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The Hanging Gardens of ... Nineveh?
National Geographic ^ | Friday, May 31, 2013 | Elizabeth Snodgrass

Posted on 06/01/2013 1:05:55 PM PDT by SunkenCiv

The legendary Hanging Gardens of Babylon are exactly that: legendary. And they may not have been located in Babylon.

The gardens, famous as one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, were, according to Stephanie Dalley, an Oxford University Assyriologist, located some 340 miles north of ancient Babylon in Nineveh, on the Tigris River by Mosul in modern Iraq.

Dalley, whose book The Mystery of the Hanging Garden of Babylon will be published later this summer, writes that earlier sources were translated incorrectly, leading to the confusion. The misinterpretation also explains why years of excavations never yielded any credible evidence of the fabled gardens in Babylon, the capital city of Babylonia on the Euphrates River. Historians have questioned their existence for some time...

Dalley credits the hanging gardens to Sennacherib (704-681 B.C.), the Assyrian king who made Nineveh his capital and created a massive system of waterworks, including an aqueduct that carried water to the city from hills 40 miles away. Sennacherib also left a number of inscriptions trumpeting his irrigation and garden-building prowess...

On the other hand, Nebuchadrezzar -- the ruler traditionally associated with Babylon's hanging gardens -- never mentions gardens, despite many extant inscriptions boasting of his accomplishments in Babylon...

McGuire Gibson, professor of Mesopotamian archaeology at the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute, says that there is a location in Babylon that would have been suitable for raised gardens -- the Southern Citadel, "a massive group of walls that are right on the river. This is the only place that would have made it easy to gain access to the water."

(Excerpt) Read more at news.nationalgeographic.com ...


TOPICS: History; Science; Travel
KEYWORDS: babylon; babylonia; babyloniancaptivity; babylonianempire; catastrophism; godsgravesglyphs; hanginggardens; herodotus; nebuchadrezzar; nineveh; semiramis; sennacherib; stephaniedalley
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To: SunkenCiv

Wasn’t Asherbanipal the last great ruler of Ninevah?


21 posted on 06/01/2013 1:44:23 PM PDT by MHGinTN (Being deceived can be cured.)
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To: SunkenCiv
they weren’t the only ones. Still aren’t.

True and something I will never understand. Israel is in great danger and we have Obama. God help them.

22 posted on 06/01/2013 1:53:41 PM PDT by chesty_puller (Viet Nam 1970-71 He who shed blood with me shall forever be my brother. Shak.)
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To: SunkenCiv

They invented hydroponics....


23 posted on 06/01/2013 2:04:27 PM PDT by Vendome (Don't take life so seriously, you won't live through it anyway)
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To: SunkenCiv
The stele further states that the Egyptian army of Ra, called also “Many Braves,” captured the city of Beth Shan at the command of the pharaoh

. . .Torah

To Ra

(What?)

24 posted on 06/01/2013 2:07:23 PM PDT by conserv8 (Just saying . . . .)
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To: MHGinTN

The Assyrians didn’t really decline in power, they merely experienced the influx of two equally numerous adversaries, which eventually tipped the balance toward their previous vassals in Babylonia. As a people, they had it goin’ on for a long while, and ‘Assyrian’ is still a coherent ethnic group, not just in the Middle East.

The reach of their empires (they had a series of them with interregnums) varied, but were tricky to maintain, because they would assess tribute on conquered cities based on the expense of the conquest, essentially forcing the defeated to pay for their prior defeat. The longer it took, the more expensive it was, and the more likely they’d rebel. It was screwy.

Occasionally they’d use a different strategy — they’d pick a city-state in the midst of others, and just kick the ever-lovin’ crap out of it. The neighbors typically would give up without a fight. Those terrible inscriptions the later Assyrian kings (including those mentioned in the Old Testament) used included phrases like “I burned it with fire”. I doubt there was a tear shed when Nineveh was destroyed and the survivors fled intending to fight on.

Another approach of conquest is familiar from the OT — a conquered group would be severed from its homeland and marched off (the ten lost tribes). Other empires (such as the Persians and Romans) practiced that later on — moving groups to remote places, severing them from their surroundings and placing them in the midst of total strangers who were conquests and not happy to see strangers.


25 posted on 06/01/2013 2:16:59 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (Romney would have been worse, if you're a dumb ass.)
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To: chesty_puller

They can punch, and that will help.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3024641/posts?page=206#206


26 posted on 06/01/2013 2:19:33 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (Romney would have been worse, if you're a dumb ass.)
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To: Vendome

:’)


27 posted on 06/01/2013 2:21:47 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (Romney would have been worse, if you're a dumb ass.)
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To: conserv8

To Ra Lo Ra Lo Ra, To Ra Lo Ra La...

Oh, sorry.

http://www.varchive.org/ce/bethshan.htm

http://www.varchive.org/tac/


28 posted on 06/01/2013 2:38:14 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (Romney would have been worse, if you're a dumb ass.)
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To: SunkenCiv

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYey2sKrpAc


29 posted on 06/01/2013 3:00:26 PM PDT by conserv8 (Just saying . . . .)
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The Ten Lost Tribes: The Case for Afghanistan, Kashmir, and Pakistan
Moshiach.com | current | moshiach.com
Posted on 09/24/2001 8:53:22 AM PDT by xzins
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/531159/posts


30 posted on 06/01/2013 3:44:45 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (Romney would have been worse, if you're a dumb ass.)
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To: conserv8

When the Moon makes you feel like a seagoing eel, that’s a moray.


31 posted on 06/01/2013 3:45:14 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (Romney would have been worse, if you're a dumb ass.)
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To: SunkenCiv

Well, of course The Hanging Gardens (like Troy!) didn’t exist!

Until somebody digs them up, that is.


32 posted on 06/01/2013 3:54:59 PM PDT by left that other site (You Shall Know the Truth, and the Truth Shall Set You Free...John 8:32)
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To: SunkenCiv

I have a hard time trusting Liz Snodgrass.


33 posted on 06/01/2013 4:02:58 PM PDT by 1010RD (First, Do No Harm)
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To: SunkenCiv

My bet is also on the Kurds...The Turks hate them...the Iraqi’s hate them....the Kurds might have some lost tribes blood in them to some extent!

(just joking speculation...I think?!)


34 posted on 06/01/2013 4:24:24 PM PDT by mdmathis6 (What if the DHS tried to provoke conservatives to revolt and no one came?)
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To: SunkenCiv

“When the Moon makes you feel like a seagoing eel, that’s a moray.”

Stick your hand in a crack and you don’t get it back that’s a moray. ;)


35 posted on 06/01/2013 9:52:11 PM PDT by Stingray (Stand for the truth or you'll fall for anything.)
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To: DManA

My thoughts as well.


36 posted on 06/02/2013 12:18:14 AM PDT by Altariel ("Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!")
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To: afraidfortherepublic

-——I loved the Halliburton books when I was 11.——

On some days, I revert to 11 or 12.


37 posted on 06/02/2013 4:59:59 AM PDT by bert ((K.E. N.P. N.C. +12 .....Obama Denies Role in Government)
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To: Stingray

If it’s long and it’s green and it’s bite makes you scream that’s a moray.

But,

If it’s a Jew and a ham and its name’s Amsterdam that’s a Morey


38 posted on 06/03/2013 10:34:04 AM PDT by John O (God Save America (Please))
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To: SunkenCiv
sacked and ruined the city

Couldn't have happened to a nicer bunch of guys.

39 posted on 06/03/2013 12:56:13 PM PDT by colorado tanker
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