Tuesday, May 25, 2010

The Hanging Gardens of Semiramis at Babylon were built by Nebuchadnezzar, the greatest character of Babylonian history to please his wife who had disliked the bareness of her new home. It is certain that he was a great builder; he restored many temples, put up bridges, and lined rivers with embankments. The walls he built around the city of Babylon were the longest, widest, and highest in the ancient world and added by Philo in his list of Seven Wonders. The Hanging Gardens were a series of terraces rising along the Euphates river bank in five tiers of 50 feet each above the next and connected by marble stairways. Each tier was planted with a profusion of fabulous trees, shrubs, and flowers. The gardens were watered by fountains fed through pipes from cisterns in the topmost terrace. Nebuchadnezzar had history's most celebrated gardens developed as an adjunct to his palace; but the Greeks ascribed them to Semiramis; a legendary queen of Babylon, daughter of the goddess Derceto.

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon were dedicated to the planet Venus

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