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The hanging gardens of Babylon, renowned for their breath-taking arrangements of plants above ground, are the only place on our list of the Seven Ancient wonders which actually may have not existed. Source of great speculation*, the gardens have not yet been found by archaeologists and all we know comes from the descriptions of our Roman and Greek ancestors. Although writers tend to present us with slightly different facts on the gardens most agree on the legend of why they were built in the first place.

It is said that the hanging gardens in Babylon (Mesopotamia) were built upon the order of King Nebuchadnezzar as a gift to his wife. The king ruled the city of Babylon for 43 years starting from 603BC. King Nebuchadnezzar hoped to please his wife, Amyitis, with the gardens. Amyitis, who married the king so their two kingdoms could be allies, missed the green mountains of Media (south-east Iran and north-western Turkey) where she grew up and Mesopotamia was flat and dry so one theory is that the hanging gardens were built to help the new Queen feel more at home.

Now the name ‘hanging gardens’ comes from the Latin ‘pensilis’ or the Greek ‘kremastos’ which really means ‘overhanging’ so the plants weren’t just hanging in thin air! The plants grew above the ground on terraces (similar to balconies) and the ancient Greek historian Diodorius Siculus described the gardens as being 400 ft wide and 400 ft long – a very very large garden to walk through!

One problem the beautiful hanging gardens had was how to water so many plants so far from the ground. It is thought that some type of irrigation system connected to the Euphrates river close by was invented for the task and it would have taken around 8,200 gallons of water every day to water all of those plants! Babylon is a dry place and without modern technology watering the plants at such a high level was achieved using a ‘chain pump’ to move the water. A chain pump is a clever invention: two large wheels which rotate are connected to a chain which carries buckets of water from a pool. There were different wheels for different layers of the gardens, needless to say the chain pump was a pretty effective solution!

That solves the water issue but there’s still one big question: did the gardens really exist? Many historians deny their existence because they aren’t listed on documents naming Babylonian monuments built around that time or suggest they were just part of the gardens built in 700BC. Others argue that the German archaeologist Robert Koldeway may have already found the gardens! During 1899-1917 Koldeway revealed a garden similar to that described by the ancient historian Siculus and he discovered watering holes on the floor where a possible primitive irrigation system, the chain pump, could have been mounted! If they had existed we can only wonder whether the hanging gardens, possibly one of the most thoughtful of gifts, made Queen Amyitis feel more at home in her new kingdom.