aqueducts near Nineveh, which would have supported such a garden. Nineveh is 300 miles away from Babylon.

A Greek historian named Diordorus Siculus described the gardens as being 400 feet wide by 400 feet long. He also said that the walls were more than 80 feet high.

Many believe that if the gardens did exist they would have been located south of Bagdad in Iraq.

Some historians and archaeologists believe that the gardens did exist and were destroyed by war and erosion. Some believe it was earthquakes that eventually devastated and destroyed the gardens.

There is no archaeological evidence that the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, actually existed. The idea that it may have ever existed at all is heavily contested by many historians, archaeologists and other related scholars. - source

If the gardens actually existed, it would have taken 8,200 gallons of water each day to keep the plants watered.

Several ancient Roman and Greek writers wrote about the gardens. They wrote about why they were built, how they were built, and the size of the gardens. They even described how the gardens were watered. They didn"t all agree on why they were built or who they were built for.

J Michael Straczynski (JMS of Babylon 5 fame) also did comic books, including Wonder Woman, Spider-Man, and Superman.