RE: The Hanging Gardens of Babylon

Hi Karrie and all

What a fun question, I have never heard it before.

Obviously any information is going to be circumstantial, derivative and
limited due to the paucity of horticulturally-literate Babylonian
historians but I think Anthony Huxley's "Illustrated History of
Gardening" gives some useful sign posts. Kurt Seligmann's
"Magic,Supernaturalism and Religion"  is pretty good too.  

As all the rulers of the relevant era (which stretches over a
considerable time span because no one knows who actually built the
thing, names put forward include Sargon 1st, Semiramis and
Nebuchadnezzar II) inter-married, conquered one another etc, it is
reasonable to expect a range of plants naturally occurring anywhere
between the Black Sea and modern Syria taking in India in the East and
Egypt in the West on the way. During the six odd centuries between
Tiglath Pileser, apparently a noted tree collector and Nebuchadnezzar
IInd (604 -  562), the Babylonian/Chaldeans/Assyrians must have built up
a pretty good plant collection in between trashing the city when it was
in the hands of an opposing dynasty (eg Sennacharib apparently wrecked
the place in 689 BC in spite of the fact that he was reputedly an
extravagant Park builder himself)

Nebuchadnezzar famously built the hanging gardens for Amytis, his Median
Queen who hankered after her cool mountains so he "reared (palaces) as
high as the hills" thus providing her with a nice micro-climate which
combined with the damp heat at the base, would support a large range of
planting. Forty years later Darius destroyed the lot.

Long before Nebuchadnezzar was on the throne, his Sumerian predecessors
in the region used a selection of medicinal herbs and one can expect the
priests, like oracles and Shamans everywhere to have used anything they
could find to get high on,. Pomegranates are a safe bet too. Various
trees would have had iconographic significance and if, as has been
suggested, the Hanging Gardens were based on Ziggurats and thus had a
quasi-religious function, they would have been appropriately planted. In
his Herb book, Malcolm Stuart says that a number of contemporary plant
names have Sumerian origins including Apricot,  Saffron, Cumin, Myrrh,
Mandrake, poppy, Mulberry and Sesame and further lists of plants used by
the Arabs, who inherited the Persian traditions which they themselves
had acquired from the Assyrians appear in the Dumbarton Oaks "The
Islamic Garden" of 1976. 

All in all, there should be enough there to re-create a decent Hanging
Garden in the Folsom foothills  and no one would have any hard evidence
with which to contradict you if they think you've got it wrong. 

Happy planting

Anthony

   

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-medit-plants@ucdavis.edu
[o*@ucdavis.edu] On Behalf Of
pkssreid@comcast.net
Sent: 29 September 2005 23:31
To: medit-plants@ucdavis.edu
Subject: The Hanging Gardens of Babylon

Hello All:
In a class today, a professor (teaching Urban Forestry) mentioned that
he had always wanted to know what was growing in the Hanging Gardens of
Babylon, and that he had been unsuccessful so far in finding any info.
Well, I figured with the collective research resource of this group,
someone must have come across something in their lifetime, if it is out
there to be found.  Please send me any sources you may have.  It would
be great to be able to share that information.

Karrie Reid
Folsom Foothill Gardener
Zone 9
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