The Hanging Gardens

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one of the Great Wonders of the World, were believed to be created by Nebuchadnezzar, possibly to honor the Assyrian princess Semiramis, or, more likely, to cheer up Nebuchadnezzar?s unhappy, homesick wife, Amyitis. If the latter is to be believed, it is speculated that Amyitis found the dry, arid landscape of Mesopotamia, in contrast to the lush greenery of her homeland, to be staggeringly depressing and bleak. To bolster her spirits, the king recreated a fascimile of her mountanous, green home with this fantastic terraced wonder filled with sparkling waterfalls, strange beasts, and exotic fruits, trees and flowers.

It consists of vaulted terraces raised one above another, and resting upon cube-shaped pillars. These are hollow and filled with earth to allow trees of the largest size to be planted. The pillars, vaults, and terraces are constructed of baked brick and asphalt.

The Garden is quadrangular, and each side is four plethra long. It consists of arched vaults which are located on checkered cube-like foundations.. The ascent of the uppermost terrace-roofs is made by a stairway...

The Hanging Garden has plants cultivated above ground level, and the roots of the trees are embedded in an upper terrace rather than in the earth. The whole mass is supported on stone columns... Streams of water emerging from elevated sources flow down sloping channels... These waters irrigate the whole garden saturating the roots of plants and keeping the whole area moist. Hence the grass is permanently green and the leaves of trees grow firmly attached to supple branches... This is a work of art of royal luxury and its most striking feature is that the labor of cultivation is suspended above the heads of the spectators.

This perfume is an interpretation of the Hanging Gardens by night, based on further accounts of its fruit and flora: date palm, ebony, fir, pomegranate, plum, two pears, quince, fig, and grapevine with plumeria, three gardenias and dry rose.