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Book Review of Legends of the Ancient World: The Hanging Gardens of Babylon

Legends of the Ancient World: The Hanging Gardens of Babylon
jjares avatar reviewed on + 3284 more book reviews


The Hanging Gardens of Babylon have mystified many over the centuries. After reading this, it is easy to see why there is so much controversy. It may boil down to what one man calls a hanging garden may not be what another would agree to.

The author delved into the historians of antiquity and saw that these men built their stories on the shoulders of the experts who came before. When the new historians use the ancient records, they rely on those reports to be accurate. When they are not, mistakes are multiplied.

This book spends time on the theories of Stephanie Dalley. She postulates a stunning new theory. She believes that the Hanging Gardens were in a different city, the Assyrian capital of Ninevah. All these years, the gardens have been attributed to the Neo-Babylonian city of Babylon, at a different time and by a different ruler. I would be interested to see an update (this was printed in 2013), to see if her theory still stands. This book offers an interesting view of her theories.