最大的冰雹在哪里:巴比伦空中花园英文简介

给你一段很经典的，是伟大的游戏《文明》4里的介绍
The Hanging Gardens were a distinctive feature of ancient Babylon. They were a great source of pride to the people, and were often described in accounts written by visitors to the city. Possibly built by King Nebuchadnezzar II in 600 BC, the gardens are believed to have been a remarkable feat of engineering: an ascending series of tiered gardens containing all manner of trees, shrubs, and vines. The gardens were said to have looked like a large green mountain constructed of mud bricks, rising from the center of the city

Hanging Gardens of Babylon (also known as the Hanging Gardens of Semiramis) and the walls of Babylon (present-day Iraq) were considered one of the Seven Wonders of the World. They were both supposedly built by Nebuchadnezzar II around 600 BC .

The Hanging Gardens are extensively documented by Greek historians such as Strabo and Diodorus Siculus, but otherwise there is little evidence for their existence. In fact, there are no Babylonian records of any such gardens having existed. Some (circumstantial) evidence gathered at the excavation of the palace at Babylon has accrued, but does not completely substantiate what look like fanciful descriptions. Some schools of thought think that through the ages the location may have been confused with gardens that existed at Nineveh as tablets from there clearly showing gardens have been found. Writings on these tablets describe the possible use of something similar to an Archimedes' screw as a process of raising the water to the required height.
According to accounts, the gardens were built to cheer up Nebuchadnezzar's homesick wife, Amyitis. Amyitis, daughter of the king of the Medes, was married to Nebuchadnezzar to create an alliance between the nations. The land she came from, though, was green, rugged and mountainous, and she found the flat, sun-baked terrain of the Mesopotamia (a region of southwest Asia) depressing. The king decided to recreate her homeland by building an artificial mountain with rooftop gardens.

The Hanging Gardens probably did not really "hang" in the sense of being suspended from cables or ropes. The name comes from an inexact translation of the Greek word kremastos or the Latin word pensilis, which means not just "hanging” but "overhanging," as in the case of a terrace or balcony.

The Greek geographer Strabo, who described the gardens in the first century BC, wrote, "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."

If the gardens did exist they would have presented an amazing spectacle: A green, leafy, artificial mountain rising off the plain.

The approach to the Garden sloped like a hillside and the several parts of the structure rose from one another tier on tier...On all this, the earth had been piled...and was thickly planted with trees of every kind that, by their great size and othe
r charm, gave pleasure to the beholder...The water machines(raised) the water in great abundance from the river, although no one outside could see it. ——Diodorus Siculus

ruits and flowers... Waterfalls... Gardens hanging from the palace terraces... Exotic animals...This is the picture of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon in most people's minds.It may be surprising to know that they might have never existed except in the minds of Greek poets and historians!

Location

On the east bank of the River Euphrates, about 50 km south of Baghdad, Iraq.

History

The Babylonian kingdom flourished under the rule of the famous King, Hammurabi[2] (1792-1750 BC[3]).It was not until[4] the reign of the Neo-Babylonian dynasty that the Mesopotamian [5] civilization reached its ultimate glory.Nebuchadnezzar II[6] (604-562 BC) is credited for building the legendary Hanging Gardens.It is said that the Gardens were built by Nebuchadnezzar to please his wife or concubinewho had been "brought up in Media[7] and had a passion for mountain surroundings".

While the most descriptive accounts of the Gardens come from Greek historians such as Berossus and Diodorus Siculus,Babylonian records stay silent on the matter.Tablets from the time of Nebuchadnezzar do not have a single reference to the Hanging Gardens,although descriptions of his palace, the city of Babylon, and the walls are found.Even the historians who give detailed descriptions of the Hanging Gardens never saw them.Modern historians argue that when Alexander[8] 's soldiers reached the fertile land of Mesopotamia and saw Babylon, they were impressed.When they later returned to their rugged homeland, they had stories to tell about the amazing gardens and palm trees at Mesopotamia...About the palace of Nebuchadnezzar... About the Tower of Babel[9] and the ziggurats.And it was the imagination of poets and ancient historians that blended all these elements together to produce one of the World Wonders.

It wasn't until the twentieth century that some of the mysteries surrounding the Hanging Gardens were revealed.Archaeologists are still struggling to gather enough evidence before reaching the final conclusions about the location of the Gardens, their irrigation system, and their true appearance.