The fourth century B.C.E. Babylonian priest Berossus described "The Hanging Gardens of Babylon" in his Babylonaica, written to explain the culture of Mesopotamia to the Seleucid masters of Babylonia. According to Berossus, the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II (604–562 B.C.E.) created the Hanging Gardens to please his wife, who longed for the mountainous areas of her native Media in Iran. The Hanging Gardens became one of the "Seven Wonders" of the ancient world. However, there are no references to such a garden among Nebuchadnezzar's many building inscriptions or among the references to Babylon in the fifth century B.C.E. Histories by Herodotus of Halicarnassus, who claimed to have visited the city less than a century after Nebuchadnezzar's reign. In a corner of one of Nebuchadnezzar's palaces, archaeologists found an underground crypt, where a three-shafted well...