Latest / Ridiculous History / Ancient Wonders of the Modern World: The (Alleged) Hanging Gardens of Babylon

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Ancient Wonders of the Modern World: The (Alleged) Hanging Gardens of Babylon · Ridiculous History

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  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
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  Speaker 1: the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so
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  Speaker 1: wonder of the podcasting world. Super producer, mister Max william.
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  Speaker 2: I exist. I haven't been on an episode with you,
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  Speaker 3: wisdom from beyond, or are still alive?
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  Speaker 2: I did sneak myself into I did.
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  Speaker 4: I heard episodes that one I did here briefly sneak
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  Speaker 4: with a boop.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like, oh I missed Max.
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  Speaker 4: You do a boop right here?
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  Speaker 2: I just do a boop.
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  Speaker 1: And you're referring to mister Noel Brown. Let's give it
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  Speaker 1: up for him. I I am often called Ben Bollen
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  Speaker 1: who were very much missed, not just by Nolan myself
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  Speaker 1: but by our fellow Ridiculous Historians.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, it was fun to have Jonathan Strickland, aka the
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  Speaker 3: quizz or in in his.
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  Speaker 4: Normal kind of persona.
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  Speaker 3: I guess it's just his whatever his Clark kent to
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  Speaker 3: h to Superman or super whatever. What's what's a good
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  Speaker 3: alter ego of a super villain? Did usually have alter egos?
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  Speaker 4: Well?
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  Speaker 1: Sure? In a couple of horror films, there's been a
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  Speaker 1: guy named doctor Akila that I don't trust.
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  Speaker 4: Did Doctor Doom is a guy? He's Eric something?
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  Speaker 5: Right?
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  Speaker 4: Uh?
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  Speaker 1: Eric Lencher is Magneto. Doctor is literally named Victor von Due.
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  Speaker 4: Victor von Doom, right right right? So okay, wow, okay, well.
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  Speaker 2: Now we have like what green goblin is William Dafoe.
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  Speaker 1: Osborne guys.
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  Speaker 3: Weirdly enough though, the green Goblin mask identical to William
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  Speaker 3: Dafoe's actual.
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  Speaker 1: Face, and uh, ed, we are going to talk about
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: Wonders of the Ancient World. We're very excited this is
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  Speaker 1: you know, Willem Dafoe is a wonder of the modern
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  Speaker 1: acting world. But where do we get this phrase wonders
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  Speaker 1: of the ancient world? Why are there specifically seven? And
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  Speaker 1: why do people still disagree? This question stayed with us
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  Speaker 1: for a while. This is the first part of a
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  Speaker 1: continuing series. You guys know, we love doing We love
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: doing series.
• 2:52
  Speaker 4: That just occasional series.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, History of Condiments Inventors who died by their own hand.
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  Speaker 1: And this one, this one is a love letter to
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  Speaker 1: all our fellow fans of the excellent game Civilization NOL.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: Have you ever played Civilization?
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  Speaker 3: I haven't, but I know it's been around for a
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  Speaker 3: long time. And it's sort of like sim City, right, Yeah,
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  Speaker 3: isn't it sort of like it's.
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  Speaker 2: It's oddly like the best educational video game of all time.
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  Speaker 2: That's the best way to think of it.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. It's a turn based strategy game that tricks you
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  Speaker 1: into learning history.
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  Speaker 3: Top down though, right, like where you're kind of having
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  Speaker 3: to manipulate aspects like almost more like stats kind of.
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  Speaker 4: I guess maybe that's the turn.
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  Speaker 2: You like the emperor for your civilization, but you never die.
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  Speaker 1: And yeah, god emperor, okay, Yeah, and you can win
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  Speaker 1: through a series of different conditions.
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  Speaker 3: It's resource management. It's I love resource manager. That's one
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  Speaker 3: of my favorite parts of any the RPG. I just
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: hang out making daggers in the forge, you know, and
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  Speaker 3: selling my wares, right, I never get around to the quests.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, Civilization. The saying for it that it's famous
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  Speaker 2: is one more turn, right, He's like, I'm gonna do
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  Speaker 2: one more turn, one more turn and then four hours
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  Speaker 2: later you're still saying one more super addictive.
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  Speaker 1: Also, the one big problem I have with it is
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  Speaker 1: the further emphasis on nation states, which I just find
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  Speaker 1: as an authoritarian and a tyrant. I find nation states offensive.
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  Speaker 2: Have you played seven yet?
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  Speaker 4: Oh?
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  Speaker 2: You can be you can be a tyrant states and seven?
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  Speaker 4: Well, guys, what system do I get it on?
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  Speaker 3: How do I get in on the conversation and all
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  Speaker 3: of the tyrannical fun and there is.
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  Speaker 5: All cross compatible not to Yeah, and if you are
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  Speaker 5: playing Civilization like our pal Nol, we wish we could
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  Speaker 5: be there with you to experience it for the first time.
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  Speaker 1: Tell us your favorite sieve hacks also true story. This
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  Speaker 1: is what I mean when I say it tricks people
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  Speaker 1: into learning history. You can we do we trick ourselves? Maybe?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah?
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  Speaker 4: You get so true?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah you can. In this game, you can construct a
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  Speaker 1: series of unique things, sometimes building sometimes notable historical monuments.
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  Speaker 1: Only one can exist in the world of the game
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  Speaker 1: you're playing, and these are all based on true or
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  Speaker 1: claimed actual historical one.
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  Speaker 5: One.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. Enter our buddy Neba Kenzar. When when you
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  Speaker 3: read his name on paper, though, it's like you know
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  Speaker 3: that band i'd subauten. You know, it's like I never
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  Speaker 3: say it right when you see it on paper, it's
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  Speaker 3: just how.
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  Speaker 4: Does that word exist?
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  Speaker 3: But it's n e b u c h A d
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  Speaker 3: n e z z a R, which in my mind
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  Speaker 3: would be neb book chad Nezar.
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  Speaker 4: But yeah, it's Nebuconezer. And he was kind of a
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  Speaker 4: big deal.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, back in his day. If you want to
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  Speaker 1: see the halcyon days, the glory days of Nebuconezer, you're
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  Speaker 1: traveling with us back to the Middle East and you
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  Speaker 1: are exploring the city of Babylon. We want to thank
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  Speaker 1: our research associate Max for this. We also want to
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  Speaker 1: thank Mark Cartwright over at World History Encyclopedia. Who yep, yep, yep.
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  Speaker 1: Applause clause, Yeah, thank you Mark. You have broken this
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  Speaker 1: down for all of us. In the modern day Babylon
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  Speaker 1: is about fifty miles or eighty clicks south of the
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  Speaker 1: modern day metropolis of Baghdad in Iraq, and if you
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  Speaker 1: look at any sort of history of human civilization, you
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  Speaker 1: are going to see Babylon mentioned prominently.
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  Speaker 4: Well.
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  Speaker 3: This is the part of the world that is often
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  Speaker 3: referred to as the cradle of civilization, right.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, the Delta, the Vans, the Levant, Yeah, the
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  Speaker 1: Fertile Crescent and so on. So Babylon as a story, people,
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  Speaker 1: we believe that people start hanging out there in a
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  Speaker 1: stationary way in the third millennium BCE.
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  Speaker 4: Long time ago.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, a long time ago. And Max, you had a
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  Speaker 1: lovely piece of language here that I want to shout out.
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  Speaker 1: You're saying this occurs back when years counted down, which
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  Speaker 1: is super confusing for every public school student when you
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  Speaker 1: first have to deal with that.
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  Speaker 3: Right, still for me, can you break it down for
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  Speaker 3: us perma public school students in the audience also?
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  Speaker 2: Still, it was super confusing for the people that time,
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  Speaker 2: like why do the numbers go down? Like what are
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  Speaker 2: we counting down to?
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  Speaker 4: Y'all?
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  Speaker 1: The real shining moment of Babylon, as we understand it
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  Speaker 1: now was in the sixth century BCE, during the reign
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  Speaker 1: of nebuchad Nezer, the second to the city. Yeah. The
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  Speaker 1: city was the capital of a huge empire, and it
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  Speaker 1: was founded by his by nebuchon Nezer's father. Here's another
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  Speaker 1: name we'll love, Nabopolasar, true, true, Nabo po l Assar.
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  Speaker 1: The names were just cooler back then.
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  Speaker 3: And he had done quite well militarily speaking, with victories
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  Speaker 3: over the Assyrian Empire. Nebukondzer the second would go on
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  Speaker 3: to even greater accolades, including capturing Jerusalem in five ninety
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  Speaker 3: seven BCE.
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  Speaker 4: Jerusalem was a major city at this point.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a true story, and kind of a controversial
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  Speaker 1: one if we're being honest. He reached the He reached
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  Speaker 1: the philosophical dilemma that a lot of warlords and world
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  Speaker 1: conqueror types eventually reach if they don't die first. He said, Look,
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  Speaker 1: I can't just be known for extravagant acts of violence.
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  Speaker 1: I want people to understand that our empire is a
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  Speaker 1: good thing for the world, and I want people to
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  Speaker 1: want to be part of it. So I am going
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  Speaker 1: to make my capital, Babylon the coolest place around. This
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  Speaker 1: is where we absolutely bespoke. Absolutely, yes, yeah, Taylor made
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  Speaker 1: to impress you. And this is where we see architectural
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  Speaker 1: marvels like the Ishtar Gate, which is just adorned with
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  Speaker 1: all sorts of depictions of animals, some of which are
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  Speaker 1: real animals and some of which are animals from folklore
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  Speaker 1: and fable.
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  Speaker 3: Well, it's interesting, Ben, You and I just spent some
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  Speaker 3: time in this general region of the world, in the
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  Speaker 3: city called Doha that got a lot of money, you know,
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  Speaker 3: from oil interests and things like that in relatively recent time.
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  Speaker 3: And the way that city looks and feels just has
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  Speaker 3: that new car smell even to this day, and that
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  Speaker 3: kind of like cutting edge you know, marvel of the
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  Speaker 3: of the modern world kind of feel, and that is
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  Speaker 3: what was being you know, shot for here.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and there was a wall surrounding the city, which
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  Speaker 1: you can also build in the early stages of the
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  Speaker 1: game Civilization just well, just noting that it's one of the.
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  Speaker 3: Long wall though, right, it's what twenty clicks of brick, Yeah, twenty.
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  Speaker 1: Brick clicks, twenty brick clicks. It was again cutting or
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  Speaker 1: cutter edge. This double wall surrounded the city at the time.
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  Speaker 1: So far as we know, this was the largest wall built.
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  Speaker 1: So this is the first guy to build the biggest wall,
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  Speaker 1: or rather, this is the first guy to you know,
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  Speaker 1: make his public and probably his slaves build the world's
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  Speaker 1: biggest one.
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  Speaker 3: Well in a wall, you know, certainly while it may
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  Speaker 3: have its aesthetic value, you know, architecturally speaking, you need
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  Speaker 3: something to judge it up a little bit and kind
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  Speaker 3: of you know, decorate your wall.
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  Speaker 4: Even in a game.
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  Speaker 3: You know, when you build your structure, you eventually want
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  Speaker 3: to put down some throw rugs or some wall sconces,
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  Speaker 3: you know, sure, some torches, perhaps a little balustrade, you know,
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  Speaker 3: maybe a tasteful landscape painting. This is how this is
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  Speaker 3: how new humanity is. At this point, he and his crew,
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  Speaker 3: nepucidez Aer and his crew, they come up with the
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  Speaker 3: idea of cultivating plants, not for the brutal struggle of survival,
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  Speaker 3: but rather for aesthetic purposes, something to enjoy, a nice
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  Speaker 3: backyard garden, pleasure garden, if you will. I don't know
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  Speaker 3: why that term. I don't know why. Pleasure always just
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  Speaker 3: sounds horny to me, even like when they say it
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  Speaker 3: to you.
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  Speaker 4: At Chick fil A. There's just something about that word
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  Speaker 4: that seems naughty.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, especially with Chick fil A, which is a
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  Speaker 1: popular a popular fast food chain based here in our
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  Speaker 1: home state of Georgia. Chick fil A. I think the
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  Speaker 1: language makes it creepy because they also say how may
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  Speaker 1: I serve you?
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  Speaker 3: And they're also a pretty heavily puritanically religious organization, you know,
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  Speaker 3: as a company.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, but that being said, you know, we always
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  Speaker 1: strive for transparency. True at Kathy did give me, the
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  Speaker 1: founder of Chick fil A, did give me a bunch
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  Speaker 1: of money when I became an eagle scout, but he
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  Speaker 1: kept sending me his books as well. So the idea
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  Speaker 1: here is a normal thing now. A lot of people
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  Speaker 1: in the crowd tonight. We're fans of gardening, right, or
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  Speaker 1: we're fans of just growing something like flowers. You don't
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  Speaker 1: eat them, you just take care of them and then
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  Speaker 1: you smell them and you look at them. At this point,
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  Speaker 1: this is a stunning new dare we say, disruptive idea.
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  Speaker 1: They're building what appears to be a paradise on Earth,
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  Speaker 1: and Babylon is one of the first to the post
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  Speaker 1: on this. So the the concept spreads. This is a
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  Speaker 1: historical flex. Shout out to our palace, Jack Miles for dailies.
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  Speaker 4: Coming soon coming.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, we hope if we can get them.
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  Speaker 4: Ben.
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  Speaker 3: Isn't this also just a way of in this like
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  Speaker 3: inhospitable climate, this part of the world surrounded by desert,
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  Speaker 3: to almost say we can control nature, you know what
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  Speaker 3: I mean. It's like there's a flex to it in
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  Speaker 3: that respect too, almost as like as a show of power,
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  Speaker 3: godlike abilities to like, you know, pull these beautiful plants
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  Speaker 3: out of the earth in a place where they really
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  Speaker 3: don't belong. Look upon my lilies despair to despair or
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  Speaker 3: it rejoics because they're lovely.
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  Speaker 4: Lilies are nice.
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  Speaker 1: Also, check out our earlier episode about real life hermits.
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  Speaker 3: That the garden hermits hanging out there. Are they guarding
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  Speaker 3: the place? Are they just there for aesthetics? What's their deal?
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  Speaker 3: Check out the episode to find out.
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  Speaker 2: And to John Men, real quick, you guys are just
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  Speaker 2: reminding me the way y'all keep talking about. There's this
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  Speaker 2: episode of Star Trek Deep Space nine seasons.
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  Speaker 4: We know was talking about Star Trek Max.
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  Speaker 2: No, No, I think you'll appreciate this.
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  Speaker 4: No, I know we will. I'm just joking. It doesn't
• 14:08
  Speaker 4: take much for you to bring it to Star Trek. Please.
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  Speaker 2: But it's the scene between two of the antagonists of
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: the show, gold to Cot and Wayoun, and they're talking
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  Speaker 2: about the strategy for a war and one of them
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  Speaker 2: is like, yeah, what we should do is we should
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: blow up Earth, and the Cots like absolutely not. Now,
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  Speaker 2: what we need to do is we need to conquer Earth.
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  Speaker 2: We need to show them that our way is right right,
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  Speaker 2: and their way is wrong and they need confirmed to us.
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  Speaker 2: Then Wayne goes and then we blow it up, and
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  Speaker 2: because's like only if they don't get down with it.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, maybe right, So every open hand can't
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  Speaker 1: evolve into a fist. And that is the story of empire.
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  Speaker 1: We also know that to the point about those that
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  Speaker 1: weird hermit episode of ridiculous History, we know these gardens
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  Speaker 1: were considered, we're considered like paradise on Earth because it
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  Speaker 1: wasn't just a map of cute justo flowers and hedges
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  Speaker 1: and plants. There were also sculptures and water features, and
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  Speaker 1: the views of like the perspective of where you were
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  Speaker 1: supposed to stand and take it all in was very
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  Speaker 1: much part of the design. Allegedly when there's a reason
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  Speaker 1: we keep saying allegedly. So.
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  Speaker 3: The main motivation for the gardens that Christopher Klein talks
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  Speaker 3: about over at History is as follows. He says, the
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  Speaker 3: Babylonian king Neba Kenazar the second was said to have constructive,
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  Speaker 3: luxurious hanging gardens in the sixth century BC as a
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  Speaker 3: gift to his wife amateus.
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  Speaker 1: Look, folks, if you're listening, always try to impress your
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  Speaker 1: significant other.
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  Speaker 3: This was very sweet too, because he was trying to
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  Speaker 3: bring her home, you know, to where they were in
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  Speaker 3: this desert climate. She was homesick for the beautiful mountain
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  Speaker 3: and fauna flora rather of her native media, which today
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  Speaker 3: would be comprising the northwestern part of Iran. So in
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  Speaker 3: order to get that desert to support this kind of life,
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  Speaker 3: this kind of growth, you had to figure out some
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  Speaker 3: kind of engineering aspects, you know, irrigation. We know that
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  Speaker 3: a lot of early civilizations had aqueducts and ways of
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  Speaker 3: moving water around. This is very similar to that. They
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  Speaker 3: had to develop these systems involving pumps and water wheels
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  Speaker 3: and cisterns or reservoirs, you know, kind of man made
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  Speaker 3: reservoirs that would be able to raise and lower the
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  Speaker 3: water from the Euphrates River to the very top the
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  Speaker 3: tippy top of the gardens. And this was quite a
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  Speaker 3: distance and quite a change in elevation. So the stuff
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  Speaker 3: was mega innovative for the time. And honestly, I mean,
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  Speaker 3: they haven't figured out how to do it.
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  Speaker 4: Much better than that. I mean, water works largely.
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  Speaker 3: Of course, there are pumps they're talking about that here too,
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  Speaker 3: but gravity, you know, they just figured out how to
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  Speaker 3: harness gravity to their to their benefit.
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  Speaker 4: Mm hmm.
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  Speaker 1: Absolutely, this is a huge flex And if we if
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  Speaker 1: we go back to our pal Mark Cartwright, we see
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  Speaker 1: that the what we call the hanging Gardens of Babylon
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  Speaker 1: and legend and pseudo historically accurate stuff today I used
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  Speaker 1: to have a different name. It was sometimes called the
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  Speaker 1: hanging gardens of Semi Ramas, named after a an Assyrian
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  Speaker 1: ruler who occurred so long ago that she became kind
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  Speaker 1: of a godlike figure, a symbol of divinity and the
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  Speaker 1: later right like Talos and Skyrim or like you know,
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  Speaker 1: the first Emperor of China uh Greco. Romans later believed
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  Speaker 1: that this Assyrian ruler extensively rebuilds Babylon in the ninth
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  Speaker 1: century BCE. This is where we go to Herodotus, the
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  Speaker 1: Greek historian, probably best known from Assassin's Creed Odyssey. He
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  Speaker 1: describes that irrigation system you're talking about there, Noel, and
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  Speaker 1: he he breaks down enough detail that we and modern
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  Speaker 1: historians believe there was a massive innovative irrigation system in
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  Speaker 1: Babylon and around the walls surrounding that city. But our
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  Speaker 1: buddy heavy h does not mention any gardens specifically, So
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  Speaker 1: why did he not mention one of the most spectacular
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  Speaker 1: things about the most impressive city in the world. To
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  Speaker 1: be fair, he also doesn't mention the Great Sphinx when
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  Speaker 1: he talks about Giza, So.
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  Speaker 3: Well, right, and we know the Great Sphinx exists, right, correct,
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  Speaker 3: that is confirmed it's still around, right No, yeah, yeah.
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  Speaker 4: I thought so.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not in great shape.
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  Speaker 4: But yeah, I know it's missing a nose and all
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  Speaker 4: of that stuff.
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  Speaker 3: But the point being that that thing is equally as
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  Speaker 3: captivating and worth a mention as these hanging gardens, or
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  Speaker 3: the implication being that maybe the hanging gardens didn't exist,
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  Speaker 3: But you said he didn't mention that, so then your
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  Speaker 3: point being that maybe he just didn't see them.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe he was in a hurry, maybe he thought
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: that was just day one stuff.
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: The first Oh, good point, Ben, because in the sash
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: One Towers episode we did recently on stuff they don't
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: want you to know, a big part about why there
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: wasn't more Hubbub made about these things was that folks
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: traveling through might have just seen them as just you know,
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: kind of standard, sort of like they were just used
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: to seeing them.
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. In that case, the European explorers definitely looked
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: around and said, eh, yeah, big whoop, we have towers too.
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: Just like when someone wants you to look at their
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: new car, you're like, I've seen a car, Like, I'm
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: really happy for you and everything, but I know what
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: a car looks like.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: Are you kidding? I get so excited I can't say
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: your car.
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: Well that you're different kind of person, Ben, and I
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: appreciate that about you, But in general, I think a
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: lot of folks will just like feign interest like I've
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: seen a car.
• 20:06
  Speaker 4: They're more just happy for their friend.
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I hear you. I hear you, And we know that,
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: we know that there are ancient sources that do talk
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: about the gardens. Brosis of costs is well, actually it's
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: a it's the non de plume of a priest named
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: Belle Uzru from Babylon.
• 20:27
  Speaker 4: Why would he change his name? Bell Uzru is way cooler.
• 20:30
  Speaker 4: It is way cooler.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: Really, he moved to the island of KOs and just
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: changed his name, and you know, got himself buttoned up
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: as a.
• 20:40
  Speaker 4: Grecian Okay, got it?
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: A Grecian, not a Greco that only refers to like
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: stuff like Greco.
• 20:47
  Speaker 4: But you're a Roman, So why aren't you a Greco?
• 20:49
  Speaker 4: You're a Grecian. I'm sorry these terms baffle me sometimes.
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: Now when you say that, all I can think of
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: is how much I want Greek food? Like, right, so good,
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: it's so good.
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: Well, you know what, Ben, there's some pretty solid Greek
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: places that will deliver to both of us. Maybe we
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: should be uber Eats buddies, like you have lunch together
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: over zoom.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: That'd be cute, that would be so adorable. Max, would
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: you would you have a virtual lunch with us all three?
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll gift it to you guys. Okay, Greek food
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: for all the condition.
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: But Ben, as you know, Greek thermatologist, Yeah, that's the
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: dream Greek dermatologist condition.
• 21:27
  Speaker 4: The condition prevents you from enjoying Greek cuisine.
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: We were at a wedding of a mutual front of
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: all three of ours, and Ben and I are like,
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: we had to move Ben's cars on that when we
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: were out there walking and we were of course talking
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: about civilization.
• 21:40
  Speaker 4: Six that's the best part.
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: Accurate, the callback, that's the tiant.
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: So I'm telling Ben about the condition, but I'm also
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: talking about how much of Greek food. He he just
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: kind of goes Max. The answer is simple, you guy
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: just kind of find you a Greek thermatologist like that
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: that that that that's the solution there.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: Dude, I'm telling exactly.
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: And can I just say Max, congratulations and all the
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: oscar buzz around the condition this season, I'm sorry your
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: lead actor Demi Moore turned in a fantastic performance, didn't
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: take on the oscar.
• 22:12
  Speaker 4: I think she was robbed.
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: You'll get them next time. So if you happen to
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: be a single available Greek dermatologist with excellent taste in podcasters,
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: we have a guy named Max Williams that we'd love
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: for you to meet.
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: Indeed, but Max, you pointed out off Mike when we
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: had a bit of a derail a minute ago, that
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: the writings that he left behind we really only have
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: excerpts of.
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we have we have other later authors quoting belle
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: usru or borosis, and a lot of the thing is
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: with that, with all the cribbing and the quoting that
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: occurs in ancient history, we have to look at some
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: other sort of cooperating evidence, and that's where we see
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: that a lot of his quote not did descriptions of
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: Babylon do seem to be supported by physical archaeology. He
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: talks about, for instance, high stone terraces that are supposed
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: to look like mountains, and how there are a lot
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: of trees and flowers planted on those mountains entirely to
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: kind of recreate again that part of Iran.
• 23:23
  Speaker 4: That's right.
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: And when we say the hanging gardens, the idea of that,
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: I mean it's a lot of these things are coming
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: down from like the ceiling essentially, right.
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And this is both form and function because it
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: is a it's a foundational piece of the irrigation methods
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: that are deployed here. And there are sources at the
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: time who, well a little bit later, who disagree on
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: the actual architects of the gardens. And sometimes you'll see
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: people describing the gardens as located in different places, like
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: these are terraces over in this part of town, or no,
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: they're at the royal palace, or no, they're kind of
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: next door to the royal Palace. It's like when it's
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: like when you hear old people who have lived in
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: a city for a long time, whenever they this is
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: a personal thing, because I'm noticing it as I age.
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: Sometimes when I'm telling stories, and I've seen actually the
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: three of us do this too. I get lost in
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: the directions and I'm like, no, that was on you
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: know sixth Street.
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: Brother, I'm not good at that in real life, let
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: alone recounting something from memory. It's like it's like I'm
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: a little grand dad trying to talk about where the
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: old A and P used to be exactly.
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: That's the thing. We get lost in the geography, and
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: it can derail the stories. So we see that happening.
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: Now.
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: Humans have always been the same, and we see people
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: arguing about how how they were constructed, you know, were
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: there layers of soil and stone or lead? How did
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: they prevent the water from seeping through the Harris Is
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: At this point, as we record in twenty twenty five,
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: and we're not being We're not poo pooing it, We're
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: not throwing cold water on the idea. We do have
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: to tell you there is no concrete proof that the
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: hanging gardens existed.
• 25:17
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's right.
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: We do, however, have an account from a German archaeologist
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: named Robert Caldewey who uncovered some foundational chambers and these
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: kind of you know, caverns, these vaults in the northeastern
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: part of a palace or the palace rather of Babylon,
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: and some of these vaults, one in particular, might have
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: been used as part of a pumping system or what
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: was known as a chain pump, and this would have
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: potentially been part of a subterranean structure powering kind of
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: the irrigation system of the hanging gardens.
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the idea, right, and that's cool, that's exciting.
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: It still technically is kind of certain substantial evidence, and
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: we can't here's the thing. Unlike the Sphinx, unlike the Pyramids,
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: unlike other ancient wonders, we cannot go see the Hanging
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: Gardens today. People have tried their own reproductions or their
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: own homages to it, but we still don't know whether
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: it existed.
• 26:19
  Speaker 4: Well, and yet it still is listed as one of
• 26:22
  Speaker 4: the wonders of the world.
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, yeah, absolutely, one of the interesting seven wonders,
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: just because the other six we can check out. The
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: other six are way more confirmed to have existed.
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: Should we list them out just to just yeah, yeah.
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: Let's do it, because this will give all of us
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: playing along at home a little bit of a sense
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: of where we're going with this series. There's the Great Pyramid, one,
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: Hanging Gardens, two, the Temple of Artemis, three, Statue of
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: Zoos and Olympia. Uh, that's for the mausoleum at Halikarnassis,
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: the Colossus of Rhodes, and of course the Lighthouse of Alexandria.
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: Those are the those are the like canonical seven.
• 27:11
  Speaker 4: And of those, which ones are actually we able to visit.
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: There's the only one that's still standing, the Pyramid. Sure, yeah,
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: the Pyramids are the only one that's still standing. God,
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: but we know the other ones exist.
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: We know for sure the other ones existed. And again,
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: what's what's fascinating. As we'll see in this series, there
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: have been multiple attempts to do reproductions of these things
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: because they're just super cool, man, they're super First off,
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: humanity has always been sort of a hold my beer
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: species right and saying, let's build something huge, you know
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: what I mean, look upon my work, see Mighty in
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: Despair and so on. But yeah, the Pyramid, the Great Pyramid,
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: would be the only one currently that we can we
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: can go see. And I think it's weird that the
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: Sphinx doesn't count.
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: It is weird, right, it's a sub wonder, they would say.
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: There's a lot of debate. Obviously, there are a bunch
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: more wonders after this, like you know the taj Ma Hall.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: Sure, yeah, the Great Wall and your what yeah, not module,
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: I would even say, but the yeah, so we know
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: that after Here's why there's debate. After Nebekonezer, Babylon was
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: still an important city as part of several different empires,
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: and the rulers of both of these later empires, the
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: Akamenid and the Solucid Empires, both of their top people
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: would use the Palace at Babylon as their main hangout,
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: as their white house. So with all this argument, all
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: this hullabaloo and discourse about where the hanging gardens actually
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: were in Babylon and whether they existed, we see, like
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: you were saying, people are finding vaulted rooms, they're finding
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: stuff that clearly indicate some sort of irrigation system, but
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: they're not finding positive proof of the hanging gardens actually existing.
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: And this is where we get to Christopher Klein actually
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: existing there.
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: Stiff Kleine, writing for History, suggests that it's possible that
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: this search was being conducted in the wrong place, according
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: to Oxford University doctor Stephanie Daily, in fact, a scholar
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: in ancient Mesopotamian languages who found evidence in some new
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: translations of ancient texts belonging to King Censharib. They described
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: his own mega mega palace, you know, completely bespoke, referred
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: to in the writings as unrivaled palace as being a
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: wonder for all people. He also mentioned a technology a
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: bronze water raising kind of I guess it's a screw.
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: What it is, in fact, is that's it's described. It's
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: not you know, what you would think of as a
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: as a hardware screw, but it is a spiral and
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: it was invented by Archimedes, who also invented that time
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: travel device from that Indiana Jones movie that everyone loved.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: Right, Okay, a couple of things there we've because I
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: have to do it, man, We talked about this on stuff.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: They don't want you to know. Archimedes probably did invent
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: some version of this, but it's a matter of branding
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: because people clearly invented this screw parallel, Yeah, they invented
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: it before him, parallel thinking as you said, he was
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: just the most famous guy at the time, so he
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: got his name attached to it.
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: I guess I still don't fully understand how the technology works.
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: I don't know, Max, maybe this is something that you
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: could help with. Like it is a spiral and the
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: water is meant to travel upward, right, so how does
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: that exactly work?
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: Screw it? Okay, Yeah, it's actually very simple, but because
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: you think about the way, but it functions in the
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: same way that a screw would work on grander scale.
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's one of the earliest documented hydraulic machines.
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: So you're right that moves water. Like you said earlier,
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: it leverages gravity. So depending on the angle that you
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: put it on, when you turn the screw through one
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: mechanism or another, the screw kind of builds a ramp
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: to move the water up.
• 31:34
  Speaker 4: Got it. Okay, Yeah, that's pretty neat.
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: It's it's it's weird, it's it's I don't know. I
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: think it's super cool. I know it can sound kind
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: of like we're maybe easily impressed, but order just a
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: bunch of dorks, which is also entirely possible.
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: Yes, we're a good company with ridiculous historians, we hope.
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: Yes, they're yeah, agreed on all counts. And we know,
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: like I love the point bringing up here the idea
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: that there may have been some kind of hanging garden
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: somewhere else, relatively nearby, right in the Middle Eastern area
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: Nineva Mosul something like that. We know aqueduct technology was
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: very much in play. We've got some boss relief images
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: from the Royal Palace and nine US showing very very lush,
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: fertile gardens that were being irrigated through an aqueduct. Yeah,
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: and we know that in that part of the world,
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: in that city scape, the topography was less flat, there
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: was more variation, so it would have made it easier
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: to elevate water to the gardens versus you know, Babylon,
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: which has a relatively flat landscape. And maybe then the
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: confusion over the location of these gardens could be due
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: to the passage of empires, because the Assyrian forces honkeered
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: Babylon in six 't eighty nine BCE, and after that takeover,
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: NINEV got a new name. It was called the New Babylon.
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: So this can be super confusing to later historians and researchers.
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: So maybe what we're maybe the hanging gardens did exist,
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: but instead of being hanging guardens of Babylon, they were
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: hanging gardens of Nineva. This is crazy because it, like
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: I was trying to think of a more modern comparison.
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: Imagine if thousands of years from now we have a
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: future historian who is totally convinced that the Statue of
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: Liberty is in Poughkeepsie.
• 33:38
  Speaker 4: Yeah, for sure, that'd be interesting.
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: Gosh, I always think whenever I hear about historical accounts
• 33:43
  Speaker 3: of the Statue of Liberty, I can't not think about
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: the planet of the apes. They blew it up. We
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: were just talking about blowing things up. Yes, whole planets. Yeah,
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: super into the idea. And I hope that statement ages well.
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: Oh boy, we know that we know that there is
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: indication at least that something like the gardens existed. Something
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: in the real world informed this legend of an ancient wonder.
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: We just aren't sure on the specifics because of the
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: great game of telephone. And here's the good news, folks.
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: As we're recording, there are some people way smarter than us,
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: some real boffins and eggheads and Indiana Jones types who
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: are conducting science and archaeology in these areas. So they
• 34:34
  Speaker 3: may well, discover solid one hundred percent inarguable proof of
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: the hanging gardens of Babylon, or the hanging guardens of Nineveh,
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: or the hanging guards of Mosul, or you know, at
• 34:46
  Speaker 3: this point, just like a garden preferably hanging, preferably hanging.
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: And also shout out to the early Cure song Total
• 34:53
  Speaker 3: Banger the Hanging Gardens.
• 34:55
  Speaker 4: Check it out. It's a real goth fantasia of a tune. Now.
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: I love that you're pointing out that, Nol and we
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: also we also just before we wrap for time, we
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: have to address something that has surely been on everybody's
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: mind from the very top of this show.
• 35:12
  Speaker 4: What is it, Ben, What is it? I want to
• 35:14
  Speaker 4: know if it's on my mind?
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: Oh gosh, I hope it is, no, because when you
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: finally when you get to play civilization, and I'm so
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: happy for it is. Yeah, one of the questions you're
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: going to have is you're going to have this choice
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: of wonders, right, and it evolves as your civilization does.
• 35:30
  Speaker 3: But you can only have one in the world. Wasn't
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: that a thing you talked about at the top.
• 35:34
  Speaker 4: That's the thing.
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: So you pick your wonder and you written and they're
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: modeled after these things.
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: You can build multiple wonders. Other empires will try to
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: build them too, so you can build the Pyramids or
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: Stonehenge or Big ben or I think Broadway. There are
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: a ton of them, but if some Broadway, Yeah, yeah,
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: there were. They were stretched for ideas square, Yeah, there were.
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: There were a little stretch for ideas.
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: Commercial bloat sorry, hot take times square.
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: Yes, commercial bloat is a way to win civilizations. Yes, okay,
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: not in six, but I think it's seven. They brought
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: it back in previous ones that.
• 36:12
  Speaker 4: Called commercial bloat. This is like trade.
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: It's like the there's the culture war. Uh, there's the
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: economic victory, there's uh domination victory.
• 36:24
  Speaker 3: And seven.
• 36:25
  Speaker 4: Now how they do it?
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: I was the three ages, and in the first age
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: there's an economic Golden age, which is like you get
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: by having by acquiring resources, especially luxury resources and stuff.
• 36:36
  Speaker 4: Seven.
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: By the way, it's really fun and it's getting better.
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: They just released the first.
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: Update nice and we'll I'm going to get in immediately
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: after we wrap this session. I also just found out
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: for any gamers in the audience, there's a new Monster
• 36:48
  Speaker 3: Hunter gamey PS five that I just got and I'm
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: only just now kind of almost through the intro tutorial part.
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: I love the last Monster Hunter game, but I found
• 36:58
  Speaker 3: it a little overwhelming at times, and apparently this new
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: one that.
• 37:01
  Speaker 4: Pairs that down a little bit.
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: So gonna get back into that one and then get
• 37:04
  Speaker 3: the new Civilization game.
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: And I'm still trying to sleep with a lot of
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: characters in Balder's Gate three, So wish me luck you guys.
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: So Balder's Gate three, man, that was too much for me.
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: I watched my friend play when he was visiting, and
• 37:20
  Speaker 3: I was just like, I don't know if this is
• 37:22
  Speaker 3: for me. It's too small to play on a TV too.
• 37:24
  Speaker 3: It's like all the text is so small. Oh yeah, yeah,
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: maybe a better experience on a PC.
• 37:29
  Speaker 4: I don't know.
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, perhaps right.
• 37:32
  Speaker 4: Uh.
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: And the question here is should you build the hanging
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: gardens in Civilization?
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: Uh?
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: Yes, It's going to depend upon your empire's mileage and
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: the approach you take to the game. I would say,
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: don't necessarily prioritize it. There are better wonders out there.
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: Hanging gardens is always such an early wonder, and especially
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: because like if you play on any difficulty above Prince,
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: which they've renamed in the newest one, but like Prince
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: is like where everyone starts equal. But the other versions
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: of the game, especially once you get up like a
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: mortal or deity, the AI have significant advantages on you,
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: especially early games. So it's like, if you decide I'm
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: getting hanging gardens, cool, you're not getting anything else. Socially,
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: in Civilization six, it's like I want do you want
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: to hanging gardens? Or do I want a religion?
• 38:21
  Speaker 4: Right?
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: And in a lot of ways, it's fine if you
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: can get it, or if someone's not going for it,
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: then it's great because it'll make your city into a
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: metropolis very quickly. But there is better wonders.
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: I gotta say, as a person who always picks the
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: science condition for victory, I'm all about going to space,
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean. That's a classic human Yeah.
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: I can't wait to hear about your experience there and
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: all and folk reach for the stars. That's a good
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: advice for everyone to take home. There we go, There
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: we go. That's what we call a wrap up. Folks,
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for tuning in. There's much more
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: to get to join us. Later. We're going to explore
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: some stories about Apple and apples be not in the
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: way and the beats and a besh and a fab whoa.
• 39:05
  Speaker 4: Well done, jim lely sweet and.
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: We're going to uh We're also going to have some
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: more adventures ahead, some special guests, some cameos. We can't
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: wait for you to be along. So thank you for
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: tuning in and also, of course thanks to our super
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: producer and research associate for today's episode, mister Max Williams.
• 39:25
  Speaker 3: That's right, huge thanks to Alex Williams who composed our theme.
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: Christa Frasciotis and Eve jeffco here in spirit and Ben.
• 39:31
  Speaker 3: Just a quick thing to say if anybody wanted to
• 39:33
  Speaker 3: reach out to us or suggesting the episodes, We're still
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: having gotten the keys back to our official Ridiculous Sister
• 39:38
  Speaker 3: and social media.
• 39:39
  Speaker 4: But you can find this as human people on the
• 39:41
  Speaker 4: internet if you wish. I'm how now Noel Brown on Instagram.
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: I am calling myself in a burst of creativity at
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: Ben Bullen wherever you find a place with an at sign.
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: You can also hit me up directly on the website
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: Benboland dot com.
• 39:54
  Speaker 4: Good you lock that down, man, than being your name
• 39:56
  Speaker 4: and all yeah.
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: Name too, yeah, with great affection to the other four
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: bin bulliins in the world, and yes I do know
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: them all. I reached out to them and I think
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: I creeped them out a little big thanks of course,
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: the rude dude. It's a ridiculous crime. And Noel, thanks
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: to you man, God you as well.
• 40:15
  Speaker 4: You're you're, you're the eighth wonder of the of the world.
• 40:17
  Speaker 4: Ben in my heart because of the Oh yeah, for sure.
• 40:22
  Speaker 4: Whatever the next time, folks.
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 40:35
  Speaker 3: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.