Nebuchadnezzar II
Nebuchadnezzar II was king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire. He rebuilt the city's ziggurat, and this huge structure was several stories high! Nebuchadnezzar II expanded his empire whenever he could. He drove the Egyptians out of Syria and also conquered part of Canaan. Nonetheless, he is credited by the construction of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. King Nebuchadnezzar II was said to have constructed the flamboyant Hanging Gardens as a gift to his wife, Queen Amytis, who was homesick for the beautiful vegetaion and mountains of her homeland. To make the desert bloom, a marvel of irrigation engineering would have been required. Scientists have hypothesized that a system of pumps and waterwheels would have been employed to raise and deliver the water from the nearby Euphrates River to the top of the gardens.