# D. The modern scholarly debate on the Hanging Gardens: Dalley's Nineveh thesis, its reception, the rebuttals, and the state of the question (as of September 2026)

Working copies of the raw fetched sources (`raw_D/`, see §7) are not included in this folder. Conventions used throughout:

- **[V]** = verified: quoted or paraphrased directly from a text fetched and saved.
- **[via X]** = known only through another fetched text's citation or quotation of it (I did not see the original).
- **[U]** = unverified: from memory or from a search-engine snippet; treat with caution.

Throughout, "B–R" = Bichler & Rollinger 2005 (full pre-print text fetched, [V]); "D&O" = Dalley & Oleson 2003 (full text, [V]); "Potts" = Potts 2013 NYRB review (full text, [V]).

## 0. Short answer

Stephanie Dalley (Oxford) has argued since 1993 that the "Hanging Gardens of Babylon" were really Sennacherib's palace garden at Nineveh (c. 700 BC), that the garden was watered by bronze water-screws four centuries before Archimedes, and that Greek tradition transferred the garden to Babylon through a chain of confusions (Nineveh/Babylon, Sennacherib/Nebuchadnezzar, Tigris/Euphrates). The thesis has been enormously successful with the public and with some historians and garden historians, but it has **not** become the consensus among Assyriologists, classicists and Babylon specialists. The only full-length scholarly rebuttal (Bichler & Rollinger 2005, 66 pages) calls it "unhaltbar" (untenable) and says the Nineveh route "leads into a dead end" because it "contradicts every surviving source". Reade (2000), Bagg (2000), Frahm (1997), Rollinger (2013), Streck (2018), Pedersén (2021) and the standard Sennacherib edition (RINAP 3/1, 2012) either reject it or treat it as one unproven opinion; Potts (2013), the most substantial English review of the 2013 book, judges the case "close to overwhelming" as a demonstration that Sennacherib's garden *resembles* the classical descriptions but "far from proven" as an identification. The independent screw claim is treated even more sceptically (Bagg; Oleson himself, Dalley's co-author, leans towards Archimedes). Most recent reference works (Wikipedia; Higgins 2023; popular archaeology press 2025) present the question as open, with three live options: a real garden at Babylon whose remains are unidentified (majority of Babylon specialists, several now favouring Nebuchadnezzar's North Palace on the strength of Berossos), a Greek literary construct with little or no reality behind it (Kuhrt, van der Spek, Beaulieu 2006, Rollinger), or Dalley's Nineveh.

## 1. Dalley's own publications and the exact structure of her argument

### 1.1 Bibliography of Dalley's Hanging-Garden output

1. Dalley, Stephanie. 1993. "Ancient Mesopotamian Gardens and the Identification of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon Resolved." *Garden History* 21.1 (Summer 1993): 1–13. DOI 10.2307/1587050. **[V: full OCR text, `raw_D/dalley_1993_garden_history_ocr.txt`]**
2. Dalley, Stephanie. 1994. "Nineveh, Babylon and the Hanging Gardens: Cuneiform and Classical Sources Reconciled." *Iraq* 56: 45–58. DOI 10.2307/4200384. **[Title/DOI V via Crossref; content known only via B–R's dense page-by-page quotation and via D&O n. 2 (pp. 51–54 on the screw)]**
3. Dalley, Stephanie. 1997. "The Hanging Gardens of Babylon at Nineveh." In H. Waetzoldt & H. Hauptmann (eds), *Assyrien im Wandel der Zeiten* (HSAO 6), Heidelberg, 19–24. **[Citation V as "Dalley, HSAO 6 pp. 19–24" in RINAP 3/1 n. 44 and as "Dalley 1997, 19–23" in B–R; exact title U]**
4. Dalley, Stephanie. 2002. "More about the Hanging Gardens." In L. al-Gailani Werr, J. Curtis, H. Martin, A. McMahon, J. Oates & J. Reade (eds), *Of Pots and Plans: Papers on the Archaeology and History of Mesopotamia and Syria Presented to David Oates in Honour of his 75th Birthday*, London: Nabu, 67–73. **[Citation V via D&O n. 2, RINAP 3/1 n. 44 ("Studies D. Oates pp. 67–73") and Wikipedia]**
5. Dalley, Stephanie. 2001/2002. "Water Management in Assyria from the Ninth to the Seventh Centuries BC." *ARAM* 13/14: 443–460 **[citation V via D&O n. 14; = B–R's "Dalley 2001/2002b", pp. 451–460 on the screw]**; and her review of Bagg 2000 in *Archiv für Orientforschung* 48/49 **[V as "forthcoming in AfO 48" in D&O n. 7; = B–R's "Dalley 2001/2002a", pp. 214–216]**.
6. Dalley, Stephanie. 2003. "Why did Herodotus not mention the Hanging Gardens of Babylon?" In P. Derow & R. Parker (eds), *Herodotus and his World: Essays from a Conference in Memory of George Forrest*, Oxford: OUP, 171–189. **[Citation V via D&O n. 30 and B–R page cites; content only via B–R]**
7. Dalley, Stephanie & Oleson, John Peter. 2003. "Sennacherib, Archimedes, and the Water Screw: The Context of Invention in the Ancient World." *Technology and Culture* 44.1 (January 2003): 1–26. DOI 10.1353/tech.2003.0011. **[V: full text, `raw_D/dalley_oleson_2003.txt`]**
8. Dalley, Stephanie. 2013. *The Mystery of the Hanging Garden of Babylon: An Elusive World Wonder Traced*. Oxford: OUP. Hb ISBN 978-0-19-966226-5; pb 2015 ISBN 978-0-19-872884-9, 304 pp., 90 b/w figs, 8 colour plates. **[TOC and blurbs V from the OUP product page; body text not accessed — page numbers below come via Potts and Wikipedia]**
9. Dalley, Stephanie. 2017. "Sennacherib's Palace Garden at Nineveh, a World Wonder." In L. P. Petit & D. Morandi Bonacossi (eds), *Nineveh, the Great City: Symbol of Beauty and Power* (PALMA 13), Leiden: Sidestone Press, 188–191 (open access). **[V: full chapter, `raw_D/nineveh_great_city_2017_sidestone.pdf`, PDF pp. 190–193]**
10. Later and media: Dalley 2014, "From Mesopotamian temples as sacred groves to the date-palm motif in Greek art and architecture", in *Le Jardin dans l'Antiquité* (Entretiens Hardt 60), 53–86 **[listed on her Oxford AMES page, V; HG content U]**; Dalley 2021, *The City of Babylon: A History c. 2000 BC – AD 116*, Cambridge: CUP **[existence V via AMES page; HG treatment U]**; Channel 4, *Secret History: Finding Babylon's Hanging Garden*, broadcast 24 November 2013, dir. Nick Green **[V via Channel 4/Time Out/IMDb search results]**; PBS *Secrets of the Dead*, "The Lost Gardens of Babylon" (2014) **[V via PBS page]**; BBC/History Hit podcast "The Hanging Garden of Babylon" (2023) and Discovery *Unearthed* (2022) **[V as listed on AMES page]**.

### 1.2 The thesis as first stated (Dalley 1993) [V]

The 1993 *Garden History* paper opens with the claim in its most confident form (p. 1):

> "The famous Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one of the Seven Wonders of late antiquity, have finally been identified as the palace garden of the Assyrian king Sennacherib, constructed not at Babylon but at Nineveh, which was also known as 'old Babylon', around 700 B.C. Sennacherib invented the Archimedean screw, using cast copper or bronze, for watering the gardens. A sculpture now in the British Museum shows a part of the gardens in the reign of Sennacherib's grandson, when the trees had matured."

The argument then runs (pp. 7–10):

- *The blank at Babylon.* "The excavators did discover a brick vaulted substructure within one of the palaces, but nothing on a scale that might have warranted a description as one of the wonders of the world … investigators searched for a site alongside the Euphrates beside the palaces of Nebuchadnezzar, but failed to find any evidence for the famous gardens." (p. 7)
- *Method: exploit Greek confusion.* "I came to the conclusion that since there was a lot of confusion between Nineveh and Babylon and between Assyria and Babylonia in Classical sources, a solution to the problem might be found by analyzing that confusion. Diodorus Siculus, in describing 'Babylon', seemed to give details that belonged to Nineveh, in particular his description of a palace with walls that were adorned with sculptured stone reliefs depicting scenes of hunting and battles." (p. 7) Also the Book of Judith, which makes Nebuchadnezzar "king of the Assyrians" ruling "in Nineveh" (p. 8).
- *The screw.* "A breakthrough came from a new attempt to understand the technical description given in one of Sennacherib's inscriptions … The word 'tree trunks' described cylinders (in fact the word was already attested in this sense in mathematical texts). The name for a palm tree that has a spiral pattern on the trunk where the old fronds have broken away was used to describe a screw. The Babylonian name for this palm … is *alamittu*, and it had already been tentatively identified as *Chamaerops humilis* … Sennacherib described how he cast the two components out of copper or bronze from clay moulds, and put them together to make a water-lifting device." (p. 8) "Sennacherib's text does not make it clear how the screws were rotated. They were set over cisterns. The inscription does not specify how many there were." (p. 8)
- *Nebuchadnezzar's silence.* "One of the main arguments for denying that Nebuchadnezzar had ever built the gardens was that his building inscriptions, complete and detailed as they are, never described new gardens or a new system of watering." (p. 8)
- *Herodotus vindicated; Curtius vindicated.* "When Herodotus described the city of Babylon in the fifth century B.C., he failed to mention the Hanging Gardens … But with the gardens at Nineveh, his account is vindicated. By rejecting Nebuchadnezzar in favour of Sennacherib as the builder, we can show that Q. Curtius Rufus was correct in saying that an Assyrian king who conquered Babylon was responsible." (pp. 8–9)
- *Nineveh = 'old Babylon'.* "The one remaining problem is to explain how Nineveh came to be called Babylon … The information comes from ancient astronomical data preserved in Arabic sources and used by Kepler. The standard calculation for the longest day was said to come from 'old Babylon' … The calculation was made not from the latitude of Babylon, but from the latitude of one of the northern Assyrian cities: Nineveh or Nimrud." (p. 9)
- *'Wonder for all peoples' = theama.* "Sennacherib himself described the garden and its watering system as a 'Wonder for all Peoples' … The Greek word *theamata*, 'sight, wonder', used to describe the Seven Wonders of the World, is a very close translation of the Babylonian word *tabrât*." (p. 9)
- *The relief.* "A small relief sculpture in the British Museum almost certainly represents the garden under his grandson Assurbanipal (668–627 B.C.) in its maturity … A masonry aqueduct with pointed arches brings water into the garden at the middle level; but water also flows out from under one of the arches, so it is not entirely clear whether the arched structure extended back into the hill to support a terrace, or whether it was a simple aqueduct built against the side of the hill … The screws are not shown; as Strabo says, they raised water invisibly … The garden seems to be bowl-shaped, like a Greek theatre, corresponding to the description of Diodorus Siculus." (pp. 9–10)

Note that in 1993 Dalley still called the arches an aqueduct and did not yet claim the relief showed terraces; B–R (p. 183 n. 147) point out that her reconstruction drawing of 2002 (Dalley 2002, 69) added a theatre shape and pillared terraces "although the orthostat relief remained the same" [V].

### 1.3 The full case: Dalley 1994, *Iraq* 56 [via B–R, D&O]

I could not fetch the article (Cambridge Core PDF links return HTML). Its structure is, however, recoverable from B–R's page-specific quotations [V of the quotations, via B–R]:

- p. 45: the river-diversion argument, quoted in full by B–R p. 188: "There is one overwhelming argument against Ctesias or Berossos or Q. Curtius Rufus having seen such a garden built by Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon still flourishing. When the Persians captured Babylon in 539 B.C. … or perhaps in 482 when Xerxes levelled the city wall, they diverted the Euphrates river and it continued in its diverted course long afterwards. For centuries it no longer ran alongside the north-west part of Nebuchadnezzar's palace. Any machinery set up there to water the gardens from the river would have become useless, and all the trees in the garden would soon have withered and died." Also p. 45: Herodotus' and Xenophon's silence (B–R nn. 92, 186).
- p. 46: Berossos' "account has generally been taken as authoritative" (B–R n. 174); the "direct confusion" thesis (n. 115); Curtius and Diodorus/Ctesias attribute the gardens to "a king of Assyria, reigning in Babylon"; Semiramis as builder in Babylon (n. 116).
- pp. 47–50: Nineveh as "old Babylon": the Azarqiel/Kepler longest-day datum (nn. 137–138); Assyrian recension of *Enūma eliš* — "No texts have been found in which the name of the city built by the hero god is altered from Babylon" (p. 49, n. 125); Nineveh called "old Babylon" after 689 and Esarhaddon's rebuilt city "new Babylon" (p. 49, n. 123); "indications that Sennacherib saw himself as king of 'Babylon' though he did not take the title" (p. 50, n. 142).
- pp. 50–51: Nebuchadnezzar's inscriptions never mention a garden — "This negative statement bears considerable weight"; "'The Topography of Babylon' does not mention any gardens either" (n. 258).
- p. 51: "hanging gardens in the sense of being suspended upon vaults" (n. 146); "since the description of the builder given by Q. Curtius Rufus, as 'a king of Assyria, reigning in Babylon', fits Sennacherib, a new location of the Hanging Gardens is required" (n. 85).
- pp. 51–52, fig. 1: BM 124939 shows "features which are described by Greek writers: a naturalistic landscape rising up in tiers 'like a (Greek) theatre', as Diodorus Siculus described it. Forest trees are planted in it at all levels, and water is brought into the garden along an aqueduct which is incorporated into the terracing" (n. 144).
- pp. 51–54: the screw reading of *gišmaḫḫu* and *alamittu*; p. 53 the crank suggestion (D&O n. 37); p. 54 the 4 × 4 plethra of Diodorus/Strabo fit the Kuyunjik park (n. 88).
- pp. 55–56: Josephus/Alexander Polyhistor wrongly attributed the garden passage to Berossos; Abydenos (in Eusebius) preserves genuine Berossos with a name corruption Sennacherib → Nebuchadnezzar (nn. 82–83); Sennacherib's inscriptions, or Aramaic translations of them, still available in Seleucid times (n. 121).
- pp. 56–57: divergences among the classical descriptions show "that the gardens were still extant in the Parthian period" (n. 90); pp. 57–58, fig. 3: "Reconstruction drawing of Sennacherib's palace garden at Nineveh incorporating new evidence".

### 1.4 The 2013 book [TOC V; contents via Potts, Wikipedia, and Dalley 2017]

Chapters (OUP page): Introduction; 1 "Drawing a Blank in Babylon"; 2 "Classical Writers and their Testimony"; 3 "Three Pictures, and Archimedes"; 4 "Sennacherib's Great Invention"; 5 "Engineering for Water Management"; 6 "Confusion of Names"; 7 "The Unrivalled Palace, the Queen and the Garden"; 8 "Symbolism and Imitators"; 9 "Defeat and Revival: Nineveh after 612 BC"; Conclusion; Appendix "The Section of Prism Inscription Describing the Palace and Garden". The publisher's description says Dalley "identifies the garden's true location and builder" and "clarifies historical confusions regarding figures like Semiramis and Nebuchadnezzar" [V].

Potts's summary of the book's structure [V]: "The first part of this story—that Sennacherib a century earlier built a magnificent garden that resembles in much of its design and engineering what we are told of the Hanging Gardens—takes up most of the book, but is for the most part not in dispute and is not the nub of the problem. The second part—explaining how the sources could have erred in the ways they did—is much more problematic."

The lines of evidence, as Wikipedia (citing Dalley 2013 pp. 40, 48, 62–63, 65–82) and Potts summarise them [V for the summaries]:

1. *Names.* "The name Babylon, meaning 'Gate of the Gods', was the name given to several Mesopotamian cities … Sennacherib renamed the city gates of Nineveh after gods, which suggests that he wished his city to be considered 'a Babylon'" (Wikipedia). Potts: "She points to cuneiform texts in which other Babylonian (not Assyrian) cities receive the epithet 'another/second Babylon' … Neither do Sennacherib's vague allusions to Nineveh being a new 'Babylon-like' capital in texts that no classical author could have read or probably even known about."
2. *Nebuchadnezzar's silence* versus Sennacherib's detailed prisms (Iraq Museum prism, Heidel 1953; BM 103000) and the archaeology of his waterworks (Jerwan; Wikipedia, citing Dalley 2013 ch. 1).
3. *"A wonder for all peoples"* and the screws (Dalley 2013, pp. 62–63).
4. *Fit with the classical descriptions*; Alexander's four-day camp near Jerwan before Gaugamela (331 BC) as the channel by which Greek writers learned of the garden.
5. *The two reliefs*: BM 124939 (Ashurbanipal, North Palace room H) and Original Drawing IV 77 (Layard's drawing of a lost Southwest Palace slab showing a pillared walkway roofed with trees), Dalley 2013 pp. 65–82.
6. *Berossos discounted*: Potts — "Dalley addresses this issue for Berossus, her most explicit and authoritative obstacle, by adopting a recent view that his description of the gardens is all later interpolation and not to be trusted. The experts are divided, but she is not alone in this view."
7. *Continuity at Nineveh after 612* (ch. 9): Potts n. 17 — Dalley "argues that there is enough continuity for memory of its gardens to have survived in local folklore till the Greeks passed by in the fourth century BC"; and the Amanus/Median-wife motif (ch. 7).

### 1.5 Dalley's restatement in 2017 [V]

The catalogue chapter is the most recent statement I could read in full. Key sentences (pp. 188–190):

> "His palace garden has recently been identified as the legendary Hanging Garden of Babylon. The attribution to the city of Babylon arose from several confusions: between Nineveh and Babylon, Sennacherib and Nebuchadnezzar, the Tigris and the Euphrates." (p. 188)

> "Sennacherib described how he had cast in bronze two forms, *gišmahhu* 'tree-trunk/cylinder' (used in mathematical problem texts) and *alamittu* 'a type of palm tree/spiral', which 'instead of a shaduf' … continuously raised water. *Alamittu* has been identified as the male date-palm, rendered on Mesopotamian sculptures with a spiral pattern on its trunk, to distinguish it from the female date-palm, represented by a scallop or diamond pattern. The cylinder and the spiral (or screw) are the two components of a so-called Archimedes screw which, Strabo wrote, was used to lift water up the terraces in the fabled Hanging Garden." (p. 188)

Note the shift: in 1993 *alamittu* was *Chamaerops humilis*; D&O 2003 n. 21 said that identification "can now be seen to be incorrect"; by 2017 it is "the male date-palm".

> "Alexander the Great … camped for several days before the Battle of Gaugamela … He took with him historians … and they would have seen the canal and the aqueducts with their inscriptions and sculptures, and heard tales of their purpose. They would have recorded the marvels, but none of their writings have survived." (p. 189)

> "Overall the garden and its water supply as described by Sennacherib, and the panels of sculpture from the palaces showing a garden at Nineveh, correspond in important respects with Classical descriptions of the Hanging Garden as a world wonder." (p. 190)

She also invokes Original Drawing IV 77: "a row of pillars is shown roofed with several distinct layers, which are planted with trees … This feature corresponds to that described by Philo" (p. 189). In the popular press she has continued to restate the case without modification: *Archaeology* Nov/Dec 2025 quotes her, "There's no way you could have watered a garden there from the Euphrates River", and that the reliefs' detail "very clearly corresponds in several respects to details given in the Greek sources" [V via fetched summary of that article].


## 2. Reviews of Dalley 2013

A Crossref sweep (journal-by-journal, `raw_D/crossref_reviews_dalley2013.json`) found only three formally registered reviews: van der Spek (TvG 2013), *Choice* (2014) and, loosely, Brady (*Structural Engineer* 2016). No review appeared in BMCR, JNES, JAOS, BSOAS, JRAS, *Classical Review*, *Iraq*, *BiOr*, *ZA*, *AJA* or *Antiquity* that I could locate; academia.edu hosts a 2014 review (item 42720953, "Review of: S. Dalley, The Mystery of the Hanging Garden of Babylon …") whose author and venue I could not read (site blocked). Search snippets describing it ("her thesis relies on selective interpretations of Classical sources, leading to methodological concerns") may be a search-engine paraphrase rather than the reviewer's words **[U]**.

### 2.1 Timothy Potts, "Looking for the Hanging Gardens", *New York Review of Books*, 26 September 2013 (Potts was then Director of the J. Paul Getty Museum, formerly Fitzwilliam/Kimbell) [V, full text in `raw_D/nyrb_potts_2013.txt`]

The most substantial English-language scholarly review. Verdict:

> "The combined effect of all this (and I have left a lot out) is close to overwhelming, and may well shift the onus of proof onto the traditionalists. Has Dalley, then, 'uncovered at last the reality behind the legend of the Hanging Garden of Babylon,' as her introduction claims? Possibly, but it is far from proven."

Objections, in his order:

1. *Logic.* "Dalley writes as if all evidence for Sennacherib's garden in Nineveh is evidence against Nebuchadnezzar's in Babylon. It is not: both Sennacherib and Nebuchadnezzar can have built wondrous 'hanging gardens,' and the many similarities between the two can equally be taken as showing that Nebuchadnezzar emulated the Assyrian's achievement even more closely than we thought. A Hanging Garden in Babylon would not be an anomaly: previous Babylonian kings had boasted of other splendid gardens."
2. *Berossus.* "Berossus clearly had direct access to original Babylonian records … If the gardens still existed in Berossus' day there is no doubt that he would have known about them and probably have seen them." Dalley's answer (interpolation) is noted as a minority view on which "the experts are divided".
3. *The 'Babylon' names.* Quoted in §1.4 above: the "second Babylon" epithet "goes no way to proving an awareness of this esoteric trope in classical times."
4. *The transmission scenario.* Quoting Dalley's "One might posit that all the details … became known to Alexander's men in 331 BC by local knowledge at Jerwan … and Gaugamela", Potts replies: "Even granting this scenario, it is hardly possible to imagine that these same Greeks, who were soon to march into Babylon itself, would later have recorded what they learned about Jerwan/Nineveh by saying that there once was a spectacular ancient garden *in Babylon*." Either all the Greek texts were later edited to read "Babylon" — "which is hardly credible" — or "we can draw the commonsense if unspectacular conclusion that the Hellenistic writers knew the Hanging Gardens were in Babylon and said so in their accounts, seemingly oblivious to the fact that there had been a remarkable precedent at Nineveh. Dalley has done a magnificent job of bringing that precedent into focus."
5. *The screw word* (n. 15): "The primary meaning of *alamittu*, which she translates here as 'screws,' is 'date palm' (the connection being the spiral pattern on the palm's trunk). However, as she states, it appears in lexical lists only in the section on date palms; and this sense reasserts itself earlier in Sennacherib's text where it is followed by the epithet 'tree of riches.'"
6. *Babylon archaeology* (n. 14): Koldewey's vaults are "probably too far from the river and more now favor the 'Western Outwork' … Both proposals, however, fall foul of Berossus' clear statement that the garden was in (beside?) not the southern palace but the new one Nebuchadnezzar built immediately to the north, beyond the inner city wall. Unfortunately the area between that palace and the river is much denuded and largely unexcavated."

Potts also concedes the pro-Dalley points: "Sennacherib's garden certainly existed and is well known to scholars"; "Two relief sculptures from Nineveh … preserve what are almost certainly views of this garden"; and that the Babylon blank has led "some archaeologists [to] have thrown up their hands and declared the whole thing a romantic fiction".

### 2.2 R. J. (Bert) van der Spek, "Hangende Tuin van Babylon in Ninevé?", *Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis* 126.4 (November 2013): 580–581. DOI 10.5117/TVGESCH2013.4.B4. [Title/DOI V via Crossref; text not accessible (aup-online Cloudflare-blocked)]

Van der Spek is a Babylon/Seleucid specialist who elsewhere (2008 Berossus essay, as summarised on Livius.org, and as cited by Pedersén 2021 n. 59) holds that there may have been no real garden at all and that the tradition derives from Cleitarchus' fantastic description of the Babylonian palace. The review's title (question mark) suggests scepticism; its content is **[U]**.

### 2.3 Press and blog reviews [V unless marked]

- *Financial Times*, Robin Lane Fox (2013): OUP blurb — "A bold, clear and immensely interesting new book". Via Hyperallergic's report of the review: "Dalley deals death blows to the Babylonian orthodoxy among previous archaeologists. The Germans' suggested site for the Hanging Garden, she shows, is impossible"; Herodotus "never says a word about a hanging garden in his description of the city"; and (per a search snippet, attribution to Lane Fox **[U]**) the Western Outwork site "has no link through to the palace, is not by the river's likely course and 'the walls would have denied the plants any sunshine for most of the daylight hours'". A further blurb, "Every good summer needs a controversy and Dalley's high-class book and sheer likeability have now given us an excellent one", circulates attributed variously to the FT or *Literary Review* **[U attribution]**.
- *Literary Review* 410 (June 2013), Tom Holland, "By the Rivers of Nineveh": only the paywalled opening was visible ("Despite almost two decades of searching, Koldewey and his team never succeeded in identifying the location of any hanging garden in Babylon"); OUP quotes it as a "learned and never less than gripping study"; a search snippet gives "[When] the inadequacies of a received tradition are as glaring as they clearly are in the case of the Hanging Garden, it is a cause for celebration that there are scholars of the calibre of Stephanie Dalley to propose a convincing alternative" **[U wording]**.
- *Sunday Times* (OUP blurb): "[Dalley] makes a compelling case. Scholars will doubtless find matter for debate, but her central argument rings true."
- *Kirkus Reviews*, 15 May 2013: "Deeply researched and rigorously argued—and certain to raise both hopes and objections."
- *Choice Reviews Online* 51-4596 (March 2014), DOI 10.5860/choice.51-4596 (not read).
- Time Out London's preview of the Channel 4 film (15 November 2013): Dalley "is far from crazy", though "her eventual failure" to locate the garden on the ground in Mosul is predictable.
- The Gardens Trust, *Garden History Blog*, "The Hanging Gardens of Nineveh?" (9 January 2021): "my money is on Dalley being right and this one of the Wonders of the Ancient World should be known as the Hanging Gardens of Nineveh" — no counter-arguments discussed.
- Sebastian Hageneuer (archaeologist, Cologne), *It's more of a comment…* blog (19 May 2023): Dalley "presents a compelling argument for the garden's location in Nineveh and not Babylon"; no objections raised.
- Sean Brady, "Engineering the Hanging Garden of Babylon", *The Structural Engineer* (July 2016): 40–42, DOI 10.56330/imiz6081 — an engineer's appreciation "of the remarkable engineering works that may have underpinned the Hanging Garden" (abstract only).

The pattern is clear: the enthusiastic notices are by non-specialists (Lane Fox and Holland are ancient historians but not Assyriologists); the one detailed specialist review in English (Potts) is admiring but withholds assent; the Dutch specialist review is by a known sceptic; no Assyriological journal reviewed the book at all.


## 3. Rebuttals and alternatives, by author

### 3.1 Reinhold Bichler & Robert Rollinger 2005 [V, full pre-print text in `raw_D/bichler_rollinger_2005.txt`]

Bichler, R. & Rollinger, R. 2005. "Die Hängenden Gärten zu Ninive – Die Lösung eines Rätsels?" In R. Rollinger (ed.), *Von Sumer bis Homer. Festschrift für Manfred Schretter zum 60. Geburtstag am 25. Februar 2004* (AOAT 325), Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 153–218. (Pre-print PDF on achemenet.com; pagination matches the print.) This is the only systematic rebuttal and the piece every later sceptic cites (RINAP 3/1, Haubold, Pedersén). Their verdict and main points:

- *Reception before 2005* (p. 157): "Die These fand in der Forschung bisher kaum Widerspruch, sondern wurde vielmehr als Denkmöglichkeit zur Kenntnis genommen" — with n. 31: "Frahm 1997, 24 Anm. 117 hielt dazu lapidar fest: 'Der Beweis hierfür scheint mir aber noch nicht erbracht' … Lediglich Bagg 2000, 198–207 setzte sich intensiv mit Dalley's Vorstellungen auseinander und unterzog sie einer harschen Kritik … Reade 2000 bot ein Plädoyer für die 'Babylon-These'". They note that the thesis entered reference works (Bär, *DNP* 5 (1998) 65–66: "in Babylon (oder in Niniveh)"; Renger 1998, 786: the classical descriptions "enthalten die verklärende Erinnerung an einen vermutlich von Sanherib in Niniveh angelegten Lust-Garten") and won "prinzipielle Zustimmung" from Veenhof (2001, 283 n. 6) and interest from Cook (AJA 2004, 58f. n. 85; 65f.); Joannès (2001, 431) observed: "Ses propositions n'ont pas fait l'unanimité parmi les archéologues et les historiens, et le débat concernant les jardins de Babylone a repris de plus belle."
- *Classical sources* (§3.1, pp. 172–177): Dalley "nimmt … in Kauf, die gesamte antike literarische Tradition über die Hängenden Gärten in einer Weise zu behandeln, die die zugrunde gelegten Hypothesen peu à peu zu einer schweren Hypothek werden lassen" (p. 172); her selection is "eklektisch": Curtius' builder fits, his location does not; Diodorus' theatre and 4 plethra fit, his Euphrates does not (p. 173). Although the gardens supposedly survived at Nineveh into the Parthian period, "wurden sie doch von der antiken Tradition permanent in Babylon lokalisiert; in jener Metropole, welche die klassischen Autoren, von Herodot weg, sehr wohl von Ninive zu unterscheiden wussten" (p. 173). Xenophon, who saw the ruins of Nineveh (Anab. 3.4.10–12), says nothing of gardens there (p. 174). Dalley's "tour guides of the Persian Period of Nineveh" are "Gestalten aus der Imagination einer Orientalistin" (p. 177).
- *Nineveh = Babylon?* (§3.2.1, pp. 177–181): "So kann Dalley keinen einzigen aus neuassyrischer Zeit stammenden Beleg für eine Gleichsetzung Ninives mit Babylon beibringen!" (p. 179). Her *Enūma eliš* claim is "falsch" — in the Assyrian recension Assur, not Nineveh, replaces Babylon (Lambert 1997, 77), so "Die Vorstellung von Ninive als 'altem Babylon' stellt sich somit als Phantom dar" (p. 180). Her only non-speculative witness is "ein ursprünglich in arabischer Sprache verfasstes mittelalterliches (!) Traktat des Azarqiel von Toledo (um 1070 n. Chr.)"; the latitude datum shows only where Assyrian astronomers observed, not what the city was called, and the 'new Babylon' in the same source points to the Ur/Uruk region, not Babylon (p. 181).
- *The relief and the screw* (§3.2.2, pp. 181–187): on BM 124939, "Diese Interpretation erschließt sich allerdings einem unvoreingenommenen Betrachter keineswegs. Er vermag weder die theaterförmig angelegte Gestalt des Gartens wahrzunehmen, noch sind künstliche, auf Pfeiler gestellte, Terrassierungen zu erkennen. Einzig und allein der Aquädukt ist ohne weiteres ausnehmbar" (pp. 182–183), citing Reade 2000, 197: "the arches probably represent a stone aqueduct, as still visible at Jerwan, rather than a garden terrace", and Margueron 1992, 77 to the same effect. The relief is from Ashurbanipal's North Palace, "was zu der Frage führt, warum hier eine Anlage seines Großvaters dargestellt sein soll" (p. 186), and may show a park *extra muros* (Reade 1998b, 86–88; Matthiae 1999, 41). On the screw: "Kernstück dieser durchaus genialen Interpretation sind die beiden Termini *alamittu* und *gišmaḫḫu*" (p. 185); "Während etwa Eckart Frahm Zustimmung erkennen ließ [n. 163: Frahm 1997, 278 counts the 'archimedische Schraube' among Sennacherib's 'Neuerungen'], setzte sich Ariel Bagg eingehend mit der Problematik auseinander und äußerte sich dazu sehr kritisch. … Bagg lehnte dies entschieden ab und wollte *alamittu* und *gišmaḫḫu* als tragende Teile einer Windenvorrichtung verstehen. Außerdem betonte er, dass sich die Beschreibung der Bewässerungstechnik nicht auf den königlichen Garten, sondern auf andere Parkanlagen innerhalb und außerhalb Ninives beziehe" (pp. 185–186). Verdict: "so bleibt Dalley's Vorschlag auf jeden Fall sehr spekulativ" (p. 186) and "bei näherer Betrachtung sowohl der von Dalley beigezogenen Inschriften als auch der Orthostatenreliefs kein einziges stichhaltiges Argument, das sich für Dalley's These von 'Hängenden Gärten zu Ninive' ins Treffen führen ließe" (p. 187). N. 172 records that Dalley's AfO reply to Bagg offered "außer Polemik ('piling up too much unnecessary verbiage') keine stichhaltige Gegenthese" and dismissed Bagg's screw objection as "another dogmatic dismissal", while the drive problem conceded in D&O 2003, 12–15 "erhärten … Baggs Kritik erheblich".
- *Berossos and the river* (§3.2.3, pp. 187–190): "Das Zeugnis des Berossos bietet den stärksten Anhaltspunkt für die Lokalisation der Hängenden Gärten in Babylon … Berossos' Angaben sind somit die entscheidende Crux für Dalley's Verwechslungsthese" (pp. 187–188). Her two escape routes — corrupt transmission via Polyhistor/Abydenos (for which "Stichhaltige Argumente … vermag sie allerdings nicht beizubringen"), and the Euphrates diversion — fail; the diversion "ist ja nur dann stichhaltig, wenn sich die Hängenden Gärten einmal wirklich in Babylon befunden haben!" (p. 189), is "mit großer Wahrscheinlichkeit … ein Konstrukt der modernen Forschung" (Rollinger 1993), and cuneiform evidence shows the river in its traditional bed under Alexander (van der Spek 1995). "Die Flussumleitung erweist sich somit als unbewiesenes Postulat, womit die ganze Argumentation Dalley's in sich zusammenbricht" (p. 190).
- *Herodotus' silence* (§3.2.4, p. 190): the argument from silence "erweist sich als ziemlich kurios" — Herodotus does not attest gardens at Nineveh either, and Pliny, whose silence Dalley also invoked, in fact knows the gardens of Babylon.
- *Overall* (p. 198): "Erweist sich Dalley's Ninive-These somit als unhaltbar …". Yet B–R do not simply reaffirm Babylon: "Die antiken Beschreibungen bieten weder eine solide Basis für eine Rekonstruktion dieses Schaustücks, noch wissen wir, wo genau es in Babylon zu suchen ist … Denn der vermeintliche Ausweg aus dem Dilemma, den Hängenden Garten nach Ninive zu verpflanzen, führt ins Abseits: Diesen Weg zu beschreiten, heißt nämlich allen erhaltenen Quellenzeugnissen widersprechen" (p. 206). On Nebuchadnezzar's silence (p. 203): Chaldaean royal inscriptions "greifen bestimmte Sujets auf und verschweigen andere gänzlich", so the *argumentum e silentio* is "hinfällig"; and Nebuchadnezzar's fragmentary cylinder "kummu gi-gu-na-a-tim ra-b[a-a …]" ("a large kummu after the manner of the gigunâtim I built high like a mountain as the seat of my kingship"; Wiseman 1985, 56f.: "a large step-terraced kummu"; CAD G 70a: "could well have been interpreted as a 'hanging garden'") keeps open "die Möglichkeit …, dass Nebukadnezar ein einzigartiges Bauwerk ansprach, das später als Hängender Garten identifiziert wurde" (pp. 204–205). They also allow a Persian-period origin (Berossos alone says *kremastos paradeisos*, the others *kremastos kēpos*, p. 204).

### 3.2 Ariel M. Bagg 2000 [via B–R and D&O]

Bagg, A. M. 2000. *Assyrische Wasserbauten. Landwirtschaftliche Wasserbauten im Kernland Assyriens zwischen der 2. Hälfte des 2. und der 1. Hälfte des 1. Jahrtausends v. Chr.* (Baghdader Forschungen 24), Mainz: von Zabern, pp. 198–207 (Dalley), 201–207 (screw), 277–279. Quoted by B–R n. 165 (p. 201): "Die einzige konkrete Verbindung zwischen den klassischen und assyrischen Quellen, die S. Dalley feststellen kann – und eigentlich ihr einziger Beweis –, bezieht sich auf die in beiden Quellen erwähnten Bewässerungsmaschinen." D&O n. 7 (Dalley's own summary): "Bagg (201–3, 206–7, 277–79) objects to Dalley's proposal that Sennacherib made use of the water screw largely on the basis that no other early evidence for the device exists." Bagg also labelled Stevenson's 1992 wheel scheme for Babylon "science fiction" (p. 277). RINAP 3/1 n. 46 cites Bagg pp. 169–224 as the "detailed study of Sennacherib's waterworks program".

### 3.3 Julian E. Reade [via B–R, Potts, Wikipedia; Reade 2000 itself not obtainable]

Reade, J. E. 2000. "Alexander the Great and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon." *Iraq* 62: 195–217. DOI 10.2307/4200490; also Reade, "Assyrian illustrations of Nineveh", *Iranica Antiqua* 33 (1998): 81–94 (= B–R's "Reade 1998b") **[title U]**, and Reade, "Ninive (Nineveh)", *RlA* 9 (1998–2001): 388–433, esp. 403–406. Reade, who dug at Nineveh and edited the Oates Festschrift in which Dalley 2002 appeared, is the leading Babylon-side alternative: he located the gardens in the Western Outwork of Babylon's Southern Palace, oriented east toward the palace (B–R p. 156; Reade 2000, 208–213), catalogued six possible areas within the Qasr (p. 207), and even entertained the "Kasr tree" as a relic (pp. 196, 213f.). On Nineveh he wrote (2000, 197) that the relief arches "probably represent a stone aqueduct" and that "the precise location suggested for them in Dalley's reconstruction seems incompatible with the defensive system of Kuyunjik"; he suggested (2000, 211) that Dalley's screws might be transplanted to Nebuchadnezzar's Babylon or that a water-wheel was used. The Semantic Scholar/Cambridge blurb [V] gives his opening: when Alexander was a boy "the Hanging Gardens of Babylon were one of the Mysteries of the Orient, not yet a Wonder of the World". Wikipedia [V] credits Reade 2000 with the view that "the gardens were said to still exist at the time that later writers described them, and some of these accounts are regarded as deriving from people who had visited Babylon", and that Herodotus' silence may mean the gardens "were not yet well known to the Greeks at the time of his visit". Reade's later restatements (2008, 2017) **[U]**.

### 3.4 Eckart Frahm 1997 [via B–R]

Frahm, E. 1997. *Einleitung in die Sanherib-Inschriften* (AfO Beiheft 26), Vienna. P. 24 n. 117: "Der Beweis hierfür scheint mir aber noch nicht erbracht" (on the Nineveh identification); yet p. 278 lists the "archimedische Schraube" among Sennacherib's innovations with reference to Dalley (B–R nn. 31, 163). Frahm's later handbook treatments (e.g. *A Companion to Assyria* 2017; *Assyria: The Rise and Fall of the World's First Empire* 2023) **[U]**.

### 3.5 Karen Polinger Foster 2004 [abstract/opening V; body not obtained]

Foster, K. P. 2004. "The Hanging Gardens of Nineveh." *Iraq* 66 (Nineveh: Papers of the 49th RAI, Part One): 207–220. DOI 10.2307/4200575. Opening: "Though for over two millennia much has been written and said about the Hanging Gardens, they remain elusive. Neither the extensive excavations at the city of Babylon nor the abundant contemporaneous cuneiform records have yielded convincing evidence for these gardens and their associated structures." She reviews the five sources (Berossus, Philo, Diodorus, Strabo, Curtius) chronologically; the title signals sympathy with Nineveh, and RINAP 3/1 n. 44 groups her with Dalley ("See also … K.P. Foster, Iraq 66 (2004) pp. 207–220"), but her precise verdict is **[U]**.

### 3.6 Landscape archaeology: Ur 2005, Morandi Bonacossi [V for bibliography; positions U]

Ur, J. 2005. "Sennacherib's northern Assyrian canals: new insights from satellite imagery and aerial photography." *Iraq* 67.1: 317–345, DOI 10.1017/S0021088900001418 — documents the canal system and cites Dalley 1994 but (per the Cambridge abstract page) takes no position. Morandi Bonacossi, D. 2018, "The Creation of the Assyrian Heartland: New Data from the 'Land behind Nineveh'", in Düring & Stek (eds), *The Archaeology of Imperial Landscapes*, CUP, 48–85; and his ch. 25 in the 2017 catalogue (pp. 132–136, read [V]) describe the Khinis–Jerwan hydraulic landscape without mentioning the Hanging Gardens. Dalley 2017 (p. 188) cites him for the canal, not vice versa.

### 3.7 Finkel, Seymour, George, and the British Museum line [mostly U]

Finkel, I. L. 1988. "The Hanging Gardens of Babylon." In P. Clayton & M. Price (eds), *The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World*, London/New York: Routledge, 38–58 — the sentence "the hanging gardens of Babylon … have never been conclusively identified, nor, indeed, has their existence been proved" comes from a search snippet **[U wording]**; B–R n. 187 confirm Finkel 1988, 70 registers Herodotus' silence. Wikipedia [V] cites Finkel 1988 pp. 41, 58 for "no extant Babylonian texts mention the gardens" and Finkel & Seymour 2008 (*Babylon: Myth and Reality*, British Museum Press; US edn OUP *Babylon: City of Wonders*) pp. 108–109 for the possibility that the gardens are "purely mythical" and a "romantic ideal"; Pedersén n. 59 [V] notes that Seymour 2008, 108–109 and Seymour 2014 (*Babylon: Legend, History and the Ancient City*, I.B. Tauris), 73, "even claimed that Berossos had placed the gardens in the South Palace, not an obvious interpretation". Andrew George's position **[U: I recall him treating the gardens as a Babylonian monument, e.g. in his contribution to Finkel & Seymour 2008, but I did not verify any wording]**.

### 3.8 Wiseman, Stronach, Novák, Cook, Kuhrt, Margueron, Jursa [via B–R]

- Wiseman, D. J. 1983, "Mesopotamian Gardens", *Anatolian Studies* 33: 137–144; 1985, *Nebuchadrezzar and Babylon* (Schweich Lectures 1983), OUP, 56–59, pl. II — gardens north of the Western Outwork by the North Palace; the *kummu gigunâtim* reading; "There is then no reason to suppose that Nebuchadrezzar's royal garden was any less sumptuous than that of royal predecessors in Assyria" (1985, 59; B–R n. 259).
- Stronach, D. 1989 (*Archaeologia Iranica et Orientalis* FS Vanden Berghe, 475–502) and 1990, "The Garden as a Political Statement", *Bulletin of the Asia Institute* 4: 171–180: "A soldier and statesman of marked ability, Nebuchadnezzar was in addition a royal architect of unusual ambition and imagination. It is only logical to presume … that he would have felt impelled to create … a form of royal garden that would proclaim the same proud message … the Hanging Gardens of Babylon stand as an ultimate witness to the prestige that was attached to the concept of a 'landscaped' royal garden" (1990, 174; B–R n. 267). Stronach 2018, "Notes on Nineveh, Babylon and the Hanging Gardens", in S. Gondet & E. Haerinck (eds), *L'Orient est son jardin: Hommage à Rémy Boucharlat* (Acta Iranica 58), Leuven: Peeters, 467–476 [citation V via Crossref; content **U** — presumably a late response to Dalley 2013].
- Novák, M. 2002, "The Artificial Paradise: Programme and Ideology of Royal Gardens", in Parpola & Whiting (eds), *Sex and Gender in the Ancient Near East* (CRRAI 47), 443–460 — stresses continuity of the royal-garden ideology from Assyria to Babylonia and Persia; leaves the location question open (B–R nn. 27, 259).
- Cook, E. F. 2004, "Near Eastern Sources for the Palace of Alkinoos", *AJA* 108.1: 43–77 — takes note of Dalley (58f. n. 85; 65f.) as a "Denkmöglichkeit"; follows Wiseman on Babylon (B–R n. 12).
- Kuhrt, A. 1995, *The Ancient Near East c. 3000–330 BC*, 609: the gardens belong with "legendary anecdotes and romantic stories" (B–R n. 25). Margueron 1992, 78: "Es erscheint aber sinnvoll, auf die traditionelle Ortszuweisung zu verzichten." Jursa 2004a, 77: the gardens "bleiben trotz vieler Untersuchungen ein ungelöstes Problem."

### 3.9 The Berossos specialists: Rollinger 2013, Haubold 2010, van der Spek 2008, Beaulieu 2006, Streck 2018

- Rollinger, R. 2013. "Berossos and the Monuments: City Walls, Sanctuaries, Palaces and the Hanging Gardens." In J. Haubold, G. B. Lanfranchi, R. Rollinger & J. Steele (eds), *The World of Berossos* (Classica et Orientalia 5), Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 137–162. Per André Heller's BMCR review [V summary]: Akkadian has no word for 'hanging'; Greek *kremastos* reflects Nebuchadnezzar's own phrase 'high as a mountain' used of the North Palace, which Berossos echoes (pp. 151–155). Wikipedia [V]: "Rollinger has suggested that Berossus attributed the Gardens to Nebuchadnezzar for political reasons, and that he had adopted the legend from elsewhere" (p. 151). Pedersén n. 56 [V]: Rollinger 2013, 152 "clearly state[s] that Berossos located the gardens in the North Palace". Potts n. 10 [V] uses Rollinger's translation of the Berossos fragment.
- Haubold, J. 2010. "Berossos and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon." SSRN working paper, DOI 10.2139/ssrn.1607645 (Crossref abstract [V]): "Stephanie Dalley has recently argued that a structure of this kind never existed in Babylon … Reinhold Bichler and Robert Rollinger point out important weaknesses in Dalley's argument, underlining that there is no evidence linking the Neo-Assyrian parks with the Greek stories, but ultimately leave the problem unsolved … This paper … argues that, whatever the Hanging Gardens might in fact have been, they were certainly attractive as an idea in the culturally hybrid world of early Hellenistic Babylon."
- van der Spek, R. J. 2008, "Berossus as a Babylonian Chronicler and Greek Historian", in *Studies in Ancient Near Eastern World View and Society* (FS Stol), 277–318 **[title U]**: per Livius.org (Jona Lendering, "Babylon, Hanging Gardens", rev. 6 Aug 2020 [V summary]) "it seems very likely that the Hanging Gardens are in fact Cleitarchus' fantastic description of the royal palace in Babylon"; Lendering treats the Nineveh idea as an error "comparable to placing the Eiffel Tower in Berlin" though not impossible given Greek confusion. Pedersén n. 59 [V] lists "Possibly no real garden at all: Beaulieu 2006, van der Spek 2008."
- Beaulieu, P.-A. 2006 (article on Berossus/Nebuchadnezzar **[title U]**) — same category per Pedersén; Beaulieu 2018, *A History of Babylon, 2200 BC – AD 75* (Wiley) **[U; I recall he treats the gardens as unlocated/possibly legendary and does not adopt Nineveh]**.
- Streck, M. P. 2018 — per Pedersén n. 59 [V], "Streck has collected the arguments for placing the gardens in the North Palace based on cuneiform texts" (article in a 2018 volume; exact title **U**).

### 3.10 Olof Pedersén 2021 [V, `raw_D/pedersen_2021_babylon.txt`, §3.3.3 pp. 122–125]

Pedersén, O. 2021. *Babylon: The Great City*. Münster: Zaphon. ISBN 978-3-96327-136-6 (open access). The current archaeological synthesis of Babylon: "A simple reading of the text would be that he [Berossos] placed what was called the 'Hanging Gardens' in the North Palace" (p. 124); Diodorus' 4 × 4 plethra × 50 cubits (≈120 × 120 × 23 m) "is not so far from the size of the part of the terrace with the main building of the North Palace" (p. 124). "Most scholars have accepted the identity of Nebuchadnezzar's North Palace and the palace described by Berossos, but have then tried to place the Hanging Gardens in various parts of the central palace area in Babylon or elsewhere and not in the North Palace … A few have even opted for the alternative that the gardens were not in Babylon but elsewhere. Budge suggested confusion with Hamadan, and Dalley tried Nineveh" (p. 125), with n. 59: "Outside Babylon: Budge 1920, 297–298; Dalley 2013, for which compare Bichler – Rollinger 2005." Pedersén's own reconstruction (fig. 3.32) puts terraced plantations on the North Palace, fed by the 13 m-wide canal through it.

### 3.11 The standard edition: RINAP 3/1 (Grayson & Novotny 2012) [V, `raw_D/rinap31.txt`]

Grayson, A. K. & Novotny, J. 2012. *The Royal Inscriptions of Sennacherib, King of Assyria (704–681 BC), Part 1* (RINAP 3/1), Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns. Introduction, n. 44: "For the opinion that Sennacherib's 'replica of Mount Amanus' was the origin of the 'Hanging Gardens of Babylon' story, see Dalley, Iraq 56 (1994) pp. 45–58; and Dalley, HSAO 6 pp. 19–24. See also Dalley, Studies D. Oates pp. 67–73; and K.P. Foster, Iraq 66 (2004) pp. 207–220. For some critical reviews of Dalley's proposal, see Reade, Iraq 62 (2000) pp. 195–217; and Bichler and Rollinger, Studies Schretter pp. 153–218." The edition thus files the thesis as an "opinion" with "critical reviews"; Novotny's translation of the water-raising passage in the RINAP 3/1 texts (nos. 15–17, col. vii–viii) could not be located in my extraction (encoding failure), so I cannot report whether RINAP renders *alamittu* as "screw" or "date palm" **[U; my recollection is that RINAP does not translate it as a screw]**.

### 3.12 Handbooks and 2020–2026 [mostly U]

Higgins, M. D. 2023, *The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World: Science, Engineering and Technology*, OUP — J. Z. van Rookhuijzen's BMCR review [V summary] says Higgins "maintains an open-minded perspective when discussing the locations of the two Wonders that are currently archaeologically uncertain: the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, which could have existed in reality in Nineveh rather than in Babylon." Van De Mieroop, M. 2003, "Reading Babylon", *AJA* 107: 257–275 (cited by B–R n. 257 for Nebuchadnezzar's building; his own remark on the gardens **U**). Tuplin 1996 (*Achaemenid Studies*, on *paradeisoi*) **[U]**. Radner/OHANE/*Companion to Assyria* treatments **[U]**. AlOmary, A. Y. 2014, "Hanging Gardens of Babylon or Hanging Gardens of Ninewa: A Comparative Study of Their Landscape Spatial Characteristics", *Al-Rafidain Engineering Journal* 22.2: 1–15, DOI 10.33899/rengj.2014.87154 [title V; content U]. I found no 2020–2026 journal article that re-examines the philology of the thesis; the recent literature is popular (Archaeology Nov/Dec 2025; BAS Dec 2025).


## 4. Scoring the debate

### 4.1 Who stands where (positions as verified or as flagged)

| Position | Scholars |
|---|---|
| **Accept Nineveh (or endorse in print)** | Dalley (1993–2025); Renger 1998 (via B–R); Veenhof 2001 (via B–R: "prinzipielle Zustimmung"); Bär, *DNP* 1998 ("Babylon (oder in Niniveh)"); Foster 2004 (title; verdict U); D. J. W. Meijer 2017 in the Nineveh catalogue, ch. 33, p. 173 [V]: "The garden that Sennacherib had laid out in Nineveh was famous for its flora and waterworks, and may in fact have served as a source for later myths about the 'hanging gardens of Babylon' (Dalley, this volume)"; popular/garden-history writers (Gardens Trust 2021; Hageneuer 2023; Lane Fox FT 2013; *Sunday Times*); Frahm 1997 accepted the screw only. |
| **Sympathetic but unconvinced ("far from proven")** | Potts 2013; Kirkus; Cook 2004; Higgins 2023 ("open-minded"); Haubold 2010 (leaves it unsolved). |
| **Agnostic / the whole thing may be a Greek construct** | Kuhrt 1995; Jursa 2004; Margueron 1992; Brodersen 1996 ("blühte vor allem in der antiken Phantasie"); Beaulieu 2006; van der Spek 2008 (and, by implication, his 2013 review); Lendering/Livius 2020; Haubold 2010. |
| **Reject Nineveh; garden was (probably) at Babylon** | Bichler & Rollinger 2005; Bagg 2000; Reade 1998/2000 (Western Outwork); Wiseman 1983/1985 (north of Western Outwork); Stronach 1989/1990 (and 2018, U); Rollinger 2013 and Streck 2018 (North Palace); Pedersén 2021 (North Palace); Frahm 1997 ("Beweis … noch nicht erbracht"); Finkel/Seymour 2008/2014 (Babylon or myth); Joannès 2001 (records lack of unanimity). |
| **Neutral registration** | RINAP 3/1 (2012) n. 44; Ur 2005; Morandi Bonacossi 2017/2018; Wikipedia's "three theories". |

### 4.2 Consensus summaries as published

- Wikipedia [V]: "The Hanging Gardens are the only one of the Seven Wonders whose location has not been definitively established … Three theories have been suggested … first, that the gardens were purely mythical … second, that they existed in Babylon but were destroyed sometime around the first century AD; and third, that the legend refers to a well-documented garden that the Assyrian King Sennacherib (704–681 BC) built in his capital city of Nineveh."
- Biblical Archaeology Society, N. Steinmeyer, "Where Are the Hanging Gardens of Babylon?" (Dec 2025) [V summary]: "there is no definitive answer", Dalley's theory "a compelling alternative".
- *Archaeology* Nov/Dec 2025, B. Leonard, "Secrets of the Seven Wonders: Hanging Garden" [V summary]: presents Dalley's case at length; no opposing scholar quoted.
- Pedersén 2021, 125 [V]: "Most scholars have accepted the identity of Nebuchadnezzar's North Palace and the palace described by Berossos … A few have even opted for the alternative that the gardens were not in Babylon but elsewhere."
- Haubold 2010 [V]: B–R "point out important weaknesses in Dalley's argument … but ultimately leave the problem unsolved."

**Net assessment (2026):** Among specialists the Nineveh identification is a well-known minority position; the most frequently expressed specialist view is that the problem is unsolved, with the balance of Babylon-side opinion having shifted since 2013 from Koldewey's vaults/Western Outwork towards Nebuchadnezzar's North Palace (Rollinger, Streck, Pedersén), precisely because Berossos is being read more literally. In the Anglophone public sphere, by contrast, Dalley's thesis has become the default "answer" (television, museum blogs, garden-history writing), which explains the gap between popular and scholarly framings.

### 4.3 The strongest counter-case (as critics put it)

1. *Every ancient source places the garden at Babylon*, and the Greeks — from Herodotus on — distinguished Babylon from Nineveh (B–R pp. 173, 206; Potts). The transmission scenario requires either uniform textual corruption or that Alexander's historians, who marched into Babylon weeks after Gaugamela, relocated what they saw at Jerwan (Potts).
2. *No Neo-Assyrian text calls Nineveh "Babylon"*; the only witness is an 11th-century Arabic astronomical tract (B–R pp. 179–181). Sennacherib's cult reforms concern Assur, not Nineveh.
3. *Berossos*, a Babylonian priest with archival access writing c. 290 BC, explicitly attributes a "hanging paradeisos" of stone terraces to Nebuchadnezzar's new palace — a statement that matches Nebuchadnezzar's own inscription about the North Palace built "high as a mountain" (Rollinger 2013; Pedersén 2021). Dalley's interpolation hypothesis has no positive support (B–R p. 188; Potts).
4. *The relief* BM 124939 shows an aqueduct, not vaulted terraces; it comes from Ashurbanipal's palace, and its identification with Sennacherib's palace garden is a premise, not a result (Reade; B–R pp. 182–186).
5. *The screw* rests on a metaphorical reading of two words whose plain sense is "great tree-trunk" and "date-palm"; no other evidence for the device exists for four centuries; Dalley's crank drive is anachronistic (Bagg; Potts n. 15; D&O 14; B–R n. 172).
6. *Arguments from silence* cut both ways (Herodotus is silent about Nineveh's gardens too; Nebuchadnezzar's inscriptions are generically selective; Xenophon saw Nineveh's ruins and mentions no garden) (B–R pp. 174, 190, 203).
7. *The Euphrates diversion*, needed to explain why later visitors could not see Nebuchadnezzar's garden, is a modern construct contradicted by cuneiform evidence for the river's course under Alexander (B–R pp. 189–190).

### 4.4 The strongest pro-Dalley points that critics concede

- Sennacherib's garden is real, documented in his own words as a "wonder for all peoples", terraced beside a palace, watered by a canal system with aqueducts and some novel lifting device, imitating a mountain landscape, with two palace reliefs almost certainly depicting it — "for the most part not in dispute" (Potts); B–R (p. 185) call the screw reading "durchaus genial" even while rejecting it, and Frahm (1997, 278) accepted the screw.
- Nothing at Babylon has ever been securely identified; Nebuchadnezzar's copious inscriptions never mention such a garden; Herodotus, Xenophon and (by some readings) Ctesias are silent — so "some archaeologists have thrown up their hands and declared the whole thing a romantic fiction" (Potts), and B–R themselves concede that "wo genau es in Babylon zu suchen ist" is unknown and that the tradition is "zu einem guten Stück von Imagination geprägt" (p. 206).
- Greek writers demonstrably confused Assyria and Babylonia, the Tigris and the Euphrates, and Diodorus' sculptured hunting-and-battle walls and "Syrian king" fit Assyrian palaces (conceded as a general phenomenon by B–R pp. 177–178, who explain it by the loss of Babylonian identity in Ctesias).
- The "close to overwhelming" cumulative resemblance (Potts) shifts the burden onto the Babylon side to produce either a text or a structure.

## 5. The screw controversy

### 5.1 The Assyrian text [V, Dalley's translation in D&O pp. 7–8; Potts quotes the same rendering]

Sennacherib's 694 BC prisms (Heidel 1953 Iraq Museum prism; BM 103000; RINAP 3/1 nos. 15–17) describe new casting methods ("I created clay molds as if by divine intelligence for great cylinders and *alamittu* palms, tree of riches; twelve fierce lion-colossi …") and then: "In order to draw water up all day long I had ropes, bronze wires and bronze chains made, and instead of shadufs [*makâte*] I set up the great cylinders [*gišmahhu*] and *alamittu* palms over cisterns. I made those royal lodges look just right. I raised the height of the surroundings of the palace to be a Wonder for all Peoples … A park imitating the Amanus mountains I laid out next to it." D&O themselves note (p. 8): "In fact, it is the molds that are described as being these two, separate items, not the casting itself, which Dalley interprets as a bronze water screw" and (n. 16) that "the sequence of sentences is particularly disjointed here".

### 5.2 Dalley's reading and its evolution

1993: *gišmaḫḫu* = cylinder (attested in mathematical texts), *alamittu* (= *Chamaerops humilis*) = spiral → screw; cast in bronze; turned (1994, 53) by a crank. 2003: *alamittu* ≠ *Chamaerops* (D&O n. 21); the spiral-brick columns of Mesopotamian temples show the spiral was a familiar form; a bronze screw of Roman dimensions would weigh "2 or 3 tons" (D&O p. 8). 2017: *alamittu* = the male date-palm with spiral trunk. Strabo 16.1.5 (D&O p. 12: "The topmost story is approached by a stairway that has water screws [*kochliai*] installed alongside, by means of which those assigned to the task used to raise water up continuously into the gardens from the Euphrates") and Philo Paradoxographus 1.4 (Potts n. 12: "partly they force it up, running backwards, by means of a screw") are taken as descriptions of Sennacherib's device.

### 5.3 Oleson's position inside the joint article [V]

The co-author is explicitly not persuaded. D&O p. 14: "neither the inscription nor the visual evidence prove the existence of the water screw in the seventh century B.C. Only the passage in Strabo is early enough and clear enough to carry some authority, and yet there is no guarantee that the water screws he mentions appeared in his source or that the source itself predates Archimedes. The water screws might even have been retrofitted at the gardens after their invention by Archimedes, to replace some other, less efficient method of irrigation." On the crank: "This approach, however, is almost certainly wrong, since it seems that the principle of the true crank was not discovered until the second century B.C." (p. 14, citing Drachmann 1973). On the Greek testimonia — Diodorus 1.34.2 ("a certain device which Archimedes the Syracusan invented [*epenoēse*], called the screw"), Diodorus 5.37.3–4 (Posidonius: "Egyptian screws" in the Spanish mines, found/invented by a *technitēs*), Athenaeus 5.207–208 (Moschion on Hiero's ship, screw "invented by Archimedes"), Vitruvius 10.6.1–4 (construction) — "Oleson believes that the fragments of Moschion, Agatharchides, and Posidonius … can be interpreted to indicate either that Archimedes invented the water screw or that during or soon after his lifetime … individuals familiar with his life and work believed that he had invented a new device called the water screw" (p. 22). Conclusions (pp. 24–25): "The chronology of the first discovery of the water screw is still clouded in uncertainty … The Palace without a Rival inscription applies metaphorical terminology that an Assyriologist with a knowledge of the water screw can argue refers to that device … It seems likely that Archimedes invented (or reinvented) the device in Egypt at the request of one of the Ptolemies … but this conclusion is not certain." One possible explanation for the four-century gap is "that the device fell out of use, was forgotten, and was reinvented by Archimedes or a near contemporary" (p. 24). Oleson's chapter "Water-Lifting" in Wikander (ed.), *Handbook of Ancient Water Technology* (2000), 242–247, and his *Oxford Handbook of Engineering and Technology in the Classical World* (2008) presumably restate this **[U for 2008 wording]**.

### 5.4 The critics

- Bagg 2000, 201–207: *alamittu*/*gišmaḫḫu* are load-bearing parts of a winch/hoist ("tragende Teile einer Windenvorrichtung"); the passage concerns other parks, not the palace garden; no early evidence for the screw (via B–R and D&O n. 7). Dalley's reply in AfO 48/49 called this "another dogmatic dismissal" (via B–R n. 172).
- Potts 2013 n. 15: *alamittu* is "date palm" in the lexical lists and is so used, with "tree of riches", earlier in the same text.
- B–R 2005, 185–186: "sehr spekulativ"; the drive problem "erhärten … Baggs Kritik erheblich".
- Reade 2000, 211 (via B–R): if screws existed they could as well have been at Babylon; a water-wheel is equally possible.
- Frahm 1997, 278 (via B–R): the one Assyriologist to list the screw among Sennacherib's innovations.
- A 2024 engineering-history article, "The development of the screw pump from Assyrian King Sennacherib time to Archimedes", *International Journal for the History of Engineering & Technology* 94.1, DOI 10.1080/17581206.2023.2299488, follows Dalley (title/abstract only; authors and argument **U**; tandfonline blocked).

**State of the screw question:** the classical-technology community (Oleson, Drachmann, Wikander's handbook tradition) continues to treat Archimedes or the Alexandrian milieu as the origin; the Assyrian screw survives as "possible but unproven", carried mainly by Dalley's own publications and by television reconstructions (the BBC/Channel 4 casting of a small bronze screw, D&O n. 18).


## 6. What was verified from fetched texts vs. what is from memory/unverified

**Verified from full or substantial fetched texts (in `raw_D/`):**
- Dalley 1993 (full OCR); Dalley & Oleson 2003 (full); Dalley 2017 catalogue chapter (full) and the catalogue TOC; Bichler & Rollinger 2005 (full pre-print, all quotations above checked against it, page numbers = print); Potts NYRB 2013 (full); Pedersén 2021 §3.3.3 and n. 59 (full); RINAP 3/1 introduction n. 44–47 (full); Wikipedia "Hanging Gardens of Babylon" wikitext (full); OUP product page for Dalley 2013 (TOC, description, Sunday Times/Literary Review/FT blurbs); Kirkus 2013; Crossref records for Dalley 1993/1994, D&O 2003, Reade 2000, Foster 2004, van der Spek 2013, Choice 2014, Brady 2016, Haubold 2010 (with abstract), Stronach 2018, AlOmary 2014; Semantic Scholar records; Cambridge Core abstract pages for Foster 2004 (opening paragraph) and Ur 2005; BMCR review summaries for Rollinger 2013 (Heller) and Higgins 2023 (van Rookhuijzen); Livius.org summary; BAS Dec 2025 and Archaeology Nov/Dec 2025 summaries; Gardens Trust 2021 and Hageneuer 2023 blog summaries; Time Out 2013; Hyperallergic report of Lane Fox; Dalley's AMES publication list.
- Quotations of Dalley 1994, Dalley 1997/2002/2003, Bagg 2000, Reade 1998/2000, Frahm 1997, Wiseman 1985, Stronach 1990, Kuhrt 1995, Joannès 2001, Veenhof 2001, Renger 1998, Bär 1998, Margueron 1992, Jursa 2004, Brodersen 1996, Olmstead 1923, CAD G — all **only as quoted by B–R** (accurately transcribed, but I have not seen the originals).

**Unverified / from memory / search snippets:**
- Content of van der Spek 2013 review; Holland's verdict beyond the blurb; exact Lane Fox sentences on the Western Outwork; the "Every good summer needs a controversy" attribution; the anonymous 2014 academia.edu review; Times Higher Education notice (not found).
- Finkel 1988 exact sentence ("never been conclusively identified …"); Finkel & Seymour 2008 pp. 108–109 wording; George's position; Beaulieu 2006 and 2018 wording; Streck 2018 title; van der Spek 2008 title; Stronach 2018 content; Reade 2000 details beyond what B–R/Potts/Wikipedia quote; Foster 2004's verdict; Ur 2005 and Morandi Bonacossi's views on the garden; Cook 2004's wording; Novák 2002 and Tuplin 1996 content; Frahm 2017/2023, Radner, OHANE, Companion to Assyria treatments; Van De Mieroop 2003's remark; Dalley 1997 exact title; Dalley 2021 treatment; Oleson 2008 wording; the 2024 IJHET article's authors/argument; RINAP 3/1's translation of the *alamittu* passage; Seymour 2014 p. 73 (via Pedersén only); Wiseman 1983 content; Meijer 2017 beyond the one phrase; the exact BMCR issue numbers of the Heller and van Rookhuijzen reviews.

## 7. Raw files saved (`raw_D/`)

`dalley_1993_garden_history_ocr.txt`; `dalley_oleson_2003_TC.pdf` + `.txt`; `bichler_rollinger_2005_achemenet.pdf` + `.txt`; `nyrb_potts_2013.html` + `.txt`; `nineveh_great_city_2017_sidestone.pdf`; `pedersen_2021_babylon.pdf` + `.txt`; `rinap31.pdf` + `.txt`; `wiki_hg_wikitext.json` + `.txt`; `crossref_*.json` (DOI and review sweeps); `sidestone_nineveh.html`; `ia_dalley1993_meta.json`; failed fetches kept for the record (`reade_2000*.pdf`, `foster_2004.pdf`, `cook_2004_aja.pdf` = HTML error pages; `jstor_reade2000.html`; `vanderspek_2013_aup.html` = Cloudflare page); `transcript_extracts/` (web page and web search results saved as extracts: OUP page, Kirkus, Hyperallergic, Gardens Trust, Hageneuer, Livius, BAS, Archaeology, Time Out, Haubold/Stronach Crossref, BMCR summaries, Ur 2005, Foster 2004 abstract).