One other building within the palace deserves mention, as it has been suggested that it may represent the remains of the famous Hanging Gardens of Babylon.[85] It is reached from the north-east corner of the Central Court[86] along a broad passage-way,[87] from which a branch passage turns off at right angles; and on the left side of this narrower passage are its two entrances.[88] It must be confessed that at first sight the ground-plan of this building does not suggest a garden of any sort, least of all one that became famous as a wonder of the ancient world. It will be seen that the central part, or core, of the building is surrounded by a strong wall and within are fourteen narrow cells or chambers, seven on each side of a central gangway.[89] The cells were roofed in with semicircular arches, forming a barrel vault over each; and the whole is encircled by a narrow corridor, flanked on the north and east sides by the outer palace-wall. This part of the building, both the vaulted chambers and the surrounding corridor, lies completely below the level of the rest of the palace. The small chambers, some of them long and narrow like the vaults, which enclose the central core upon the west and south, are on the palace level; and the subterranean portion is reached by a stairway in one of the rooms on the south side.[90]
There are two main reasons which suggested the identification of this building with the Hanging Gardens. The first is that hewn stone was used in its construction, which is attested by the numerous broken fragments discovered among its ruins. With the exception of the Sacred Road and the bridge over the Euphrates, there is only one other place on the whole site of Babylon where hewn stone is used in bulk for building purposes, and that is the northern wall of the Ḳaṣr. Now, in all the literature referring to Babylon, stone is only recorded to have been used for buildings in two places, and those are the north wall of the Citadel and in the Hanging Gardens, a lower layer in the latter's roofing, below the layer of earth, being described as made of stone. These facts certainly point to the identification of the Vaulted Building with the Hanging Gardens.[91] Moreover, Berossus definitely places them within the buildings by which Nebuchadnezzar enlarged his father's palace; but this reference would apply equally to the later Central Citadel constructed by Nebuchadnezzar immediately to the north of his main palace. The size of the building is also far greater in Strabo and Diodorus than that of the Vaulted Building, the side of the quadrangle, according to these writers, measuring about four times the latter's length. But discrepancy in figures of this sort, as we have already seen in the case of the outer walls of the city, is easily explicable and need not be reckoned as a serious objection.[92]
The second reason which pointed to the identification is that, in one of the small chambers near the south-west corner of the outer fringe of rooms on those two sides, there is a very remarkable well. It consists of three adjoining shafts, a square one in the centre flanked by two of oblong shape. This arrangement, unique so far as the remains of ancient Babylon are concerned, may be most satisfactorily explained on the assumption that we here have the water-supply for a hydraulic machine, constructed on the principle of a chain-pump. The buckets, attached to an endless chain, would have passed up one of the outside wells, over a great wheel fixed above them, and, after emptying their water into a trough as they passed, would have descended the other outside well for refilling. The square well in the centre obviously served as an inspection-chamber, down which an engineer could descend to clean the well out, or to remove any obstruction. In the modern contrivances of this sort, sometimes employed to-day in Babylonia to raise a continuous flow of water to the irrigation-trenches, the motive-power for turning the winch is supplied by horses or other animals moving round in a circle. In the Vaulted Building there would have been scarcely room for such an arrangement, and it is probable that gangs of slaves were employed to work a couple of heavy hand-winches. The discovery of the well undoubtedly serves to strengthen the case for identification.
EASTERN TOWERS OF THE ISHTAR GATE
Two alternative schemes are put forward to reconstitute the upper structure of this building. Its massive walls suggest in any case that they were intended to support a considerable weight, and it may be that the core of the building, constructed over the subterranean vaults, towered high above its surrounding chambers which are on the palace-level. This would have been in accordance with the current conception of a hanging garden; and, since on two sides it was bounded by the palace-wall, its trees and vegetation would have been visible from outside the citadel. Seen thus from the lower level of the town, the height of the garden would have been reinforced by the whole height of the Citadel-mound on which the palace stands, and imagination once kindled might have played freely with its actual measurements.
On the other hand, the semicircular arches, still preserved within the central core, may have directly supported the thick layer of earth in which the trees of the garden were planted. These would then have been growing on the palace-level, as it were in a garden-court, perhaps surrounded by a pillared colonnade with the outer chambers opening on to it on the west and south sides. In either scheme the subterranean vaults can only have been used as stores or magazines, since they were entirely without light. As a matter of fact, a large number of tablets were found in the stairway-chamber that leads down to them; and, since the inscriptions upon them relate to grain, it would seem that some at least were used as granaries. But this is a use to which they could only have been put if the space above them was not a garden, watered continuously by an irrigation-pump, as moisture would have been bound to reach the vaults.[93]
Whichever alternative scheme we adopt, it must be confessed that the Hanging Gardens have not justified their reputation. And if they merely formed a garden-court, as Dr. Koldewey inclines to believe, it is difficult to explain the adjectives [κρεμαστός] and pensilis. For the subterranean vaults would have been completely out of sight, and, even when known to be below the pavement-level, were not such as to excite wonder or to suggest the idea of suspension in the air. One cannot help suspecting that the vaulted building may really, after all, be nothing more than the palace granary, and the triple well one of the main water-supplies for domestic use. We may, at least for the present, be permitted to hope that a more convincing site for the gardens will be found in the Central Citadel after further excavation.