Three Competing Theories

Scholars have argued over this for decades:

• Theory 1: Real but destroyed — Babylon sat on a floodplain, and mud-brick structures dissolve. The gardens simply washed away over the centuries.
• Theory 2: Wrong city — Oxford scholar Stephanie Dalley argues they actually stood in Nineveh, built by the Assyrian king Sennacherib, 400 km north of Babylon.
• Theory 3: Pure legend — Greek writers invented them to make Babylon sound exotic, and the story stuck.

The Nineveh theory is gaining traction. Dalley points to Assyrian texts describing terraced gardens and water-lifting systems that match the ancient descriptions.