## Ancient Mesopotamian Gardens and the Identification of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon Resolved I haven't done a full dive into this awesome article, but the abstract says: > The [[Mesopotamia|Babylonians]] and Assyrians planted gardens in cities, palace courtyards, and temples, in which trees with fragrance and edible fruits were prominent for re-creating their concept of Paradise. The famous Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one of the Seven Wonders of late antiquity, have finally been identified as the palace garden of the Assyrian king Sennacherib, constructed not at Babylon but at Nineveh, which was also known as 'old Babylon', around 700 B.C. Sennacherib invented the Archimedean screw[^ordidhe], using cast copper or bronze, for watering the gardens. A sculpture now in the British Museum shows a part of the gardens in the reign of Sennacherib's grandson, when the trees had matured. [^ordidhe]: I discuss how annoying it is that the "Archimedean screw" is attributed to Archimedes in [[Infrastructure in Ancient Civilizations]]. The article, which I started digging up so I could describe [[Civil Mage Chapter 02 - Valentia|Irella's confrontation with Valentia after Eramepi's death]] has this great line (from a popular piece of Babylonian literature from 2000 BCE) that I used as inspiration: >The king plants a date-palm in his palace and fills up the space beside her with a tamarisk. Meals are enjoyed in the shade of the [[tamarisk]], skilled men gather in the shade of the date-palm, the drum is beaten, men give praise, and the king rejoices in his palace.