Traditionally they were said to have been built in the ancient cityof Babylon, near present-day Hillah, Babil province, in Iraq. TheBabylonian priest Berossus, writing in about 290BC and quoted laterby Josephus, attributed the gardens to the Neo-Babylonian kingNebuchadnezzar II, who ruled between 605 and 562 BC. Awkwardly,there are no extant Babylonian texts which mention the gardens, andno definitive archaeological evidence has been found in Babylon.According to accounts, the gardens were built to cheer upNebuchadnezzar’s homesick wife, Amyitis. Amyitis, daughter of theking of the Medes, was married to Nebuchadnezzar to create analliance between the two nations. The land she came from, though,was green, rugged and mountainous, and she found the flat,sun-baked terrain of Mesopotamia depressing. The king decided torelieve her depression by recreating her homeland through thebuilding of an artificial mountain with rooftop gardens.

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