The Hanging Gardens of Babylon appear on the Greek scholar Antipater's list of the Seven Wonders of the World in conjunction with the mighty city walls of that great city. According to tradition, the gardens were a vast, terraced complex of columns and streams and arcades enshrouded in lush vegetation to emulate the greenery and mountains of Media. Supposedly, the gardens were built on the order of the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II to please his wife, a Median princess, who was wearied by the arid land of Babylon and missed her homeland.

However, the gardens may simply have been a myth, a poetic construction, or a fable. The only writings to mention the Hanging Gardens of Babylon are from Greek authors, writing centuries later from earlier works that are now lost. It may be that the ruins of the gardens lie at the bottom of the Euphrates river, hidden by the river as it changed course since the time of the Babylonian Empire. Or, that the gardens were a legend grown from the magnificent palace gardens of Nineveh; the story confused and elaborated to wondrous proportions over the course of centuries and countless retellings.