The Mystery of the Hanging Garden of Babylon: An Elusive World Wonder Traced

by Stephanie Dalley

  13. References and updating are given by Frahm, Einleitung in die Sanherib-Inschriften (1997), 267–8, nos. 6–11.

  14. Frahm, Einleitung (1997), 268, no. 26; Luckenbill, Annals of Sennacherib (1924), 120–1, col. vi lines 47–53; A. Heidel, ‘The octagonal Sennacherib Prism in the Iraq Museum’, Sumer 9 (1953), 160, col. vi, lines 66–84.

  15. See J. M. Russell, Sennacherib’s Palace Without Rival at Nineveh (1991), 6.

  16. E. Frahm, ‘Die Bilder in Sanheribs Thronsaal’, Nouvelles assyriologiques brèves et utilitaires 55 (1994).

  17. Mallowan, Nimrud and its Remains, vol. 2 (1966), 480; J. E. Curtis, ‘Glass inlays and Nimrud ivories’, Iraq 61 (1999), 59–69; J. E. Reade, ‘Assyrian architectural decoration: techniques and subject-matter’, Baghdader Mitteilungen 10 (1979), 25.

  18. Rock crystal, which Assyrian craftsmen were adept at carving; they made effective lenses from it too. See Layard, Nineveh and Babylon (1853), 197–8.

  19. G. Smith, Assyrian Discoveries (1875), 98.

  20. S. Dalley, ‘Ancient Assyrian textiles and the origins of carpet design’, Iran 29 (1991), 117–35.

  21. S. Dalley, ‘Hebrew TAHAŠ, Akkadian DUHŠU, faience and beadwork’, Journal of Semitic Studies 45 (2000), 1–19.

  22. J. J. Orchard, ‘Some miniature painted glass plaques from Fort Shalmaneser, Nimrud’, part I, Iraq 40 (1978), 1–22. Their function was not established.

  23. J. M. Russell, ‘Sennacherib’s Palace Without Rival Revisited’, eds. S. Parpola and R. Whiting, Assyria 1995 (1997), 300.

  24. J. Macginnis, ‘Some inscribed horse troughs of Sennacherib’, Iraq 51 (1989), 187–92.

  25. Esther 1: 6.

  26. Suggestions that an upper storey and windows were also features of a bīt hilāni are based on a mistaken analysis of hilāni and appāti, the former word probably Hittite and Luwian referring to a room with pillars, the latter a Hurrian word for a portico. See M. Novak, ‘Hilani und Lustgarten’, eds. M. Novak et al., Die Aussenwirkung des späthethitischen Kulturraumes (2009), 299–305.

  27. An Egyptian type of villa may have been one influence on the design. See e.g. L. Manniche, An Ancient Egyptian Herbal (1989), 9.

  28. Or double, 35 tons, if the heavy version of the talent is meant.

  29. E. Fugmann, Hama, vol. 2/1, L’Architecture des périodes pré-Hellenistiques (1958), 204, fig. 257; K. Kohlmeyer, ‘The Temple of the Storm God in Aleppo during the Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages’, Near Eastern Archaeology 72 (2009), 190–202.

  30. D. Oates and J. Oates, Nimrud: An Assyrian Imperial City Revealed (2003), plate 12c.

  31. See J. M. Russell, The Writing on the Wall: Studies in the Architectural Context of Late Assyrian Palace Inscriptions (1999), 107.

  32. e.g. M. Cogan, ‘Ashurbanipal Prism F: notes on scribal techniques and editorial procedures’, Journal of Cuneiform Studies 29 (1977), 97–107; A. K. Grayson, ‘The Walters Art Gallery inscription’, Archiv für Orientforschung 20 (1963), 84 n. 7. Another example is the Nimrud Monolith inscription of Ashurnasirpal II (883–859 BC), in which the king as subject in the first person ‘I’ changes briefly in lines 74–5 to third person ‘he’. See Grayson, Assyrian Rulers of the Early First Millennium BC, 1: 1114–859 BC (1991), 241.

  33. I. Ephal and H. Tadmor, ‘Observations on two inscriptions of Esarhaddon’, eds. Y. Amit and N. Na’aman, Essays on Ancient Israel in its Near Eastern Context (2006), 155–70.

  34. Russell, The Writing on the Wall (1999), 180.

  35. Pointed out by J. A. Black, ‘Babylonian textual evidence’, Northern Akkad Project Reports 1 (1987), 21.

  36. I am grateful to Martin Worthington for discussion and for allowing me to quote this example from his Cambridge Ph.D. thesis.

  37. Barnett et al., Sculptures from the Southwest Palace, vol. 2 (1998), plates 223–6, and note in vol. 1, p. 86 suggesting that some features may represent the landscape of Khinnis and Bavian. See also J. E. Reade, ‘Assyrian illustrations of Nineveh’, Iranica Antiqua 33 (1998), 81–94.

  38. R. Borger, ‘König Sanheribs Eheglück’, Annual Review of the Royal Inscription of Mesopotamia Project 6 (1988), 5–11, with a different interpretation in S. Dalley, ‘More about the Hanging Gardens’, ed. L. Al-Gailani-Werr et al., Of Pots and Plans (2002), 68.

  39. J. D. Hawkins, Corpus of Hieroglyphic Luwian Inscriptions, vol. 1 part 1 (1999–2000), 96–104.

  40. F. W. König, Handbuch der chaldischen Inschriften (1955–7), no. 40a.

  41. It has been suggested that Naqia is a Hebrew name, which would imply that she was related to Hezekiah in Jerusalem. See Melville, The Role of Naqia/Zakutu (1999), 14 n. 10, quoting M. Weinfeld.

  42. K.-H. Deller, ‘SAG.DU UR.MAH, Löwenkopfsitula, Löwenkopfbecher’, Baghdader Mitteilungen 16 (1985), 327–46.

  43. Grayson, Assyrian Rulers of the Early First Millennium BC, 1: 114–859 BC (1991), 27.

  44. Terry was influenced in this by the design for watering the garden at Château de Marly, built for Louis XIV, with pumps set alongside steps.

  45. See H. Frankfort, The Art and Architecture of the Ancient Orient (1954), 58.

  CHAPTER 8

  1. From Bacon’s Essays, ed. A. S. West (1931).

  2. R. van Leeuwen, ‘Cosmos, temple, house: building and wisdom in Mesopotamia and Israel’, ed. R. J. Clifford, Wisdom Literature in Mesopotamia and Israel (2007), 67–90.

  3. W. Andrae, Das wiedererstandene Assur (1938), 64, fig. 42.

  4. See J. Renger and J. S. Cooper, Reallexikon der Assyriologie, vol. 4 (1975), s.v. ‘Heilige Hochzeit’, 251–69, for qualifications and uncertainties.

  5. W. Mayer, ‘Ein Mythos von der Erschaffung des Menschen’, Orientalia 56 (1987), 55–68; also J. van Seters, ‘The creation of man and the creation of the king’, Zeitschrift für Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 101 (1989), 333–42.

  6. See J. Dixon Hunt and P. Willis, eds., The Genius of the Place: The English Landscape Garden 1620–1820 (1988), 58.

  7. George, The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic (2003), e.g. 265 line 38, and 268 line 17 (abode of the Enunnaki), 576 line 54 (Something Evil), 602 lines 6–7 (Cedar Mountain as dwelling of gods).

  8. Translation adapted from D. Katz, ‘Enki and Ninhursaga, part one: the story of Dilmun’, Bibliotheca Orientalis 64 (2007), 568–89.

  9. Promoted by S. N. Kramer, ‘Enki and Ninhursag: a paradise myth’, ed. J. B. Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts relating to the Old Testament (1950), 36–41, and still followed, e.g. by J. Day, Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses of Canaan (2000), 29. The correct understanding dates from at least 1983; see B. Alster, ‘Dilmun, Bahrain and the alleged paradise in Sumerian myth and literature’, ed. D. Potts, Dilmun (1983), 39–74, and R. J. Clifford, Creation Accounts in the Ancient Near East and the Bible (1994), 35–8.

  10. Genesis 4: 4b–5.

  11. It was used in the 9th century BC according to a recently discovered bilingual text. See e.g. A. Millard, ‘The etymology of Eden’, Vetus Testamentum 34 (1984), 103–5.

  12. See J. Bremmer, ‘Paradise: from Persia, via Greece, into the Septuagint’, ed. G. Luttikhuizen, Paradise Interpreted (1999), 18–19.

  13. See B. Childs, in The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible (1962), s.v. ‘Eden, Garden Of’.

  14. L. Valentine, ed., introductory memoir, in The Poetical Works of John Milton (1896), 17.

  15. John Milton, Paradise Lost IV.137–42, quoted from Milton’s own edition of 1669.

  16. See A. van der Kooij, ‘The story of paradise in the light of Mesopotamian culture and literature’, eds. K. Dell, G. Davies and Y. Koh, Genesis, Isaiah and Psalms, Vetus Testamentum supplement 135 (2010), 16–21.

  17. J. Asmussen, Manichaean Literature (1975), 117.

  18. References in Chicago Assyrian Dictionary, vol. Š, s.v. šāru.

  19. A. Wilkinson, The Garden in Ancient Egypt (1998), 132–3.

  20. J. E. Reade, ‘Ideology and propaganda in Assyrian art’, ed. M. T. Larsen, Power and Propaganda (1979), 330 and 340.

/>   21. See e.g. D. Stronach, ‘The garden as a political statement: some case studies from the Near East in the first millennium B.C.’, Bulletin of the Asia Institute 4 (1990), 171–80.

  22. M. Stol, Reallexikon der Assyriologie, vol. 10 (2003–5), 505, s.v. ‘Pflanzenkunde A’.

  23. Alvarez-Mon, The Arjan Tomb, Acta Iranica 49 (2010), 35. For recent discussion of the word kutānum see C. Michel and K. Veenhof, ‘Textiles traded by the Assyrians in Anatolia’, eds. C. Michel and M.-L. Nosch, Textile Terminologies (2010), 212 and 234.

  24. K. R. Maxwell-Hyslop, ‘Dalbergia sissoo Roxburgh’, Anatolian Studies 33 (1983), 67–72; D. Potts, ‘GIŠ.mes-magan-na (Dalbergia sissoo Roxb.) at Tell Abraq’, Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy 10 (1999), 129–33. Tell Abraq is in modern Sharjah, near Oman. Sennacherib’s grandson Ashurbanipal is known to have accepted tribute from Izki in Oman where a town still bears that name.

  25. Frahm, Einleitung (1997), 277.

  26. Livingstone, Court Poetry (1989), no. 7 line 1.

  27. B. Lion, ‘Vignes au royaume de Mari’, ed. J.-M. Durand, Florilegium marianum, Recueil d’études en l’honneur de Michel Fleury (1992), 107–13.

  28. S. Parpola, The Correspondence of Sargon II part 1 (1987), no. 226.

  29. Parpola, Correspondence (1987), no. 227.

  30. The text is quoted verbatim in Chapter 1.

  31. M. De Odorico, The Use of Numbers and Quantifications in the Assyrian Royal Inscriptions, State Archives of Assyria Studies III (1995), 141–2.

  32. Grayson, Assyrian Rulers of the Early First Millennium BC I (1114–859 BC) (1991), 290.

  33. See M. Giovino, The Assyrian Sacred Tree (2007), esp. 103–13.

  34. Manniche, An Ancient Egyptian Herbal (1989), 13; Wilkinson, The Garden in Ancient Egypt (1998), 137–9; N. Beaux, Le Cabinet de curiosités de Thoutmosis III (1990).

  35. J. V. Kinnier Wilson, The Nimrud Wine Lists, Cuneiform Texts from Nimrud I (1972), no. 4: rev. 14’(?), no. 9: rev. 19; and M. Feldman, ‘Nineveh to Thebes and back: art and politics between Assyria and Egypt in the seventh century BCE’, Iraq 66 (2004), 141–50.

  36. See P. M. Fraser, ‘The world of Theophrastus’, ed. S. Hornblower, Greek Historiography (1994), 167–92.

  37. E. W. Budge, Assyrian Sculptures in the British Museum: Reign of Assurnasirpal, 885–860 BC (1914), plate XXI with caption: ‘Assyrian soldiers crossing a river on inflated skins’.

  38. Nabu, Ninurta and Bel are all attested; see e.g. Chicago Assyrian Dictionary s.v. ‘lismu’, many in texts edited by Livingstone, Court Poetry (1989).

  39. Livingstone, Court Poetry (1989), no. 10, rev. 8.

  40. Livingstone, Court Poetry (1989), no. 34, line 57.

  41. W. Decker, Sports and Games of Ancient Egypt (1992).

  42. Decker, Sports (1992), 64, calculated 100 km in 9 hours. The stela has no picture of the event.

  43. See C. Morgan, Athletes and Oracles (1989), 220; more generally, M. Finley and H. Pleket, The Olympic Games: The First Thousand Years (1976).

  44. Livingstone, Court Poetry (1989), no. 14, p. 37; see also M. Nissinen, ‘Love lyrics of Nabu and Tašmetu: an Assyrian Song of Songs?’ eds. M. Dietrich and I. Kottsieper, Und Mose schrieb dieses Lied auf (1998), 587–91.

  45. Information from J. Kinnier Wilson, Nimrud Wine Lists (1972), with collations given by S. Dalley and J. N. Postgate, Tablets from Fort Shalmaneser (1984); also Luckenbill, Annals of Sennacherib, third campaign, lines 46–7.

  46. See P. Mitsis, ‘The institutions of Hellenistic philosophy’, ed. A. Erskine, A Companion to the Hellenistic World (2003), 471.

  47. Wilkinson, The Garden in Ancient Egypt (1998), 150.

  48. See for example T. Ornan, ‘The transition from figured to non-figured representations in first-millennium glyptic’, ed. J. Goodnick Westenholz, Seals and Sealings in the Ancient Near East (1995), 39–56; and ‘Idols and symbols: divine representation in first millennium Mesopotamian art and its bearing on the second commandment’, Tel Aviv 31 (2004), 90–121.

  49. See Reade, Assyrian Sculpture (1983), 36.

  50. Barnett et al., Sculptures from the Southwest Palace vol 2 (1998), nos. 152–3.

  51. E. Cook, ‘Near Eastern prototypes of the palace of Alkinoos’, American Journal of Archaeology 108 (2004), 43–77; see also N. Luraghi, ‘Traders, pirates, warriors: the proto-history of Greek mercenary soldiers in the eastern Mediterranean’, Phoenix 60 (2006), 1–47.

  52. See Brodersen, Die Sieben Weltwunder (1996), 93 and 50.

  53. Homer, Odyssey book VII, translation of E. V. Rieu (1946), 115.

  54. A. Kuttner, ‘“Do you look like you belong here?” Asianism at Pergamon and the Makedonian diaspora’, ed. E. S. Gruen, Cultural Borrowings and Ethnic Appropriations in Antiquity (2005), 137–206.

  55. E. Netzer et al., Hasmonean and Herodian Winter Palaces at Jericho: Final Report (2001), esp. ch. 13, ‘Planning and reconstruction of Herod’s third palace’. I. Nielsen, Hellenistic Palaces: Tradition and Renewal (1994), does not include Assyrian palaces as models, presumably supposing they were no longer visible.

  56. Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews XVI. 9.

  57. E. Segala, Domus Aurea (1999).

  CHAPTER 9

  1. See S. Kessler-Mesguich, ‘Les Grammaires occidentales de l’hébreu’, ed. S. Auroux, Histoire des idées linguistiques (1992), 251–70.

  2. Nahum ch. 3, supported by Ezekiel 31: 3–18. See e.g. P. Joyce, Ezekiel: A Commentary (2007), 185–6.

  3. Diodorus Siculus, Library of History, II.23.4.

  4. R. Bichler, ‘Ktesias “korrigiert” Herodot: Zur literarischen Einschätzung der Persika’, eds. H. Heftner and K. Tomaschitz, Ad Fontes! (2004), 105–16.

  5. J. MacGinnis, ‘Ctesias and the fall of Nineveh’, Illinois Classical Studies 13/1 (1988), 37–41. See also R. C. Steiner, ‘The Aramaic text in demotic script’, ed. W. Hallo, The Context of Scripture (1997), 309–27.

  6. Cambridge Ancient History, 3: The Assyrian Empire, eds. J. B. Bury, S. A. Cook and F. E. Adcock (1st edn. 1925), 130–1.

  7. Layard, Nineveh and its Remains, vol. 1 (1850), 31. See also B. Trigger, A History of Archaeological Thought (1989), 38–40.

  8. P. R. S. Moorey, A Century of Biblical Archaeology (1991), 36, dated this halting change to early in the 20th century.

  9. Xenophon, Anabasis III. 4.

  10. Layard, Nineveh and its Remains, vol. 2 (1850), 159 and 309.

  11. For lack of well-dated comparative pottery, dating of archaeological levels relied on texts, coins and supposed artistic styles. Lack of inscriptions or coins allowed the inference of abandonment. It is now known that coinage was very seldom used in Mesopotamia until well into Seleucid times.

  12. J.-J. Glassner, Mesopotamian Chronicles (2004), 222, line 45.

  13. Campbell-Thompson and Hutchinson, ‘The excavations on the temple of Nabu’, Archaeologia 79 (1929), 138.

  14. R. Campbell-Thompson and R. Hutchinson, ‘The British Museum excavations on the temple of Ishtar at Nineveh 1930–1931’, Liverpool Annals of Art and Archaeology 19 (1932), 73–4, recognized that there was a problem in dating the main ash layer to 612 BC.

  15. D. Stronach, ‘The fall of Nineveh’, ed. S. Parpola and R. Whiting, Assyria 1995 (1997), 315–18; D. Pickworth, ‘Excavations at Nineveh: the Halzi gate’, Iraq 67 (2005), 295–316.

  16. Diodorus Siculus, Library of History, II.28.7.

  17. Lucian, Charon, 23.

  18. For the survival of the lamentation into the Hellenistic period, see T. Boiy, Late Achaemenid and Hellenistic Babylon (2004), 100, and C. Ambos, Mesopotamische Baurituale aus dem 1. Jahrtausend v. Chr. (2004), 55 and 61.

  19. The Book of Jonah is currently dated no later than the late 5th or early 4th century BC. See e.g. J. A. Soggin, Introduction to the Old Testament (1976), 358–9.

  20. S. Dalley, ‘The transition from Neo-Assyrians to Neo-Babylonians: break or continuity?’, Eretz-Israel 27 (2003), 25–8.

  21. A. Kuhrt, ‘The Assyrian heartlan
d in the Achaemenid period’, ed. P. Briant, Dans les pas des dix-mille, Pallas 43 (1995), 239–54; J. Curtis, ‘The Assyrian heartland in the period 612–539 BC’, ed. R. Rollinger, Continuity of Empire (2003), 157–67.

  22. Kouyunjik and Nebi Yunus are the names of the two citadel mounds at Nineveh.

  23. Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae, XII. 529.

  24. Strabo, Geography, XVI. 1.1.

  25. Tacitus, Annals, XII. 12.

  26. Ammianus Marcellinus, History, XVIII. 7.1.