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by Mish Shedlock, Mish Talk: I did not see this one coming. Did you? Facing potentially dozens of Republican House defects Trump Backs Vote to Release Epstein Files President Trump threw in the towel on dissuading House Republicans from backing a measure to release files related to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, saying Sunday night that GOP […]

  Of the list of Seven Wonders of the Ancient World made by ancient Greek writers and travelers, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon were the most distant. They were also the most elusive, as the gardens are the only ancient wonder that has not been identified by archaeologists, and they may not have been in Babylon at all.   Quick Facts About the Hanging Gardens of Babylon Built Early 6th century BCE (or possibly early 7th century BCE) Creators King Nebuchadnezzar II of the Neo-Babylonian Empire (or King Sennacherib of the Neo-Assyrian Empire) Location Babylon (or Nineveh) Overview Stacked gardens on vaulted terraces Destruction Unknown   What Were the Hanging Gardens of Babylon? Entry of Alexander into Babylon, or the Triumph of Alexander, by Charles Le Brun, 1665. Source: Wikimedia Commons   The Hanging Gardens of Babylon are the only one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World that have so far eluded archaeologists and historians. No conclusive archaeological evidence has ever been discovered to provide an indication as to their location or appearance. Instead, we rely on a series of short references to them in a variety of different textual sources.   The earliest known written reference to the Gardens is by Berossus, a priest of Marduk from Babylon, who described the Gardens in an account that is preserved by the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, active during the reign of Vespasian and the later Flavian emperors. According to this source, the Gardens were “terraces of stone” with “the look of hills.”     Another account is presented by the ancient Greek geographer Strabo. In his Geography, Strabo described the Gardens as “vaulted terraces, raised one above another, and resting upon cube-shaped pillars… The pillars, the vaults, and the terraces are constructed of baked brick and asphalt… At their side are water engines, by means of which persons, appointed expressly for the purpose, are continually employed in raising water from the Euphrates into the garden.”   While the exact design of the Hanging Gardens is still a matter of debate, they were clearly still flourishing around 500 years after they were reportedly built to be included in Antipater of Sidon’s list of Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.   OTHER WONDERS OF THE ANCIENT WORLD Pyramids at Giza Lighthouse of Alexandria Statue of Zeus Olympia Hanging Gardens of Babylon Colossus of Rhodes Temple of Artemis at Ephesus   Who Built the Hanging Gardens of Babylon?  The Three Jews Brought Before Nebuchadnezzar, by Philips Galle, 1565. Source: Los Angeles County Museum of Art   According to several legends, the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II, the second king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, was the man responsible for building the Hanging Gardens.   Coming to power in 605 BCE following the death of Nabopolassar, Nebuchadnezzar reigned for 43 years, an extraordinarily long reign in the ancient world. His reign is famous for two reasons: building and conquest. He was a warrior king, and he was infamously responsible for the sack of Jerusalem and the enslavement of the Jewish people in Babylon in the aftermath.   Clay tablet presenting a historical chronicle of Nebuchadnezzar II’s campaign against Jerusalem in 597 BCE. Source: British Museum   However, Nebuchadnezzar II is also remembered as a great builder king. Investing in the material fabric of cities provided invaluable legitimacy as both a display of beneficence and of reverence for the past and tradition. In Nebuchadnezzar’s case, most of his attention was focused on the imperial capital, Babylon, although other cities also benefited.   King Nebuchadnezzar Besieging Jerusalem, by Frans Pourbus, 1880. Source: Harvard Art Museums   During his reign, numerous temples were restored throughout the city, including the Esagila, the principal temple of Marduk, and the Etemenanki, a ziggurat dedicated to the same god. For some, the towering edifice of the Etemenanki has been equated with the biblical tale of the Tower of Babel.   Whether or not Nebuchadnezzar II was responsible for the Hanging Gardens themselves remains open to debate, thanks in part to the conflicting accounts preserved in the later Hellenistic sources.   Were the Hanging Gardens of Babylon a Token of Love?  Nebuchadnezzar Ordering the Construction of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon to Please his Consort Amytis, by René-Antoine Houasse, 1676. Source: Palace of Versailles   According to Berossus, Nebuchadnezzar’s grand project was not an act of megalomania nor of reverence for the past. Rather, it was a gesture of love for his wife, Amytis.   The marriage between Nebuchadnezzar and Amytis, the daughter of the King of the Medes, was orchestrated by Nabopolassar, Nebuchadnezzar’s father, as a way of solidifying an alliance between the two peoples.   Detail of the south façade of the Throne Room of Nebuchadnezzar II, 6th century BCE, with details of palm trees. Source: Pergamonmuseum, Berlin   Reputedly, after arriving in Babylon, Amytis felt homesick for the greenery and mountainous terrain of her homeland. To help his queen acclimatize, Berossus describes how Nebuchadnezzar ordered the construction of the lush garden. In their height and verdant greenery, they were meant to recall Amytis’ homeland.   The Importance of Gardens in Ancient Mesopotamia The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, by Valentin Foulquier, 1840-1878. Source: British Museum   Whether or not the Hanging Gardens existed, or were built for Amytis to replicate her homeland, it is clear from a variety of evidence that extensive gardens were highly prized in the civilizations that called Mesopotamia home.   It is widely held that the modern word “paradise” stems from the languages in this region, whereby a pairi-daeza in Eastern Old Iranian (literally a walled enclosure — pairi — and to make or build — from diz), came to be associated with the vast walled gardens constructed across the territory.   Relief of the Banquet of Ashurbanipal, Nineveh N. Palace, 645-635 BCE. Source: British Museum   At the time, the importation of trees and other shrubs into new territories and into display settings such as gardens was used to symbolize the strength and reach of an empire, much as it was in ancient Rome. For example, palm trees featured on the reverse of Roman coins symbolize the Flavian conquest of Judaea.   As technological advancements, such as irrigation, facilitated the creation of these gardens, it seems likely that exotic vegetation from the far corners of empires would have been brought to the capitals to impress upon visitors the strength and wealth of the kings. This was certainly the case in the Gardens of Ashurbanipal, the Neo-Assyrian King. The use of these gardens as extravagant showcases of imperial reach also lends itself well to Berossus’ description of Amytis’ homesickness.   Controversy: The Hanging Gardens of Nineveh? A hexagonal clay prism recording the campaigns of Sennacherib, known as the ‘Annals of Sennacherib’ or the ‘Sennacherib Prism’, 691 BCE. Source: British Museum   Given the absence of archaeological evidence for the existence of the wondrous Hanging Gardens at Babylon, could it be that this lush oasis has actually been wrongly attributed?   This is the argument of Oxford University Assyriologist Stephanie Dalley, who suggests that the gardens that were featured on the list of wonders were actually those built by the Assyrian King Sennacherib, who reigned 704-681 BCE, almost a century prior to Nebuchadnezzar II.   The son of Sargon II, Sennacherib, like Nebuchadnezzar, is infamous for his campaigns recorded in the Hebrew Bible, although he spared Jerusalem. Notably, Sennacherib was also responsible for destroying Babylon in 689 BCE. It was from this ruin that Nebuchadnezzar would look to restore his imperial capital in the decades that followed. The accounts of Sennacherib’s campaigns in the Levant, including the sack of Babylon, are recorded on the Prism of Sennacherib.   The Defeat of Sennacherib, by Pieter Claesz Soutman and Peter Paul Rubens, 1618-1620. Source: National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC   Like Nebuchadnezzar, Sennacherib was a prolific builder. After transferring the capital of the Assyrian Empire to the city of Nineveh (on the outskirts of modern Mosul in northern Iraq), he set about ensuring the city was a suitable residence for a King.   His ambitious building project included an expansive palace (the Southwest Palace, which he called his “Palace without Rival”) and the construction of vast gardens adjacent to this palace at Nineveh.   Given that only Berrosus (via Josephus) presents the gardens as a work of Nebuchadnezzar, there is a compelling case to be made for these being the actual gardens that were a wonder of the ancient world.   The discovery of a vast system of aqueducts, attributed to Sennacherib’s builders, suggests that the mass-irrigation network, including water-raising screws, might have fed a type of Hanging Gardens.   The Fall of Babylon, Philips Galle, 1569. Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York   The Hanging Gardens of Babylon remain one of the most captivating mysteries of the ancient world. Their location, their patron, their purpose, and their fate remain ultimately unknowable.   The absence of sufficient archaeological evidence ensures that the secrets of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the second oldest of all Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, remain tantalizingly just out of reach.

  Ancient civilizations and communities worldwide wondered about the mysteries of the skies, leading to existential reflections and observations that influenced people’s understanding of how the world was created and how society works. Today, researchers have identified ways in which celestial patterns helped ancient societies understand how landscapes change through time. Pre-Columbian civilizations recorded their observations through architecture, building temples to commemorate astral events and serve as observatories or calendric systems for measuring time.   What Is Archaeoastronomy? A photograph of a comet from Stonehenge by James Rushforth, 2020. Source: BBC Sky at Night Magazine   Archeoastronomy is a field of study that originated as a combination of archaeology and astronomy. However, more recent approaches to archeoastronomy propose it as an interdisciplinary field investigating how ancient communities and civilizations developed sky observation, measurement, and orientation technologies, sometimes accompanied by ritualistic practices and religious beliefs commemorating astral events. Although the discipline originated mainly as speculative fiction, today it has been able to integrate scientific methods, granting it more validity in the scientific community.   More straightforwardly, archeoastronomy studies how ancient cultures assigned cultural significance to the movements of the stars, planets, moon, and sun. It also pursues the study of temples and stone-made observatories that helped ancient peoples identify seasons for cultivation or record historical dates related to important social events. The prototypical example of archaeoastronomy is the study of Stonehenge in England, where stones arranged in a circle mark a ceremonial site with a processional path that aligns with the orientation of the rising sun in midsummer and the sunset in midwinter. This alignment of structures with astral objects has caught the discipline’s attention since the 20th century.   Why Was Astronomy Important for Ancient Civilizations? Photo of Piedra del Sol (Sun Stone) depicting a calendar, N.D. Source: Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia, Mexico   Observing the skies and understanding how patterns of astral movement relate to the surrounding environment has been one of the primary sources of cosmological understanding, mythological stories, and ritualistic practices among various cultures in the past and today. Christopher Y. Tilley dubbed this interest the “phenomenology of landscape,” a perspective that reveals how prehistoric sites related to the specificities of different topographic settings are material evidence of communities’ deep and heightened landscape perception.   Understanding the sky led to the creation of sophisticated calendars and orientation tools, as well as mythical stories that explained the world’s origin and how society should work. This was especially important for agrarian societies because it allowed them to better understand natural cycles of climate phenomena and soil fertility, influenced by rain as well as the direction and intensity of sunlight. At the time, what was observed was often explained as a combination of natural phenomena and mythical stories that sought practical ways to understand and gain some control over the environment. In most cases, the movements of celestial objects were believed to be caused by divine entities, which made the sky an essential part of many peoples’ religious beliefs as it was conceived as a space where divine entities resided and that held power over their bodies and territories.   The Maya of the Yucatán Peninsula Photo of the Mayan city of Chichen Itza’ by Paul Nicklen, 2013. Source: National Geographic   Between the 3rd and 9th centuries BCE, the Mayan civilization reached its golden age in the Yucatán Peninsula in present-day Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, and Honduras. The Maya believed the sky was populated by different divine entities corresponding to different environmental observable phenomena, such as rain, storms, or astral movements, especially those related to the sun, moon, and Venus.   Their interest in the sky was mainly due to their need to predict seasons and understand their influence on human behavior and social life. Their sophisticated observations were registered in the Mayan codices, later uncovered by the first European conquistadors in the 16th century. Some inscriptions showed different numbers related to dates of important social and historical events. Initially, it was believed that Maya only registered these dates with respect to the passage of time. However, it was later discovered that the inscriptions were often highly precise registers of historical dates. This led archaeologists to suggest they had a deep understanding of both time and space, likely due to systematic sky observation.   In addition to the written record, Mayans developed tables to register and predict eclipses. They created famous Mayan calendars, such as the Tzolkin, the Haab, and a long-count calendar. Because calendric and astronomical events were highly important in Mayan society, astronomers played a relevant role in their social hierarchy. They were involved in architectonic construction and urban planning. Moreover, Mayans built temples that aligned with different astral movements. For instance, in the city of Uxmal, different building orientations are related to the movements of Venus, an entity also represented in different carved façades.   Page 34 of Tro-Cortesianus Codex, or Madrid Codex, showing on top what is believed to be a depiction of a Mayan astronomer, 900-1251 BCE. Source: Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies, Inc – FAMSI   Perhaps the most remarkable example of Mayan archaeoastronomical construction is the temple of Chichen Itza in the Yucatán Peninsula. The site was registered in the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1988, includes temples built between 800 and 1100 BCE, and was visited by over 2 million people in 2023.   Photo of Temple of Kukulcán during the spring equinox, N.D. Source: Na’atik Mexico   Among the different temples that can be found in the area, the principal one is the Temple of Kukulcan, or “El Castillo” (The Castle). This pyramid-like construction has four sides, each with a staircase that connects the base with a dual-entrance square temple at the top of the building. Kukulcan, in Mayan Kꞌuꞌukꞌul Kaan, is the name of a mythical feathered serpent related to forces of wind and water, believed to have similarities with the Aztec deity Quetzalcoatl.   The staircases have carved stone serpent heads at their base, which are the protagonists of one of the most spectacular archaeoastronomical events in the world. Every year, on the 21st of March, during the spring equinox, the setting sun’s light hits one of the pyramid’s corners, creating a wave-like shadow on the staircase balustrade. As the sun sets, the play of light and shadow creates the illusion that a serpent is descending from the top of the temple to its base.   The Inca of Tawantinsuyu Photo of Intihuatana stone in Machu Picchu believed to be used for astronomical observations, N.D. Source: Machu Picchu Center   The Incas were the most extensive civilization in the Americas. After the arrival of Spanish conquistadors in the 16th century under the direction of Francisco Pizarro, the empire faced a rapid decline due not only to the invasion but also to internal political instability and diseases imported from Europe. The Incas had a rigid and complex sociopolitical hierarchy that concentrated power in the city of Cusco, which still exists today in Peru.   In contrast with the Mayan codices, the Incas used quipus to write and count, a system consisting of ropes and knots. Some of their most impressive architectural creations were stone-built houses and temples featuring perfectly carved stones assembled in exact alignment with one another and an extensive network of roads that connected their Empire and that are still used today.   Astronomical observations among the Incas were likely to have been registered using quipus, as some depictions of astronomers in historical chronicles have suggested. Evidence that the Incas had deep astronomical knowledge also lies in pillars dedicated to the Sun that were erected in different zones of Cusco. One particularly remarkable Inca astronomical site is the Intihuatana found in Machu Picchu, a ritual carved stone that is believed to have been used as a clock and calendar and aligned with the sun during the winter solstice. This lithic clock was “discovered” in 1911, and it is believed that the reason it still exists is simply because the Spanish never found it.   Other monoliths were subject to severe destruction and looting during the Spanish conquest of the region, as they likely believed these sites were an affront to Christianity. Some recent studies have shown that other regional sites may have served astronomical purposes, such as the Island of the Sun in Titicaca Lake, the Urubamba Valley, and Chankillo.   The Muysca of Colombia Photo of Templo del Sol by Aizquier, 2007. Source: Wikimedia Commons   Studying archaeological sites and their relationship with astronomical observations is a relatively new field in Colombia. Due to the intensive looting and destruction of indigenous sites by Spanish conquistadors in the 16th century, many astronomical sites disappeared. This was influenced by Christian evangelizers, who thought they were the work of the devil and a threat to building civilization. The aggressive sociocultural replacement of Indigenous society by Spain’s societal rules destroyed much of the local indigenous knowledge, and deep astronomical understandings reflected in sacred buildings and temples were lost.   However, some ethnohistorical research done among indigenous communities of Colombia, such as the UWA, Kogui, Tukano, and Muysca, showed how these communities may have achieved sophisticated knowledge of the sky, which they conceived of as a map. Muyscas built astronomically oriented temples based on divisions between the sun and moon, which also served to measure time. These structures reflected space, natural cycles, and philosophy.   Muyscas also developed a calendric system that they represented as a circle, a shape used to build houses and temples. One example is the Templo del Sol (Sun’s Temple), which is still preserved in the form of an artificial replica in the region of Boyacá, near Bogotá. The original construction was looted and destroyed by two soldiers under the direction of Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada, a Spanish conquistador of the Nuevo Reino de Granada (New Kingdom of Granada, now Colombia). This construction was dedicated to the Sun God Xue. It was built in alignment with the four cardinal directions, each marked by a door and upper squared openings that allow sunlight to reach the temple’s central pillar on December 22 every year. Another important site is located near the area, El Infiernito (the little hell), where different vertically standing monoliths are organized on a line, suggesting they could have been used as an astronomical observatory.   The Americas’ Lost Astronomical Knowledge Illustration of the Piedra del Sol Azteca (Aztec Sun Stone) depicted by Antonio de Leon y Gama in 1792. Source: Wikimedia Commons   The rapid dismantling that indigenous communities experienced during the conquest of the Americas resulted in much of their astronomical knowledge being destroyed. The Spanish Empire wanted to expand its rule throughout the Americas and civilize local communities. The Catholic religion played a big role in advocating the destruction of any local representation of what were considered “diabolic” symbols. For instance, sacred Indigenous sites were replaced by churches to facilitate evangelization.   Despite this, archeoastronomy has played an essential role in the study of ancient American civilizations. It reveals that Indigenous cosmogonies were more than mythical stories; they were the product of advanced sky observation and measurement technologies that allowed communities to understand what was happening in the sky and how it could influence their lands and societies.   Bibliography:   Magli, G. (2020). Archaeoastronomy: introduction to the science of stars and stones. Springer Nature.   Schele, L., Freidel, D., & Parker, J (1995). Maya Cosmos Quill, New York.   Reichel‐Dolmatoff, G. (1982). Astronomical models of social behavior among some Indians of Colombia. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 385(1), 165-181.   Tilley, C. Y. (1994). A phenomenology of landscape: places, paths, and monuments (Vol. 10). Oxfor