Pictured: the ‘real site’ of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon
Ancient texts tmay have revealled what could be the site of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon Photo: ALAMY
A British academic believes she has identified the precise spot of the elusive Hanging Gardens of Babylon – in one of the most dangerous places on earth
It is the only one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World for which the location has for centuries remained elusive.
Now, though, an academic from Oxford University believes she has solved one of the world’s last great archaeological mysteries by identifying the precise spot on which the Hanging Gardens of Babylon once stood.
Dr Stephanie Dalley focused her search hundreds of miles north of the site of the ancient city of Babylon, now near Hillah, in central Iraq, to support her theory that the lush, elevated marvel was in fact built near the city of Ninevah, in the north of the country.
The believed site of the Hanging Garden of Babylon, in the foregound, on a mound near the ancient city of Ninevah, northern Iraq (CHANNEL FOUR)
From piecing together clues from ancient texts, the academic has uncovered evidence that the gardens were in fact produced not by the Babylonians and their king Nebuchadnezzar, as has traditionally been assumed, but rather by their neighbours and foes, the Assyrians under their monarch, Sennacherib, around 2,700 years ago.