Hanging Gardens of Babylon

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon were one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
They remain a Legend, as no archeological evidence has yet been discovered, except possibly at Nineveh.

Berossus writing around 290 BCE, suggested they had been built by Nebuchadnezzar II (605-562 BCE) as a present for his wife Amyitis, who was from the kingdom of the Medes.
They do not seem to have survived after the first century CE.

The Gardens were a green oasis in the middle of a desert city.
They were described in detail by Strabo and Diodorus Siculus, who had however, probably never seen them.
Strabo describes the gardens as a series of vaulted terraces, one above the other, supported by hollow pillars with trees planted inside them. The vaults, terraces and pillars were all built of baked bricks held tohether by asphalt.
Diodorus Siculus describes the size of the Gardens as being 400 feet long by 400 feet wide by 80 feet high.

Strabo describes the terraces as being connected by flights of stairs, alongside which ran water engines raising water from the Euphrates to the upper levels.
He does not specify if these engines were water wheels or a type of Archimedes Screw.

Babylon