This is the comment thread!

[Reece]

[Betonov]

Were the hanging gardens of Babylon terraced conventional flower beds/fields or were they an ancient hydroponics set up

[Jimbuna]

You do not need a parachute to skydive. You only need a parachute to skydive twice.

[Aktungbby]

Originally Posted by Betonov

Were the hanging gardens of Babylon terraced conventional flower beds/fields or were they an ancient hydroponics set up

Think Ninevah not Babylon:Sennacherib, not Nebuchadnezzar II, built the marvel in the early seventh century B.C., a century earlier than scholars had previously thought. Archimedes did not invent the water-screw!!??

Dalley, who has spent the better part of two decades researching the Hanging Gardens and studying ancient cuneiform texts, believes they were constructed 300 miles to the north of Babylon in Nineveh, the capital of the rival Assyrian empire. She asserts the Assyrian king Sennacherib, not Nebuchadnezzar II, built the marvel in the early seventh century B.C., a century earlier than scholars had previously thought.
According to Oxford University, Dalley, who is a scholar in ancient Mesopotamian languages, found evidence in new translations of the ancient texts of King Sennacherib that describe his own “unrivaled palace” and a “wonder for all peoples.” He also mentioned a bronze water-raising screw—similar to Archimedes’ screw developed four centuries later—that could have been used to irrigate the gardens.

Originally Posted by Sennacherib

Whereas in former times the kings my forefathers had created bronze statues imitating real-life forms to put on display inside temples, but in their method of work they had exhausted all the craftsmen, for lack of skill and failure to understand the principles they needed so much oil, wax and tallow for the work that they caused a shortage in their own countries – I Sennacherib, leader of all princes, knowledgeable in all kinds of work, took much advice and deep thought over doing that kind of work.... I created clay moulds as if by divine intelligence for cylinders and screws... In order to draw up water all day long, I had ropes, bronze wires and bronze chains made. And instead of a shaduf I set up the cylinders and screws of copper over cisterns....(lost wax casting)I raised the height of the surroundings of the palace, to be a Wonder for all Peoples... A high garden imitating the Amanus mountains I laid out next to it, with all kinds of aromatic plants, orchard fruit trees, trees that enrich not only mountain country but also Chaldea (Babylonia), as well as trees that bear wool, planted within it
Sennacherib could bring the water into his garden at a high level because it was sourced from further up the mountains. He then raised the water even higher by deploying his new water screws. This meant he could build a garden that towered into the sky with large trees on the top of the terraces – a stunning artistic effect that surpassed those of his predecessors and which justifies his own claim to have built a "Wonder for all Peoples".

http://www.history.com/news/hanging-gardens-existed-but-not-in-babylon INDEED: "Nuthin good goes outta style" meets "OK BBY when exactly did the style begin?" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archimedes%27_screw

[Catfish]

^ well the town of Akrotiri used donkey-driven pumps to supply water to their 3-story-buildings, also with an "archimedic" screw. They were made of wood though. This was in the bronze age around 1600 years b.c., and most probably already used earlier.
The question still is whether Akrotiri was a minoan colony, the spiritual center of the Minoans or just a trade partner of the Minoans. The center of the island with its temples and walls, as depicted on the frescoes, has been annihilated in the latest plinian eruption, around 1600 b.c.

[Aktungbby]

Originally Posted by Catfish

^ has been annihilated in the latest plinian eruption, around 1600 b.c.

Plinian eruption... Show a little respect ! This is a naval forum: Pliny the Elder, an admiral engaged in evacuating the victims, died of asphyxiation (actually probably a heart attack; his companions who left him behind apparently had no problems with fumes) Plinian is therefore capitalized...

praefect (fleet commander) in the Roman Navy. On AD August 24, 79, he was stationed at Misenum, at the time of the great eruption of Mount Vesuvius, which overwhelmed Pompeii and Herculaneum. He was preparing to cross the Bay of Naples to observe the phenomenon directly when a message arrived from his friend Rectina asking to rescue her and Pomponianus. Launching the galleys under his command to the evacuation of the opposite shore, he himself took "a fast-sailing cutter", a decision that may have cost him his life. The problem with the toxicity theory is that his companions were unaffected by the same fumes, and they had no mobility problems whereas Pliny had to sit and could not rise. As he is described as a corpulent man, who also suffered fromasthma, it is hypothesized that his friends left him because he was already dead. His nephew, Pliny the Younger provided an account of his death, obtained from the survivors. Pliny the Younger's attention to detail in the letters (104 AD) about Vesuvius is so keen that modern volcanologists describe those types of eruptions as "Plinian eruptions". The nephew and his mother had decided not to go on the voyage across the bay. The fate of fair Rectina who evidently could launch a fleet... is unknown

Pliny the Elder is best known today for mentioning lupus salictarius in his Naturalis Historia, which is thought to be the earliest known recording of hops...

[Betonov]

No doubt they had a system to carry water to the top of the building and let gravity do its thing.

Its just that I wonder how plants were planted. Irrigated soil or hydroponics.

[Jimbuna]

The voices in my head may not be real, but they have some good ideas!

[Jimbuna]

A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.

[Jimbuna]

Laugh at your problems, everybody else does.

[Reece]

[Jimbuna]

Never get into fights with ugly people, they have nothing to lose.

[Gerald]

Good to be able to come home for Christmas after an absence, in connection with a new project.

[Catfish]

He's back!

[Jimbuna]