Around 1857
A.D. and despite the lack of tangible evidence and limited discoveries on one
hand and on the other hand the dissatisfaction of many French*, German and
other European scholars, the British Royal Asiatic Society RAS decided that the
term Assyriology is accurate!
The RAS
scholars claimed that what Layard has discovered in Nineveh, the ancient
capital of Assur from the period 668 – 627 BC is
the most ancient Mesopotamian writing system.
However, in
less than twenty years, hundreds of tablets were collected from all over the
Middle East. These tablets were inscribed with Cuneiform and Mesopotamian
pictograph signs, were not only two or three hundred years older than the ones
discovered in Nineveh, but in fact more than two thousand years, and in some
cases more than three thousand years, especially the tablets that were
discovered in the Babylonian region, i.e., Kish, UR, and Uruk.
Some
European scholars suggested revisiting the term Assyriology, and proposed other
terms including Cuneiformiology and Mesopotamialogy. This
intention to right the wrong doing by the RAS, was what made Samuel Noah Kramer to suggest the
term Sumeriology in the first half of the 20th century. However, the British
members at the RAS ignored all the European scholars’ suggestions and insisted
on using the wrong term, claiming there is no need to change what is in use worldwide
for more than two decades. The British arrogance
and their political ambitions what force to use an inaccurate scientific term
no more and no less.
Once again, the same course of arrogance,
pursuing fame, and other improper factors, were behind the new inappropriate
claim that suggested another location for the famous Hanging Gardens of Babylon
and one of the ancient world seven wonders. Stephanie Mary Dalley FSA (née Page;
March 1943) is another British scholar of the Ancient Near East. She retired as
a Research Fellow from the Oriental Institute, Oxford. She is become known for
her so-called investigation into the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, and her incorrect
proposal, which I am going to refute. Dalley suggested that the Hanging Gardens
was not situated in Babylon and was not built by Nebuchadnezzar, but according
to her feeble speculations in Nineveh, and constructed during Sennacherib's
rule!
Since
Stephanie Daley has published her theory of the Hanging Gardens and attributed
them to the wrong place and wrong king, some have written about her attempt to
improperly mix up cards to support her theory, which is based on a proposition
refuted by the historical and geographic reality of the region.
1- Dalley
intentionally played on confusing the readers between Sennacherib, who
destroyed Babylon, however, she claimed that he loved it, and Ashurbanipal who
burned Babylon down and looted its massive libraries.
2- Other
authors are confused between Sennacherib, who established a water canal (aqueduct),
a
traditional system in ancient Iraq and a mural bas-relief in the Ashurbanipal
Palace, ignoring the fact that Mesopotamian artists did not rely on a
three-dimensional painting in their murals. Although the mural seems to be in
layers but in reality, it merely depicts distances and not heights.
3- More
importantly, any simple peasant from the Nineveh Plain knows that there is no
need to invent complex irrigation technology, noting that all water wells have
been used in central and southern Iraq, and not in the north, which sustains
its agriculture through rainfall and not by means of irrigation.
4 - Berossus / Bēl-rē'u-šu
had been accused by Dalley and her followers, for political reasons, of
attributing the Hanging Gardens to Babylon, ignoring the fact that he is one of
the most important geniuses in Mesopotamia during the Hellenistic-era and that he is the son of Babel, who knows
everything about it. He is the one who taught the Greeks in Kos Island where
they installed a huge statue of him out of appreciation and admiration.
5- Some
British historians tried to give explanations far from reality about the
writings of Josephus and Diodorus Siculus,
and other scholars who wrote about the Hanging Gardens of Babylon on the
pretext that they were talking about Ashurbanipal bas-relief mural, ignoring
the fact that Nineveh at that time was no longer in existence after three
centuries of destruction.
German,
French, Russian, and Iraqi archaeologists and historians have unquestionably
confirmed that the discovered refrigerator building of Babel at
Nebuchadnezzar's Palace is the most likely place for the Hanging Gardens.
6-
Dalley, argued that Nebuchadnezzar’s records did not mention the Hanging
Gardens, ignoring the fact that, we have not found most of Nebuchadnezzar’s
records; the flooding of Babylon twice by Sennacherib and Ashurbanipal and the
diversion of Euphrates river in the era of Cyrus have erased the history of
thousands of years, including countless records of Nebuchadnezzar.
Finally,
it is worth mentioning that planting trees on the Babylonian palaces’ roofs is
a common tradition. Unlike Nineveh, which is already famous for its
natural forests and colder weather.