The Mystery of the Hanging Garden of Babylon: An Elusive World Wonder Traced

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by Stephanie Dalley


  10. Col. vii lines 53–63. He describes the new mechanism for watering the garden, the completion of the pavilions, the raising of ground around the palace, the naming of the palace, and the plantings.

  In order to draw water up all day long I had ropes, bronze wires and bronze chains made, and instead of a shaduf I set up the great cylinders and alamittu-screws over cisterns. I made those royal pavilions look just right. I raised the height of the surroundings of the palace to be a wonder for all peoples. I gave it the name ‘Incomparable Palace’. A park imitating the Amanus mountains I laid out next to it, with all kinds of aromatic plants, orchard fruit trees, trees that sustain the mountains and Chaldaea, as well as trees that bear wool, planted within it.

  11. Col. vii lines 64–74. He extended the residential area of Nineveh and built huge outer and inner fortification walls. The section has asyndeton, which is a mark of literary style represented here by a dash.

  Nineveh, whose settlement area had been 9,300 cubits from time immemorial, nor had any of the rulers who preceded me built an outer or inner fortification wall—I added 12,515 (cubits) from the outskirts that surrounded the city over and above the previous dimensions, and confirmed its size as 21,815 large cubits. For its great wall—the one called ‘wall whose radiance casts down the enemy’—for it I made a foundation upon limestone and made it 40 bricks thick. I raised its height to 180 courses of brickwork.

  12. Col. vii line 75–col. viii. line 13. The king names the 15 city gates which he built into his new wall. A narrative present tense is used for the first verb. By naming most of the gates after deities as well as the town towards which they faced, Sennacherib was making Nineveh into a ‘gate of gods’, which was the meaning of the name of Babylon. Other inscriptions name 14 or 18 gates. The use of sekru for zikru ‘namings’ is a literary usage.

  I put 15 gates as openings through it to the four winds: front and back with a double track for those who come in and those who go out (to pass each other):

  Gate of the god Ashur to the citadel: ‘May the Steward of Ashur prevail’

  Gate of Sennacherib to the district Halzi: ‘Overthrows every foe’

  Gate of the god Shamash to the land Gagal: ‘Enlil confirms my rule’

  Gate of the goddess Mullissu to the town Kar-Mullissi: ‘The rule of Sennacherib is confirmed by the constellation of the Wagon’

  Gate of the ramp: ‘Gets rid of taboo flesh’

  Gate to the town Shibaniba: ‘Good fortune from the gods of grain and herd is dependable there’

  Gate to the district Halahhu: ‘Brings in the fruits of the mountains’

  Total 7 city gates to the East that face South and East; I pronounced their names.

  Gate of the god Adad of the hunting park:5 ‘Adad bestows abundance upon the country’

  Gate of the god Nergal of the town Tarbiṣu: ‘Erra, slaughterer of my enemies’

  Gate of Sin: ‘Divine Luminary who guards my regal crown’

  Total 3 city gates that face North; I called them by their namings.

  Gate of watering places: ‘The god Ea who controls my spring’

  Gate of the quay: ‘Lets in the products of human habitations’

  Gate of the desert: ‘Gifts of the men of Sumu-El (Ishmael?) and of Tayma come in through it’

  Gate of the Arsenal: ‘Stocks everything’

  Gate of the handuri:6 ‘The god Sharur, the divine weapon that fells the king’s foes’

  Total 5 city gates that face West: thus I proclaimed their names.

  Notes

  INTRODUCTION

  1. M. Streck, ‘Grosses Fach Altorientalistik: Der Umfang des keilschriftlichen Textkorpus’, Mitteilungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft zu Berlin 142 (2010), 38.

  2. 86 tons, if the heavy version of the weight was meant.

  3. S. Dalley, ‘Neo-Assyrian textual evidence for bronze-working centres’, ed. J. E. Curtis, Bronze-Working Centres of Western Asia c.1000–539 B.C. (1988), 97–110.

  4. It was not alphabetic, and was gradually replaced by the much simpler alphabetic, linear script used for the Aramaic language.

  5. Laterculi Alexandrini: Pap Berolinensis 13044v, col. 8.22ff., as cited by K. Brodersen, Die sieben Weltwunder: Legendäre Kunst- und Bauwerke der Antike (1996, 6th edn. 2004), 9.

  6. Diodorus Siculus, The Library of History, II.11.5.

  7. See the invaluable Appendix in P. Clayton and M. Price, The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World (1988), 169–70.

  8. See e.g. Brodersen, Die Sieben Weltwunder (1996), 92–117.

  9. W. Burkert, The Orientalizing Revolution: Near Eastern Influence on Greek Culture in the Early Archaic Age (1992), 106–14.

  10. See e.g. W. Horowitz, Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography (1998), 208; U. Koch-Westenholz, Mesopotamian Astrology (1995), 119.

  11. See A. R. George, Babylonian Topographical Texts (1992), 18.

  12. M. Streck, Assurbanipal und die letzten assyrischen Könige (1916), vol. 2, 236–9, Cylinder L6 lines 16–22.

  13. E. Leichty, The Royal Inscriptions of Esarhaddon, King of Assyria (2011), 199 and 207.

  14. F. N. H. al-Rawi, ‘Nabopolassar’s restoration on the wall Imgur-Enlil at Babylon’, Iraq 47 (1985), 1–13.

  15. C. B. F. Walker, Cuneiform Brick Inscriptions (1981), no. 96.

  16. W. Abdul-Razak, ‘Ishtar Gate and its inner wall’, Sumer 35 (1979), 116–17.

  17. H.-P. Schaudig, Die Inschriften Nabonids von Babylon und Kyros’ des Grossen (2001), 554–6.

  18. J. Harmatta, ‘Les Modèles littéraires de l’édit babylonien de Cyrus’, Acta Iranica 1 (1974), 29–44.

  19. Schaudig, Die Inschriften Nabonids von Babylon (2001), 554.

  20. R. Sack, Images of Nebuchadnezzar (2nd edn. 2004), 67.

  21. H. Tadmor, The Inscriptions of Tiglath-Pileser III King of Assyria (1994), 174–5, Summary Inscription 7.

  22. Prism Inscription VII.45 and VII.49–52; see Chapter 4.

  CHAPTER 1

  1. O. Pedersén, Archive und Bibliotheken in Babylon: Die Tontafeln der Grabung Robert Koldeweys 1899–1917 (2005), 111–27.

  2. W. Nagel, ‘Wo lagen die “Hängende Gärten” in Babylon?’, Mitteilungen der Deutsch-Orient Gesellschaft 110 (1978), 19–28; D. J. Wiseman ‘Mesopotamian gardens’, Anatolian Studies 33 (1983), 137–44.

  3. See T. Boiy, Late Achaemenid and Hellenistic Babylon (2004), 78–9.

  4. R. van der Spek, ‘Berossus as Babylonian chronicler and Greek historian’, eds. R. van der Spek et al., Studies in Ancient Near Eastern World View and Society, presented to Marten Stol on the Occasion of his 65th Birthday (2008), 306 and n. 47. J. E. Reade, ‘Alexander the Great and the Hanging Gardens’, Iraq 62 (2000), 200, asserted without evidence that ‘Cyrus evidently restored or maintained the Hanging Gardens, and may even have added to them’.

  5. Reade, ‘Alexander the Great and the Hanging Gardens’, Iraq 62 (2000), 213 fig. 11, drawn by his son William Reade.

  6. K. Polinger Foster, ‘The Hanging Gardens of Nineveh’, Iraq 66 (2004), 207–20.

  7. See e.g. M. Sauvage, La Brique et sa mise en œuvre en Mésopotamie des origines à l’époque achéménide (1998), 69–70; 170.

  8. C. L. Woolley, Excavations at Ur (1929), revised by P. R. S. Moorey as: Ur ‘of the Chaldees’ (1982), 145–6.

  9. Three other examples are: BM 89769 (see D. Collon, First Impressions, no. 773); A. Moortgat, Vorderasiatische Rollsiegel, nos. 591 (from Ashur) and 592 (from Babylon).

  10. See D. T. Potts, ‘Some horned buildings in Iran, Mesopotamia and Arabia’, Revue d’Assyriologie 84 (1990), 33–40, esp. n. 14.

  11. Gilbert White, Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne (2nd edn. 1813).

  12. Thomas Browne, On the Garden of Cyrus, written in the 1650s.

  13. Most of the Classical sources refer to the World Wonder in the singular.

  14. See Liddell and Scott, Greek–English Lexicon (9th edn. 1996), 993b for reference.

  15. See R. Da Riva, The Neo-Babylonian
Royal Inscriptions: An Introduction (2008), 14 n. 68 with references.

  16. This was a genuine event, see H.-P. Schaudig, ‘The restoration of temples in the Neo- and Late Babylonian periods’, ed. M. Boda and J. Novotny, From the Foundations to the Crenellations (2010), 152–3.

  17. The deduction that he ruled Egypt was based on a misunderstanding of a fragmentary text and his later legendary reputation as a world conqueror. See M. Streck, Reallexikon der Assyriologie Band 9 (1998–2001), s.v. Nebukadnezar II; and Schaudig, Inschriften Nabonids von Babylon (2001), 579–80.

  18. R. Da Riva, ‘The Nebuchadnezzar twin inscriptions of Brisa (Wadi esh-Sharbin, Lebanon): transliteration and translation’, Bulletin d’archéologie et d’architecture libanaises 12 (2008), 229–333.

  19. J. Börker-Klähn, Altvorderasiatische Bildstelen und vergleichbare Felsreliefs, Baghdader Forschungen 4 (1982), vol. 2, nos. 259 and 260.

  20. See R. Da Riva, The Neo-Babylonian Inscriptions: An Introduction (2008), 13.

  21. The suggestion that he had a museum of antiquities in Babylon has been overturned by E. Klengel-Brandt, ‘Gab es ein Museum in der Hauptburg Nebukadnezars II. in Babylon?’, Forschungen und Berichte 28 (1990), 41–7.

  22. See S. Dalley, ‘Why did Herodotus not mention the Hanging Gardens of Babylon?’, eds. P. Derow and R. Parker, Herodotus and his World (2003), 171–89.

  23. J. and E. Romer, The Seven Wonders of the World: A History of the Modern Imagination (1995), 107–28.

  24. Implied e.g. by A. L. Oppenheim, Ancient Mesopotamia: Portrait of a Dead Civilization (1964), 153–4; by Seton Lloyd, The Archaeology of Mesopotamia (1978), 231, and by S. M. Burstein, The Babyloniaca of Berossus (1978), 5.

  25. See now Boiy, Late Achaemenid and Hellenistic Babylon (2004), 137–65.

  26. W. Allinger-Csollich et al., ‘Babylon. Past, present, future. The project “Comparative Studies Babylon–Borsippa”: a synopsis’, ed. P. Matthiae, 6th ICAANE 2008 (2010), 29–38.

  27. See e.g. W. Horowitz, ‘Antiochus I, Esagil and a celebration of the ritual for the renovation of temples’, Revue d’Assyriologie 85 (1991), 75–7; R. J. van der Spek, ‘The size and significance of the Babylonian temples under the Successors’, eds. P. Briant and F. Joannès, La Transition entre l’empire achéménide et les royaumes hellénistiques, Persika 9 (2006), 261–307.

  28. O. Pedersén, Archives and Libraries (1998), 256; F. Rochberg, ‘Scribes and scholars: the tupšar Enūma Anu Enlil’, eds. J. Marzahn and H. Neumann, Assyriologica et Semitica: Festschrift für Joachim Oelsner (2000), 366–9.

  29. H. Hunger, Babylonische und assyrische Kolophone (1968), no. 148; A. R. George, The Epic of Gilgamesh (2003), 740.

  30. See T. Boiy, ‘Assyriology and the history of the hellenistic period’, Topoi 15 (2007), 7–20.

  CHAPTER 2

  1. See e.g. A. S. Becker, The Shield of Achilles and the Poetics of Ekphrasis (1995), 42–3.

  2. See Brodersen, Die Sieben Weltwunder (1996), 51; I. Finkel, ‘The Hanging Gardens of Babylon’, eds. Clayton and Price, The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World (1988), 44. But R. Koldewey, Das wiedererstehende Babylon (1914), 95 and Boiy, Late Achaemenid and Hellenistic Babylon (2004), 71–2, assign to Ctesias the passage on the Hanging Garden given in Diodorus II.10; certainty is not possible. For an evaluation of Ctesias’ work according to which he switched characters and events deliberately, see Chapter 6 with n. 5.

  3. K. Clarke, ‘Universal perspectives in historiography’, ed. C. S. Kraus, The Limits of Historiography: Genre and Narrative in Ancient Historical Texts (1999), 253.

  4. The Greek text has syringges ‘pipes’. The image may be that the arches in the long walls looked like a row of finger holes in a music pipe.

  5. Diodorus Siculus, Library of History II.10. Translation of C. H. Oldfather, Loeb edition (1933).

  6. Water wheels are known no earlier than the 3rd century BC, see A. Wilson, ‘Machines in Greek and Roman technology’, ed. J. P. Oleson, Oxford Handbook of Engineering and Technology in the Classical World (2008), 351–2.

  7. At Cineköy near Adana in SE Turkey. The languages are Luwian (written in Hittite hieroglyphic script) and Phoenician (written in linear alphabetic script). See R. Rollinger, ‘The terms “Assyria” and “Syria” Again’, Journal of Near Eastern Studies 65 (2006), 283–7.

  8. That ‘Syria’ could also include Babylonia is unlikely.

  9. Conversion to modern measures according to M. J. T. Lewis, Surveying Instruments of Greece and Rome (2001): 1 stade = c.185 m, 1 plethron = one-sixth of a stade, i.e. c.30.8 m, 1 cubit = 1™ ft. = c.31 cm.

  10. This implies human, not animal exertions.

  11. Strabo, Geography XVI.1.5, translation adapted from H. L. Jones, Loeb edn. (1961).

  12. A. Gow and D. L. Page, The Greek Anthology: The Garland of Philip (1968) vol. 1, 68–9. no. xci.

  13. Gow and Page, Greek Anthology, vol. 2, 18. There is a possible confusion with the earlier poet Antipater of Sidon; Brodersen, Die Sieben Weltwunder (1996), 10, opts for the earlier man.

  14. He was based perhaps at Hierapolis–Castabala in Cilicia, where an inscription naming him has been found. See R. Syme, ‘Galatia and Pamphylia under Augustus: the governorships of Piso, Quirinus and Silvanus’, Klio 27 (1934), 127–31.

  15. Gow and Page, Greek Anthology, vol. 1, 37 no. xl.

  16. The duplication by Josephus was not realized by Finkel, eds. Clayton and Price, Seven Wonders (1988), in which translations of the two works are given from two different scholars, making it appear as if there were two different Greek texts.

  17. Finkel, ‘The Hanging Gardens of Babylon’, eds. Clayton and Price, Seven Wonders (1988), 41, and Reade, ‘Alexander the Great and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon’, Iraq 62 (2000), 199.

  18. Finkel, eds. Clayton and Price (1988).

  19. Burstein, Babyloniaca of Berossus (1978), 27.

  20. Van der Spek, ‘Berossus as Babylonian chronicler and Greek historian’, eds. Van der Spek et al., Studies in Ancient Near Eastern World View and Society (2008), 300–2.

  21. Genesis 11: 1–9.

  22. Josephus, Jewish Antiquities I.113–19.

  23. T. Hägg, The Novel in Antiquity (1983), 5–6; G. P. Goold, Chariton, Callirhoe (1995), 1–3.

  24. Translation of Goold, Chariton (1995).

  25. Van der Spek, ‘Berossus as Babylonian chronicler and Greek historian’ (2008), 280–3. Comparisons with the Istanbul Stela of Nabonidus show that Berossus used that text too, see W. Gallagher, ‘The Istanbul stela of Nabonidus’, Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes 86, Festschrift for H. Hirsch (1996), 119–26.

  26. Van der Spek, ‘The size and significance’, ed. Briant, La Transition (2006), 275; ‘Berossus as a Babylonian chronicler and Greek historian’, ed. Van der Spek (2008), 296–302.

  27. Burstein, The Babyloniaca of Berossus (1978), 5.

  28. See e.g. Boiy, Late Achaemenid and Hellenistic Babylon (2004), 137–65; P. van Nuffelen, ‘Le Culte royal de l’empire des Séleucides: une réinterprétation’, Historia 53 (2004), 278–301.

  29. A. Annus, ‘The survivals of the ancient Syrian and Mesopotamian intellectual traditions in the writings of Ephrem Syrus’, Ugarit Forschungen 38 (2006, published 2007), 17–23.

  30. See P.-A. Beaulieu, ‘The historical background of the Uruk prophecy’, eds. M. E. Cohen, D. Snell and D. Weisberg, The Tablet and the Scroll, Festschrift for W. Hallo (1993), 41–52.

  31. Reade, ‘Alexander the Great and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon’, Iraq 62 (2000), 200, maintained that Berossus’ own words were conveyed by Josephus, and that Berossus was especially offended by a ‘failure to recognize the contribution of Nebuchadnezzar’. What he meant is obscure.

  32. See The Oxford Classical Dictionary (3rd edn. 1996), s.v. Curtius Rufus; and E. Baynham, Alexander the Great: The Unique History of Quintus Curtius (1998).

 

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