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The writer and lecturer hold different
opinion on the validity of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. While the writer
argues that the Hanging Garden existed and proved his point with three major
evidences, the lecturer does not find these evidences convincing. First of all, the lecturer contends that
Diodorus, the author of Bibliotheca historica, never visited Babylon. Thus, the
contents in the book are collections of tale he heard from merchants. In other
words, the stories are probably fabricated and are not credible. Furthermore, Babylonian
text does not contain a single reference about the Garden. This argument
challenges writer's idea that contents from Bibliotheca historica of Diodorus
proves that the Garden existed. Moreover, it is obvious that the Garden required
sufficient amount of water to support the plants. However, the lecturer points
out that the buildings were mostly made of clay, which means that it cannot
come in contact with a lot of water, because it would get moist and fall apart
otherwise. His logics directly refutes the point made in the reading passage's
point that the ancient Babylon had many great architectural skills and
knowledge, which proves that they could have created ascending terrace with
multiple levels. Finally, the lecturer emphasizes that the
pump could not have existed, and three holes are not a sufficient enough reason
to validate the existence of a water pump. Also, the holes that the German
archaeologist found did not have any river or elaborate irrigation system nearby.
This assertion cast a strong doubt on the reading passage's claim that three
holes hound in the ground implies that there were a water pump for the Garden. |