Increases growth by 15% in all cities. Must be built next to a River.
- +2 Housing
Removed if game started after Medieval Era.
Required Technologies:
- Irrigation
Adjacency:
- Must be adjacent to a river.
Historical Context
“The ascent to the highest story is by stairs, and at their side are water engines, by means of which persons, appointed expressly for the purpose, are continually employed in raising water from the Euphrates into the garden.” – Strabo
The Hanging Gardens may not have even existed, much less been a “wonder”; no Babylonian source mentions them, and there is no archaeological evidence for them (unlike for other ancient wonders of the world).
The primary evidence for the Gardens comes from several Greek and Roman texts – how they were created, why they were created, their size and variety, even how they were watered. According to these, Nebuchadnezzar II constructed the Gardens c. 600 BC for his (obviously spoiled) homesick Median wife Amytis, who missed the green hills of her birth place.
The “historical” sources also state that the Gardens were an ascending series of terraces (much like a ziggurat) built of mud bricks and containing all manner of plants.
The base was supposedly 400 feet square, and the whole mass rose 75 feet into the very dry air; estimates are that the gardens would have required 8200 gallons of water a day to keep the plants alive in Babylon. If the Gardens did exist, it is assumed these were destroyed sometime during the first century AD.
