Download the presentation on the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Legendary Gardens of Babylon

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Hanging Gardens of Babylon

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The Hanging Gardens of Babylon are the second of the Seven Wonders of the World and the least explored by scientists. Unfortunately, this marvelous architectural creation has not survived to this day. What is known is that they were located in the legendary city of Mesopotamia (Interfluve) - Babylon, and their creator is considered to be the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II (605-562 BC).

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In the 6th century BC, the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II gave the order to build marvelous gardens for his beloved wife Amytis. She was a Median princess and in dusty, noisy Babylon, located on a bare sandy plain, she greatly missed the green hills of her homeland. The king, in order to please his beloved, decided to create fairy gardens.

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The very name of the miracle - the Hanging Gardens - misleads us. The gardens did not hang in the air! And they weren’t even supported by ropes, as they had previously thought. The gardens were not hanging, but protruding.

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The Hanging Gardens were amazing - trees, shrubs and flowers from all over the world grew in noisy and dusty Babylon. The plants were located as they should have grown in their natural environment: lowland plants - on the lower terraces, highland plants - on the higher ones. Trees such as palm, cypress, cedar, boxwood, plane tree, and oak were planted in the Gardens.

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The Hanging Gardens had the shape of a pyramid, consisting of four tiers in the form of protruding balconies, which were supported by columns up to 25 meters high. The lower tier had the shape of an irregular quadrangle. All tiers were planted with beautiful plants. Seeds were delivered to Babylon from all over the world. The pyramid resembled an evergreen flowering hill.

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To prevent the seepage of irrigation water, the surface of each platform was first covered with a layer of reeds and asphalt, then bricks and lead slabs were laid, and fertile soil was laid on them in a thick carpet, where vegetation was planted. The gardens are formed from arched vaults laid out in a checkerboard pattern in several rows

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The pyramid resembled an ever-blooming hill. For the people of that time, the most surprising thing was not only the design of the gardens itself, but also the irrigation system. Pipes were placed in the cavity of one of the columns. Day and night, hundreds of slaves turned a wheel with leather buckets, bringing water up, pumping it from the river. The magnificent gardens with rare trees, flowers and coolness in the sultry Babylon were truly a miracle.

MUNICIPAL BUDGET EDUCATIONAL CENTER

INSTITUTION

"Ust-Abakan Secondary School"

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon is the second wonder of the world.

student of class 3A

Ustyugova Nikita

Supervisor research project:

Shandybina Marina Anatolyevna

(classroom teacher)

In history ancient world There are many mysterious phenomena that scientists are still unraveling. People are always interested in all kinds of riddles, myths, secrets. Therefore, interest in many mysteries remains even when their solutions seem to have been found.

Relevance of the project:

Such mysterious phenomena include the Seven Wonders of the World, each of which holds many secrets. But most of all I was interested in the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. I had a lot of questions. What kind of gardens are these? Who built them? Are they really floating in the air? Did they really exist or is this a beautiful fairy tale?

I wanted to know more about them. This is how my “research” began.

An object – the second wonder of the world “The Hanging Gardens of Babylon”

Item - "Hanging Gardens of Babylon"

Purpose of the research project: acquaintance with the second wonder of the world “The Hanging Gardens of Babylon”

Objectives of the research project:

Collect and study information about whether the hanging gardens were actually created;

Find out their location;

Find out who built the hanging gardens and why;

Find out what they looked like and why they are called that;

Find out their death;

Lead Interesting Facts hanging gardens;

Make a model of these gardens

Hypothesis - I dare to suggest that the Hanging Gardens of Babylon are not a beautiful legend, but a reality that you can build with your own hands.

Project stages:

The first stage is theoretical - consisted of planning the project topic and studying literature.

The second stage is practical - consisted of formatting the research results in the form of a model of the gardens and making a presentation.

Third stage - project protection.

The practical significance of my project lies in the fact that this work can be used in technology lessons and extracurricular activities.

The solution to existence hanging gardens

The existence of the second wonder of the world - the Hanging Gardens of Babylon - is questioned by many scientists and they claim that it is nothing more than the imagination of an ancient chronicler. His idea was picked up by others and they began to carefully rewrite it from chronicle to chronicle.

For a long time, historians and archaeologists were suspicious of enthusiastic descriptions of this garden. This attitude was explained by the fact that there was no mention of them in the deciphered hieroglyphs - drawings. IN detailed description Babylon, abandoned by Herodotus, who was there during this period, also says nothing about the hanging park.

But Josephus Flavius ​​mentions them, referring to the “Babylonian History” written by the priest Bers. In addition, the testimonies of ancient historians about the place of death of Alexander the Great say that he died under the arches of his favorite park, which reminded him of his native Macedonia.

The archaeological discovery of the German scientist R. Kildeev also convinced historians that the gardens really existed. The Kildeev expedition, which spent 18 years (1899–1917) conducting excavations in Hilla (90 km from Baghdad), proved that Babylonian miracles actually existed. The discovered remains of masonry pillars and a shaft well near the ruins of the palace, according to the archaeologist, served as confirmation of the words of the ancient authors. The Babylonians used baked bricks in their buildings. The stone was very expensive. Stone was used only during the construction of gardens and part of the defensive wall.

So it turns out that the hanging gardens still existed, but where were they located, who built them and why????

2. Location of the Hanging Gardens

Time has destroyed the hanging gardens, and now it is not even possible to say exactly where they were. Although archaeological scientists have repeatedly made attempts to find traces of the ancient wonder of the world.

As we already know, the German historian Robert Koldewey took up the solution to this problem.

The excavations lasted 18 years.

As a result, the scientist stated that he had discovered traces of Ancient Babylon - part of the city wall, the ruins of the Tower of Babel and the remains of columns and vaults, which, in his opinion, once surrounded the famous Hanging Gardens of Babylon. The excavations he carried out made it possible to get a fairly clear idea of ​​what Babylon looked like in the 6th century BC. e. The city was built according to a clearly drawn up plan; it was surrounded by a triple ring of walls, the length of which reached 18 km. The number of its inhabitants was at least 200,000. Babylon was a rectangle, which was divided into the Old and New cities.

3.Who built the hanging gardens and why?

We found out that the Hanging Gardens were located in Ancient Babylon in the 6th century BC. e., at this time Nebuchadnezzar II ruled there.

He is famous not only for the capture of Jerusalem and the creation of the Tower of Babel, but also for the fact that he gave his beloved wife an expensive and unusual gift. By royal order, a palace-garden was created in the center of the capital, which later received the name Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Having decided to get married, Nebuchadnezzar II chose a bride - the beautiful Amytis, the daughter of the king of Media, with whom he was in an allied relationship. The king and his young wife settled in Babylon.

Amitis, who was accustomed to living among forest thickets and lush vegetation, quickly became intolerable to the boring landscape around the palace. In the city - gray sand, darkened buildings, dusty streets, and outside the city gates - the endless desert brought the queen to melancholy. The ruler, noticing the sadness in his wife’s eyes, inquired about the reason. Amitis expressed her desire to be at home, take a walk through her favorite forest, and enjoy the smell of flowers.

Then Nebuchadnezzar II ordered the construction of a palace, which would be turned into a garden.

4.What did the gardens look like and why are they called that?

The idea of ​​​​creating hanging gardens in the middle of a dry plain seemed simply fantastic at that time. However, local engineers were capable of this task.

The structure created by the masters looked like an ever-blooming green hill, since it consisted of four floors that rose above each other in the shape of a stepped pyramid, connected by wide staircases made of white and pink slabs. The platforms were installed on columns about 25 meters high - this height was needed so that the plants growing on each floor had good access to sunlight. The lower platform had an irregular quadrangular shape. To prevent the water used to water the plants from seeping onto the lower platform, the surface of each tier was laid as follows:

First, a layer of reed was laid out, which was previously mixed with resin; Next came two layers of bricks, fastened together with gypsum mortar; Lead slabs were laid on them; And already on these slabs such a huge layer of fertile soil was poured that trees could easily take root in it. Herbs, flowers, and shrubs were also planted here.

The gardens had quite complex system watering: in the middle of one column there was a pipe through which water flowed into the garden. Every day, the slaves non-stop spun a special wheel to which leather buckets were attached, thus pumping water.

Water flowed through a pipe to the very top of the structure, from there it was redirected into numerous channels and flowed down to the lower terraces. Regardless of what floor a visitor to the garden was on, he could always hear the murmur of water, and near the trees he found shade and coolness - a rare phenomenon for stuffy and hot Babylon. Despite the fact that such gardens could not compare with the nature of Queen Amytis’s native land, they were quite good at replacing her native area.

Why are the Gardens of Babylon called the Hanging Gardens? In fact, the Hanging Gardens were not in the air. The wonder of the world received this definition due to an incorrect translation from Greek or Latin. This meant the presence of green spaces on the levels. In addition, along the edges of the terraces there were climbing plants that seemed to float in the air.

5.Death of the Hanging Gardens

After the death of Nebuchadnezzar II, Babylon was captured some time later by Alexander the Great (IV century BC), who set up his residence in the palace. After his death, Babylon began to gradually collapse, and with it one of the wonders of the world: gardens with an artificial irrigation system and without proper care could not exist for long. After some time, they fell into disrepair, and then powerful floods of the nearby river took their toll, the foundation was washed away, the platforms fell, and the history of the amazing gardens ended.

6. Hanging Gardens of Babylon: interesting facts

 The name of the gardens was mistakenly assigned to Queen Semiramis. She had nothing to do with the famous garden. Semiramis lived two centuries after the wonder of the world was built, and she was also at enmity with the inhabitants of Babylon.

 According to the descriptions of ancient historians, stone that was not found in the vicinity of Babylon was used for the construction of the bases of the terraces and columns. It and fertile land for trees were brought from afar.

 Plants were brought from all over the world, but were planted taking into account their growth in natural conditions: on the lower terraces - ground, on the upper terraces - mountain. Plants from her homeland were planted on the queen’s favorite upper platform.

My research is how to build such gardens?

When I found out how these gardens were built, I began to wonder if it was possible to make such a magnificent garden at home, with the help of my parents.

We found drawings general view gardens and construction plans.

To create the layout we needed: images of hanging gardens made by scientists and artists different countries, A3 colored cardboard, a simple pencil, a ruler, scissors, PVA glue, double-sided tape, dark green “Oasis” material, artificial flowers and greenery, bamboo sticks for fastening the structures together.

The creation of the model began from the lower tier: the “oasis” was fastened together with bamboo sticks and given a rectangular shape; a wide staircase was also built from it, which leads to the lower floor. They created the appearance of a brick wall using colored cardboard and pasted over the mock-up of the first and remaining tiers.

Using artificial greenery, we created the appearance of vegetation on the surface of the model.

We make the second tier in the same way, but in size it will be significantly smaller than the first tier.

The two tiers are connected by four columns and a column in the center, which served as a water supply for the garden.

On two tiers we have a flower garden, small bushes, palm trees and vines. From tier to tier are located on both sides of the stairs. To enliven the composition, a figurine of a bird was added to the layout.

CONCLUSION

During my research, the hypothesis was confirmed - the Hanging Gardens of Babylon can be built with your own hands at home.

The goal that I set in my research - getting to know the second wonder of the world - was achieved.

All the tasks put forward in the work were completed: I collected and studied information about whether the hanging gardens were actually created; found out their whereabouts; found out who built the hanging gardens and why; I found out what they looked like, why they were called that and their death, and also made a model of the gardens.

My work is very important practical significance, since this material can be used in technology lessons and extracurricular activities.

CONCLUSION

My research turned out to be very interesting and informative. I learned that the garden did exist, although not for very long. I was surprised by the talent and skill of the craftsmen who created this miracle.

And it doesn’t matter whose name this garden is named after and who created it, another thing is interesting: how could builders without knowledge of mathematics, without the use of exact sciences, build such a structure?!

So the Hanging Gardens of Babylon can rightfully be considered the most mysterious of the seven wonders of the world.

THANK YOU

FOR ATTENTION!!!

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The Hanging Gardens of Babylon are one of the Seven Wonders of the World. A more correct name for this structure is the Hanging Gardens Amitis (according to other sources - Amanis): this was the name of the wife of the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II, for whose sake the gardens were created.

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History of appearance

The Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II (605-562 BC), in order to fight against the main enemy - Assyria, whose troops twice destroyed the capital of the state of Babylon, entered into a military alliance with Cyaxares, the king of Media. Having won, they divided the territory of Assyria among themselves. Their military alliance was confirmed by the marriage of Nebuchadnezzar II to the daughter of the Median king Amitis

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They were built by order of Nebuchadnezzar for his beloved wife Amytis, a Median princess who yearned for the green hills of Media in dusty Babylon. This king, who destroyed city after city and even entire states, built a lot in Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar turned the capital into an impregnable stronghold and surrounded himself with unprecedented luxury, even in those days.

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Structure of the Hanging Gardens

Nebuchadnezzar built his palace on an artificially created platform, raised to the height of a four-tier structure. Hanging gardens were laid out on earthen terraces resting on vaults.

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The vaults were supported by powerful tall columns located inside each floor. The terrace platforms were a complex structure. At their base lay massive stone slabs with a layer of reeds covered with asphalt.

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Then there was a double row of bricks connected with plaster. Even higher are lead plates to retain water. The terrace itself was covered with a thick layer of fertile soil, in which large trees could take root.

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Why Hanging?

The very name of the miracle - the Hanging Gardens - misleads us. The gardens did not hang in the air! And they weren’t even supported by ropes, as they had previously thought. The gardens were not hanging, but protruding.

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The Hanging Gardens were amazing - trees, shrubs and flowers from all over the world grew in noisy and dusty Babylon. The plants were located as they should have grown in their natural environment: lowland plants - on the lower terraces, highland plants - on the higher ones. Trees such as palm, cypress, cedar, boxwood, plane tree, and oak were planted in the Gardens.

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The well-known Hanging Gardens of Babylon are a marvelous architectural creation of magical beauty, which, unfortunately, has not survived to this day, but is ranked among the seven wonders of the world.

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The Hanging Gardens were amazing - trees, shrubs and flowers from all over the world grew in noisy and dusty Babylon. The most beautiful plants were selected for planting in the Hanging Gardens.

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Now tourists coming to Iraq are offered to look at the ruins remaining from the Gardens, but these debris are unlikely to impress.

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Destruction:

In 331 BC. e. Alexander the Great's troops captured Babylon. The famous commander made the city the capital of his huge empire. It was here, in the shadow of the Hanging Gardens, that he died in 339 BC. e. After the death of Alexander, Babylon gradually fell into decay. The gardens were in disrepair. Powerful floods destroyed the brick foundation of the columns, and the platforms collapsed to the ground. Thus one of the wonders of the world perished.

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Briefly about the Hanging Gardens

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Another slave died today, Without words of mercy, anger or resentment. A many-legged crab closed over him - The Hanging Gardens of Babylon. The loving king could not bear the reproach. He spared neither money nor slaves For the joy of his noble wife. The slaves will build the garden in the shortest possible time. They - slaves, they don’t need coffins, And the soil will become twice as fertile! The dawn of humanity is rising, And the truths have not yet been beaten. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon are speaking quietly to the wind about something...

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90 kilometers from Baghdad are the ruins of Ancient Babylon. The city has long ceased to exist, but even today the ruins testify to its grandeur. In the 7th century BC. Babylon was the largest and richest city of the Ancient East. There were many amazing structures in Babylon, but most striking were the hanging gardens of the royal palace - gardens that became a legend.

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Legend associates the creation of the famous gardens with the name of the Assyrian queen Semiramis. Diodorus and other Greek historians say that she built the “Hanging Gardens” in Babylon. True, until the beginning of our century, the “Hanging Gardens” were considered pure fiction, and their descriptions were simply excesses of a wild poetic fantasy.

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Semiramis herself, or rather, her biography, was the first to contribute to this. Semiramis (Shammuramat) is a historical figure, but her life is legendary. Ctesias preserved her detailed biography, which Diodorus later repeated almost verbatim.

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“In ancient times there was a city in Syria called Askalon, and next to it there was a deep lake, where the temple of the goddess Derketo stood.” Outwardly, this temple looked like a fish with a human head. The goddess Aphrodite became angry with Derketo for something and made her fall in love with a mere mortal youth. Then Derketo gave birth to his daughter and, in anger, irritated by this unequal marriage, killed the young man, and she disappeared into the lake. Legendary Semiramis

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The girl was saved by pigeons: they warmed her with their wings, carried milk in their beaks, and when the girl grew up, they brought her cheese. The shepherds noticed hollowed-out holes in the cheese, followed the trail of the pigeons and found a lovely child. They took the girl and took her to the caretaker of the royal herds, Simmas. “He made the girl his daughter, gave her the name Semiramis, which means “dove” among the people of Syria, and raised her approximately. She surpassed everyone in her beauty.” This became the key to her future career.

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During a trip to these parts, Onnes, the first royal adviser, saw Semiramis and immediately fell in love with her. He asked Simmas for her hand and, taking her to Nineveh, made her his wife. She bore him two sons. “Since, in addition to beauty, she had all the virtues, she had complete power over her husband: he did nothing without her, and he succeeded in everything.”

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Then the war with neighboring Bactria began, and with it the dizzying career of Semiramis... King Nin went to war with a large army: “with 1,700,000 foot, 210,000 horsemen and 10,600 war chariots.” But even with such large forces, the warriors of Nineveh could not conquer the capital of Bactria. Not a friend heroically repelled all the attacks of the Ninevites, and Onnes, unable to do anything, began to be burdened by the current situation. Then he invited his beautiful wife to the battlefield. The dizzying career of Semiramis

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“When setting out on the journey,” writes Diodorus, “she ordered a new dress to be sewn for herself,” which is quite natural for a woman. However, the dress was not entirely ordinary: firstly, it was so elegant that it determined the fashion among society ladies of that time; secondly, it was sewn in such a way that it was impossible to determine who was wearing it - a man or a woman.

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Arriving at her husband, Semiramis studied the battle situation and established that the king always leads an attack on the weakest part of the fortifications according to military tactics and common sense. But Semiramis was a woman, which means she was not burdened with military knowledge. She called for volunteers and attacked the strongest part of the fortifications, where - according to her assumptions - there were the fewest defenders. Having easily won, she used the moment of surprise and forced the city to capitulate.

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“The king, delighted with her courage, gave her a gift and began to persuade Onnes to give in to Semiramis voluntarily, promising for this to give him his daughter Sosana as his wife. When Onnes did not want to agree, the king threatened to gouge out his eyes, for he was blind to the orders of his master. Onnes, suffering from the king's threats and love for his wife, eventually went crazy and hanged himself. In this way Semiramis acquired the royal title.” Leaving an obedient governor in Bactria, Nin returned to Nineveh, married Semiramis, and she bore him a son, Ninias. After the death of the king, Semiramis began to rule, although the king had a son-heir.

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Semiramis did not marry again, although many sought her hand. And, enterprising in nature, she decided to surpass her deceased royal husband. She founded: on the Euphrates a new city - Babylon, with powerful walls and towers, a magnificent bridge over the Euphrates - “all this in one year.” Then she drained the swamps around the city, and in the city itself she built an amazing temple to the god Bel with a tower, “which was unusually high, and the Chaldeans there watched the rising and setting of the stars, for such a structure was most suitable for this.”

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She also ordered the construction of a statue of Bel, weighing 1000 Babylonian talents (equal to approximately 800 Greek talents), and erected many other temples and cities. under her, a convenient road was built through the seven ridges of the Zagros chain to Lydia, a state in the west of Asia Minor. in Lydia, she built the capital Ecbatana with a beautiful royal palace, and brought water to the capital through a tunnel from distant mountain lakes.

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Then Semiramis started a war - the first Thirty Years' War. She invaded the Median kingdom, from there she went to Persia, then to Egypt, Libya and finally to Ethiopia. Everywhere Semiramis won glorious victories and acquired new slaves for her kingdom. Only in India was she unlucky: after her first successes she lost three-quarters of her army. True, this did not affect her firm intention to win at any cost, but one day she was easily wounded in the shoulder by an arrow. Semiramis returned to Babylon on her fast horse. There a heavenly sign appeared to her that she should not continue the war, and therefore, having pacified the rage caused by the daring messages of the Indian king (he called her a lover of love affairs, but used a ruder expression), she continued to rule in peace and harmony.

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Meanwhile, Ninia became bored with her inglorious life. He decided that his mother had been ruling the country for too long, and organized a conspiracy against her: “with the help of one eunuch, he decided to kill her.” The queen voluntarily transferred power to her son, “then she went out onto the balcony, turned into a dove and flew away... straight into immortality.”

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However, a more realistic version of her life story has also been preserved. According to the Greek writer Athenaeus of Naucratis (2nd century), Semiramis was at first “an insignificant court lady at the court of one of the Assyrian kings,” but she was “so beautiful that she won the royal love with her beauty.” And soon she persuaded the king, who took her as his wife, to give her power for only five days... Having received the rod and donned the royal dress, she immediately organized a great feast, at which she won over the military leaders and all the dignitaries; On the second day, she already ordered the people and noble people to give her royal honors, and threw her husband into prison. So this determined woman seized the throne and retained it until old age, performing many great deeds. A realistic point of view about the appearance of Semiramis.

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“Such are the contradictory reports of historians about Semiramis,” Diodorus concludes skeptically. And yet Semiramis was real historical figure, however, we know little about her. In addition to the famous Shammuramat, we know several more “Semiramis”. About one of them, Herodotus wrote that “she lived five human centuries before another Babylonian queen, Nitocris” (i.e. around 750 BC). Other historians call Semiramis Atossa, the daughter and co-ruler of King Beloch, who ruled at the end of the 8th century BC.

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However, the famous “Hanging Gardens” were not created by Semiramis and not even during her reign, but later, in honor of another - non-legendary - woman. They were built by order of King Nebuchadnezzar for his beloved wife Amytis, a Median princess who, in dusty Babylon, yearned for the green hills of Media. This king, who destroyed city after city and even entire states, built a lot in Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar turned the capital into an impregnable stronghold and surrounded himself with luxury unparalleled even in those times. Nebuchadnezzar built his palace on an artificially created platform, raised to the height of a four-tiered structure.

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The Hanging Gardens were laid out in the north-eastern part of the palace, on earthen terraces resting on vaults. The vaults were supported by powerful high columns located inside each floor. The platforms of the terraces were a complex structure - at their base lay massive stone slabs with a layer of reeds covered with asphalt. Then there was a double row of bricks connected with plaster, and even higher - lead plates to retain water. The terrace itself was covered with a thick layer of fertile soil, in which large trees could take root. The floors of the gardens rose in ledges and were connected by wide, gentle staircases covered with pink and white stone. Garden organization

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The height of the floors reached almost 28 meters and provided enough light for plants. Trees and seeds of rare herbs, flowers and bushes wrapped in damp matting were brought to Babylon in carts drawn by oxen. And trees of the most amazing species and beautiful flowers bloomed in extraordinary gardens. Day and night, hundreds of slaves turned a lifting wheel with leather buckets, bringing water from the Euphrates to the gardens.

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Magnificent gardens with rare trees, fragrant flowers and coolness in sultry Babylonia were truly a wonder of the world. But during the Persian rule, Nebuchadnezzar's palace fell into disrepair. It had 172 rooms (with a total area of ​​52,000 square meters), decorated and furnished with truly oriental luxury.

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Now the Persian kings occasionally stayed there during “inspection” trips throughout their vast empire. But in the 4th century this palace became the residence of Alexander the Great. The throne room of the palace and the chambers of the lower tier of the hanging gardens were last place the presence on earth of a great commander who spent 16 years in continuous wars and campaigns and did not lose a single battle.

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The man who excavated the Hanging Gardens was the German scientist Robert Koldewey. He was born in 1855 in Germany, studied in Berlin, Munich and Vienna, where he studied architecture, archeology and art history. Before he was thirty, he managed to take part in excavations in Assos and on the island of Lesbos. In 1887 he was engaged in excavations in Babylonia, later in Syria, southern Italy, Sicily, then again in Syria. Hanging Gardens Found

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Koldewey was an extraordinary person, and in comparison with his professional colleagues, an unusual scientist. His love for archeology, a science that, according to the publications of some specialists, may seem boring, did not prevent him from studying countries, observing people, seeing everything, noticing everything, reacting to everything. Among other things, Koldewey the architect had one passion: his favorite pastime was the history of sewers. Architect, poet, archaeologist and sanitation historian - such a rare combination! And it was he who found the famous “Hanging Gardens”!

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And finally Koldewey discovered traces of a deep stone well, but a well with a strange three-stage spiral shaft. The vault was lined not only with brick, but also with stone. The totality of all the details made it possible to see in this building an extremely successful design for that time (both from the point of view of technology and from the point of view of architecture); Apparently, this structure was intended for very special purposes.

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In all the literature about Babylon, starting with ancient authors (Josephus, Diodorus, Ctesias, Strabo and others) and ending with cuneiform tablets, wherever the “sinful city” was discussed, there were only two mentions of the use of stone in Babylon, and this was especially emphasized during the construction of the northern wall of the Qasr region and during the construction of the “Hanging Gardens” of Babylon. Koldewey re-read the ancient sources again. He weighed every phrase, every line, every word; he even ventured into the alien field of comparative linguistics. In the end, he came to the conclusion that the found structure could not be anything other than the vault of the basement floor of the evergreen “hanging gardens” of Babylon, inside of which there was an amazing plumbing system for those times. And suddenly it dawned on Koldewey!

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But there was no more miracle: the hanging gardens were destroyed by floods of the Euphrates, which rises 3-4 meters during floods. And now we can imagine them only from the descriptions of ancient authors and with the help of our own imagination. Even in the last century, the German traveler, member of many honorary scientific societies, I. Pfeifer in her travel notes described that she saw “on the ruins of El-Qasr one forgotten tree from the cone-bearing family, completely unknown in these parts. The Arabs call it atale and consider it sacred. The most talked about this tree amazing stories(as if it were left over from the “Hanging Gardens”) and they claim that they heard sad, plaintive sounds in its branches when a strong wind blows.”