Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld

In this palace he erected very high walks, supported by stone pillars; and by planting what was called a pensile paradise, and replenishing it with all sorts of trees, he rendered the prospect an exact resemblance of a mountainous country. This he did to gratify his queen, because she had been brought up in Media, and was fond of a mountainous situation.

– Berossus, priest of Bel Marduk, 4BCE, quoted by Flavius Josephus

The above words  – admittedly quoted almost 300 years after they were said to have been written – are the earliest mention of the fabled Hanging Gardens  of Babylon.

Listed as one of the  Seven Wonders of the Ancient World by Hellenic culture, the gardens were said to have been constructed close to the city of Babylon and alongside the grand palace built by the Neo-Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar II (642-562 BCE). As the quote from Berossus notes, they were said to have been a remarkable feat of engineering; an ascending series of tiered gardens containing a wide variety of trees, shrubs, and vines resembling a large green mountain constructed of mud bricks, which he ordered built in order to help his queen, Amytis of Media to overcome her homesickness for her native lands.

Whether or not Berossus was writing literally or figuratively is unclear: a lot is known about Nebuchadnezzar II’s reign and works – and there is no mention of fabulous gardens built for Amytis (or any of his other queens) isn’t listed amongst them, nor do any other ancient Babylonian texts from the times around the period in which the Gardens were said to have existed make any mention of them; further, of all the ancient Seven Wonders, the Hanging Gardens alone are the one for which the location has not been definitively established.

This has led some scholars to believe that the texts quoting descriptions of the Hanging Gardens are actually describing palace gardens that were known to exist, such those that Assyrian King Sennacherib (704–681 BCE) had built in his capital city of Nineveh (close to the modern city of Mosul in Iraq), and Berossus attributed them to Nebuchadnezzar for purely romantic / political reasons; others lean more the the belief the Hanging Gardens were simply the result of romantic imaginings.

However, whether real or not, the legend has given rise the many descriptions of the Hanging Gardens, together with a plethora of illustrations and paintings, such that it is possible to (re)create how they may have appeared through 3D modelling – or to use the basic descriptions to offer an interpretation of how the Hanging Gardens may have appeared, complete with personal expressions and twists.

This is precisely what Patch Thibaud has done within Second Life, with his utterly fabulous Hanging Garden of Babylon, a Full region design (utilising the private Full region land capacity bonus), and which is currently highlighted in the Destination Guide. Patch is a long-time Second life resident who has, down the years created some outstanding builds in-world. In fact, I recently wrote (in part) about one of his most famous – The Cathedral – which has become both an outstanding statement of art in its own right and a venue in which art can be presented, courtesy of it being located within Chuck Clip’s Sinful Retreat arts estate (see: A Cathedral and Silent Beauties in Second Life).

With this build, Patch (with the assistance of Cristabella Loon and Lιlly Hawk (NatalieRives)) brings together a genuinely stunning interpretation of  the Hanging Gardens that mixes into it elements that are not from the period in which the Gardens were said to exist but also from periods a lot more recent, including touches that might be seen has echoing the Greco-Romano period in which the legends of the Hanging Gardens began to gain wider circulation within the (then) Known World.

The centrepiece of the design is the great “mountain” of the gardens, here presented as a towering palace, tiered without and with multiple levels within, the structure rises from the waters and surrounding gardens to offer a place of rooms, stairs, walkways, rooms, outlying tiers where trees and shrubs grow as per the classic descriptions of the Gardens. Routes window up through the interior of the building and via outside stairways and ramps connect the various levels and eventually reach the “rooftop” gardens.

The latter is a formal garden, richly laid out around a water feature, and of a kind that would look at home in the gardens of any grand European home or palace of the 18th or 19th centuries. Surrounded by building elements with the Greco-Roman lean, this “rooftop” garden also sits within rooms that have a distinctly Renaissance styling. Taken on its own, this rooftop area, complete with terraces and infinity pool, would be eye-catching enough, but it is just the jewel in a stunning crown of the design.

However, I’m not going to ramble on about the build here – I hope the photos I’m including here will encourage you to visit – what I will say is that this a genuinely engaging build, from the outlying gardens through the lower levels of the palace to the rooftop gardens. Throughout all there are numerous places to sit, paths to explore and – obviously – multiple opportunities for photography, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon is one of the Seven Wonders of our Digital World. And don’t miss the boat ride around and under the palace!

SLurl Details

• The Hanging Gardens of Babylon (Antiquorum, rated Moderate)

It’s been three years since I last visited Cathy Vathiany’s (zaziaa) ever-evolving region design Lost Dreams (which started life as Les Reves Perdus (“Dreams Lost”), which has itself hopped around the grid a few times. So when I learned it had re-opened in a new location and with a new design in November 2021, I added it to my list of places to visit – although after initially dropping in in December, I had a couple of issues getting back to it in order to take photos.

Cathy has always had an eye for engaging, rural-themed region settings; places where Nature tends to stake a centre seat and where there is always a richness of detail waiting to be found and appreciated. Sometimes these looks have had a distinctly European / North American lean, although it has also taken us to the orient and to Scandinavia. With this iteration, we slip to somewhere that presents something of a sense of both Arctic and Antarctic climes.

The current Lost Dreams might be mentally split into five areas: three on the main landmass, and the remaining two formed by a pair of outrigger islands. One of the latter is where the landing point can be found, a rocky plug of an island to the west of the region. Small, and dominated by two large trees, this island at first appears to offer little beyond the landing point itself. However, below the cliffs, a stone outthrust heavy with fallen snow has been taken over by penguins that lend that suggestion of the southern hemisphere to the region.

A bridge sitting upon high stilts connects the landing point’s island with the largest landmass in the region: a large, rugged space that can, as noted, be mentally / visually split into three. First, there are the rugged westerlands, sitting on the far side of the bridge, a hulking shoulder of rock splitting the path from the bridge into two. The left branch descends downwards close to the cold-looking waters of the bay in which the landing point island sits, passing through a narrow defile before rising once more to the uplands of the island.

The second arm of the path twists around the rocky shoulder to reach a second bridge spanning a smaller cove formed by the outflow from waterfalls that mark the terminus of a fast-flowing stream. Here the path splits again, one arm twisting by to descend the down to the shingle shoreline that huddles around the feet of sheer curtain wall cliffs.

The other arm of the path passes across the second bridge before winding upwards, and doubling back on itself as it reaches the bank of the stream, itself fed from a further set of falls that drop from the highest peaks in the region. Crossing this is possible by way of a pair of tree trunks trimmed into a rough bridge to re-join the path rising up through the defile mentioned above.

Once joined, the path lead up to the centre part of this large island and a large stone lodge sitting on an outstretched table of rock that is home to a skating rink, a children’s play area, a carousel and other outdoor points of interest. It is here that a more northern hemisphere aspect to the setting can be found in the form of deer wandering the grounds.

Paths wind around the grounds here, with one curling back down to the low-lying eastern end of the land, and the rest of the main landmass. This is home to a a cosy hideaway and, a little further away, a little folly. from here, a final bridge – this one made of stone – reaches the final aspect to the setting: a small, low island that is home to a pool of water and a little camp site.

Such is the nature and aspect of this little island, that is it possible to image that once upon a time it many have formed a headland reaching outwards from the rest of the main island, but time and tide have intervened, creating a channel of cold water to separate the two and necessitate the stone bridge.

Within all of this, there are lots of additional elements and details: water birds stand along the coastal areas, there are outdoor sit points and places to dance awaiting discovery, and further wildlife give the setting additional depth, as does the local soundscape. All of which leaves us with another thoroughly engaging place to explore and photograph and not to be missed before a seasonal change comes along!

SLurl Details

• Lost Dreams (Lagoona, rated Adult)