The Hanging Gardens of Babylon were one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, described by Greek and Roman writers as a series of green terraces watered by ingenious machinery. Later tradition attributed them to the Neo-Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II, who supposedly built them to comfort his homesick wife. However, no Babylonian text mentions the gardens, and excavations at Babylon have not found clear traces of them. Some scholars, notably Stephanie Dalley, have argued that they stood at Nineveh and were built by the Assyrian king Sennacherib, a suggestion that fits the earlier date shown here. Whether the gardens ever existed as described remains uncertain.
Before and after
- from 626 BCE to 539 BCENeo-Babylonian Empire
- 625 BCEBirth of Thales
- 620 BCEBirth of Aesop
- 7th century BCEIntroduction of tetradrachm
- 7th century BCEConstruction of Hanging Gardens of Babylon
- 7th century BCERise of Nyaya
- c. 601 BCEThe Lydians mint the first coins
- c. 600s BCEPhoenician sailors circumnavigate Africa, according to Herodotus
- from 600 BCE to 500 BCEArchaic Greece
More in Civilizations & archaeology
- from 8th century BCE to 3rd centuryClassical antiquity
- c. 700s BCEConstruction of Great Wall of China
- from 206 BCE to 220 CEHan dynasty
- 200 BCEOrigins of Nazca Lines
- 19 BCEConstruction of Western Wall
- from 476 CE to 1492Middle Ages
The era
This moment belongs to the Ancient civilizations (3,200 BCE to 500 CE), writing, cities and empires.