The Hanging Gardens of Babylon

This is the sixth of four different “Wonders” caches. Please look at the GC map and plan your route accordingly. These are very narrow roads and it will require pulling off onto grass.  There’s not a lot of traffic but, please stay safe! If you intend to make the entire series in one trip, read the description for #1 and #7, it’ll help on the time and safety!

When I was a kid, I used to like reading about all of the different “wonders” and when I got to California two years ago, I felt like all the different vistas were ‘wonders’… well, to me anyway! I love the country here in Sonoma County and I hope you all enjoy some of the views. And please try to ignore (or better yet, appreciate) the odor during the peak summer season ?

A copy of a bas relief from the reign of Sennacherib, depicting royal gardens thought similar to the hanging gardens of Babylon.

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon are considered to be one of the original Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. They were built in the ancient city-state of Babylon, near present-day Al Hllah, Babil, in Iraq. They are sometimes called the Hanging Gardens of Semiramis (in reference to the legendary Queen Semiramis).

The gardens were supposedly built by the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II around 600 BC. He is reported to have constructed the gardens to please his homesick wife, Amytis of Media, who longed for the trees and fragrant plants of her homeland Persia. The gardens were destroyed by several earthquakes after the 2nd century BC.

The lush Hanging Gardens are extensively documented by Greek historians such as Strabo and Diodorus Siculus. Through the ages, the location may have been confused with gardens that existed at Nineveh, since tablets from there clearly show gardens. Writings on these tablets describe the possible use of something similar to an Archimedes screw as a process of raising the water to the required height. Nebuchadnezzar II also used massive slabs of stone, which was unheard of in Babylon, to prevent the water from eroding the ground.