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Nineveh, Babylon and the Hanging Gardens: cuneiform and classical sources reconciled1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2014

Stephanie Dalley
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Extract

Classical sources describing the Hanging Gardens give a wealth of detail which has never matched up with information from cuneiform sources or archaeological finds. This study reconciles them. In doing so it shows how some confusions in Classical accounts may have their origin in Akkadian sources, and are not due simply to misunderstanding and error.

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one of the Seven Wonders of the world in Classical tradition, were marvellous not merely for being raised upon vaults, but also for an innovative system for watering them. Popularly attributed to Nebuchadnezzar II, of the 6th century B.C., they are not mentioned in any of the copious and remarkably complete written sources for that king's reign, nor have they come to light in extensive excavation of his palaces in Babylon, carried out by a large German team over more than a quarter of a century.

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 56 , 1994 , pp. 45 - 58
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 1994 

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Footnotes

1

This paper is an extended version of the lecture given to honour the memory of Sir Edgar Bonham Carter in June 1993. A part of the argument is briefly to be published in the CRRAI 1992 (Heidelberg 1994).

References

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44 This crucial word was damaged on the source used by Luckenbill, and was therefore omitted in his translations; the duplicate source published by Heidel gave a clear text. Note that the word for copper is often used interchangeably with the word for bronze in Assyrian royal inscriptions.

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64 The word used by Sennacherib is the normal word for gates. It may also be suggested that the description of mechanical gates of “Babylon”, supposedly built by Semiramis according to Diodorus Siculus II.8.7, comes from misunderstanding and corruption of the same passage. The expression “Sipparians” may perhaps be a corruption of the placename Shapparishu which the Bavian inscription names with Shibaniba and other towns or villages as lying along the course of the diverted tributaries.

65 Eusebius, , Armenian Chronicle 63 Google Scholar; see Cory, I. P., Ancient Fragments of the Phoenician, Chaldaean … and other writers (London 1832), 63 Google Scholar. “At Athens” could also be translated “of the Athenians”. Karst suggested that the goddess Anat was behind the term, which would exclude any connection with Athens. See Jacoby, F., Fr. Gr. Hist. 685 FSGoogle Scholar. I am grateful to Professor R. W. Thomson and Dr S. West for their help.

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73 The prism dates later than the Bavian inscription and the Bellino Cylinder; the garden gate occurs in a sequence containing gates connected with the palace, and perhaps not city gates in the sense of leading from the city into the countryside. “‘May [its?] buil[der?] be prominent’ (is the name of) the mušlalu of the palace; ‘Igi-sig-sig the god who makes orchards fruitful' (is the name of) the mušlalu of the garden; ‘Letting in the produce of habitations’ (is the name of) the quay gate.” Thompson, R. Campbell, A selection from historical texts from Nineveh, Iraq 7 (1940), 90 and Fig. 4CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

74 BM Or. Dr. V.1, recently reproduced in State Archives of Assyria III (1989), Fig. 6Google Scholar.

75 I am very grateful to Terry Ball of English Heritage who with patience and skill has produced this drawing.