Mahawil · IQ

Remains of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon

This is the spot that carries one of antiquity's most tantalizing names: the Remains of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, once counted among the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World and described as a green mountain of tiered terraces, vines and trees rising above the desert city on the Euphrates. Located within the vast archaeological site of Babylon near Mahawil, in the Babylon Governorate some 85 kilometres south of Baghdad, the landmark is the focal point of a story that has enchanted travellers and scholars for more than two thousand years. Legend credits the Neo-Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II, who ruled from 604 to 562 BCE, with building the gardens to comfort his Median queen Amytis, who longed for the green hills of her homeland. Yet no definitive traces of the gardens have ever been found at Babylon itself, and some researchers now argue the famous wonder actually lay far to the north at Nineveh. That very ambiguity is what makes the site so compelling to visit: standing among the mud-brick vaults and the ruins of a lost imperial capital, you are walking through history, myth and an unsolved mystery at once.