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

303 Pages·2013·6.593 MB·English

by  Stephanie Dalley

Stephanie Dalley of the Oriental Institute DS The Mystery of the Hanging Garden of Babylon
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in the University of Oxford is an Honorary A is an exciting story of detection involving
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Senior Research Fellow at Somerville College, LP legends, expert decipherment of ancient
a Member of Wolfson College, and a Fellow of LH STEPHANIE DALLEY texts, and a vivid description of a little-known
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the Society of Antiquaries of London. With YA civilization. Recognized in ancient times as
degrees in Assyriology from the Universities of N one of the Seven Wonders of the World,
Cambridge and London, her academic career I the legendary Hanging Garden of Babylon
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has specialized in the study of ancient cuneiform and its location have long been steeped in

texts as well as work on archaeological excava- mystery and puzzling myths.
tions in Iraq, Turkey, Syria, and Jordan. She has Where was the Hanging Garden of Babylon
written several books on the myths and culture H T In this remarkable volume Stephanie Dalley,
and what did it look like? Why did the ancient Greeks
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of ancient Mesopotamia, with special reference a a world expert on ancient Babylonian language,
to their impact on later civilizations, some of and Romans consider it to be one of the Seven n E exposes new evidence and clarifies all the

g M
which have been translated into Arabic, Italian, Wonders of the World? Renowned Babylonian expert in Y known material about this enigmatic World
and Japanese. She lives in Oxford with her Wonder. Placing the Garden within a tradition
g S
husband and maintains a large garden. Stephanie Dalley delves into the legends filled with T of royal patronage, Dalley describes how the
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decipherment of an original text and its link to
myth and mystery to piece together the enigmatic R
a
Y sculpture in the British Museum has enabled
r
history of this elusive World Wonder. d O her to pin down where and by which king the
e F Garden was laid out, and to describe in detail
n
T what it looked like. Through this dramatic
o H
and fascinating reconstruction of the Garden,
f E
Dalley also follows its influence on later
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garden design.
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Unscrambling layer by layer the many
B stories that have built up around the Garden,
including the parts played by Semiramis and
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Nebuchadnezzar, Dalley shows why this Garden
deserves its place alongside the Pyramids and
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the Colossus of Rhodes as one of the most
O astonishing technical achievements of the
ancient world.
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Jacket images: Front: Nebuchadnezzar’s palace in

Babylon. Gossypium arboreum, and Gossypium herbaceum,
2
the cotton-bearing tree and its shrub form. Reproduced
ISBN 978-0-19-966226-5
by kind permission of the Sherardian Library of 1
Plant Taxonomy.
Back and endpapers: Reconstruction drawing of
Sennacherib’s palace garden at Nineveh. (Drawing by 9 780199 662265
Terry Ball, © author). £25.00 RRP $34.95 USA
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THE MYSTERY OF THE
HANGING GARDEN OF BABYLON
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OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,21/3/2013,SPi
This book is dedicated to the memory of my parents
Denys and Katie Page
who packed me off to Nimrud in northern Iraq in 1962
for the first of many adventures in archaeology and epigraphy
OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,21/3/2013,SPi
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Acknowledgements
So many people have contributed to the development of this work
that it is impossible to name them all, for the research began more
thaneighteenyearsago.Sinceitoverturnsalong-establishedunder-
standing, I would like to thank particularly warmly those who were
early supporters of the work when doubts were still strong. They
include Christopher Dalley especially for discussion of engineering
aspects and great help in reading and criticizing successive drafts;
Kai Brodersen; Margaret Drower, David Oates and Geza Vermes
after hearing lectures; David Stronach; Simon Raikes and his team
for making the BBC programme Secrets of the Ancients in 1999,
especially Andrew Lacey for discussion of bronze-casting and for
drafting reconstruction drawings; Eleanor Robson who pointed to a
useful clue in a cuneiform mathematical text; John Dransfield of the
Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew for help with details of date palms;
andDavidUssishkinforurgingmetolookforimitators.
For discussion of particular issues I thank Mark Brown of Spaans
Babcock, George Cawkwell, Robin Lane Fox, Norma Franklin, Liz
Frood, Joyce Reynolds, John Russell, Sue Sherratt, Grahame Soffe,
Arie van der Kooij, Stephanie West and Martin Worthington. For
generalencouragementIthankJohnBoardman,IainCheyne,Mario
Geymonat, Kathryn Gleason, Audrey Gordon-Walker, Sarah Gurr,
Elizabeth Macaulay, Arthur MacGregor, David Ottewill and Chris
Scarre. The staff and the facilities of the Sackler Library in Oxford
wereinvaluable.ChristopherDalley,RebeccaDalleyandSarahShaw
readalatedraftof thebook,andtheir very differentcritical insights
led to improvements, not least when they tripped up on the jargon
of Assyriology, the infelicities compounded by computer-writing,
and inadequate explanations for non-specialist readers. I also thank
particularly warmly one of the anonymous readers for the Oxford
University Press. None of them is to blame for remaining errors of
judgement,factorstyle.
In a different way I would like to thank those who opposed the
work,initiallyatleast,fortheygalvanizedmetogreaterefforts.Afew
ofthemhavealreadyacknowledgedconversion.
OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,21/3/2013,SPi
viii Acknowledgements
I thank the following for inviting and arranging lectures: The
British School of Archaeology in Iraq in 1993; the late Rosemary
NicholsonfortheMuseumofGardenHistoryinLambeth;Elizabeth
Foy, Sarah Carthew and Henrietta McCall for the British Museum
Society in 1995; Liz Potterton for the Oxford Archaeological Society
in 1995; Lutfi Al-Soumi for the Aleppo Historical Society in 1996;
LamiaAl-GailanifortheKufaGalleryinWestbourneGrove,London,
in 1998 (in aid of Help the Children of Iraq); Christopher Coleman
for the Bloomsbury School, London, in 1999; Lucinda Lewis-Crosby
fortheOxfordGardenSocietyintheSunningwellArtSchoolin2001;
Philippe Talon and the late André Finet for the Institut des Hautes
Études de Belgique in 2003; Virginia Hastings for the University of
the Third Age, Headington, Oxford, in 2004; the Department for
Continuing Education at Rewley House, Oxford, in 2005; Irene
Winter of Harvard University in 2005; Kai Brodersen who arranged
forme tolecturein Mannheim,Heidelberg,Freiburg andInnsbrück
in2005;theRoyalLiteraryandScientificInstitutioninBathin2005;
the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford in 2007; Lucio Milano at the
AdvancedSeminarfortheHumanitiesinVenice,2008;andDiederik
MeijerforExOrienteLuxintheNetherlandsin2011.Onallofthose
occasions the ongoing research benefited from comments and from
questionsaskedbymembersoftheaudience.
IamdeeplyindebtedtothelateTerryBallforthefinedrawinghe
made after careful discussion on how to reconstruct the garden at
Nineveh, and to Andrew Lacey for a draft drawing; also to Marion
Coxfordrawingthebrazierwiththedog.
Mostof all I warmlyacknowledge thetremendous work on many
facets of the history and archaeology of Nineveh done by other
scholars, especially Julian Reade. It will be clear not least from the
bibliography that much of this book could not have been written
without his detailed studies which span the years from 1967 until
recently.
StephanieDalley
TheOrientalInstitute
UniversityofOxford
March2012
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Contents
ListofColourPlates x
ListofFigures xii
Time-line xix
GeneralMap xxii
Introduction 1
1. DrawingaBlankinBabylon 13
2. ClassicalWritersandtheirTestimony 29
3. ThreePictures,andArchimedes 43
4. Sennacherib’sGreatInvention 61
5. EngineeringforWaterManagement 83
6. ConfusionofNames 107
7. TheUnrivalledPalace,theQueenandtheGarden 127
8. SymbolismandImitators 153
9. DefeatandRevival:Ninevehafter612bc 179
Conclusion 203
Appendix:TheSectionofPrismInscriptionDescribing
thePalaceandGarden 209
Notes 215
Bibliography 245
Index 269