The weekend is a good time to step away from the silliness of the news…..so I try to do just that from time to time…..
Some channels on the “boob tube” make a living selling the idea that some things are out there and waiting to be found and exploited…..things like El Dorado, the Round Table, and so on…..
But let’s look at a few of the things that did not exist….
Everyone loves a good story, but not everyone loves history. So what is a frustrated historian or museum curator to do when folks just aren’t interested? They make things up, of course.
Yes, it turns out history is just bursting with little bits of fiction someone threw in for flavor at some point. Of course, misunderstanding and good old-fashioned ignorance played their parts, but at the end of the day, we are left with a “history” littered with landmines of utter nonsense. Take for instance . . .
https://listverse.com/2017/03/19/10-of-historys-most-iconic-things-that-never-existed/
I disagree with the premise that the “Gardens” never existed…..my studies leads me to believe that they did but not in Babylon but further North in the Assyrian empire…..
I also disagree with the “Babel” thingy….it was a large structure in Sumeria known as a ziggurat, a stepped tower…. the inflated height was most likely literary license for the book.
I wrote about this awhile back…..https://lobotero.com/2016/12/11/hanging-gardens-of-babylon/
More things that never existed…..https://www.toptenz.net/more-famous-things-that-never-actually-existed.php
Then this from the Smithsonian on the Tower…..https://aleteia.org/2017/05/02/evidence-that-tower-of-babel-really-existed-is-discovered/
https://www.livius.org/articles/place/babylon/etemenanki/
Do you have any thoughts on these?
I Read, I Write, You Know
“lego ergo scribo”
In Saner Thought 
Jousting undoubtedly existed. Mainly as training for knights, but also as a social activity for royalty and the wealthy. There is a lot of evidence, both in paintings and in written records. Henry VIII was injured in a joust as a young man, and the wound in his upper thigh never healed. It probably caused his death much later from infection.
The gardens in Babylon would have required a lot of water, but there is no doubt that Ancient Babylon was an impressive city, so why not?
Best wishes, Pete.
The Assyrians were geniuses at water management…that is why I say it was further North….chuq
Like many stories in the Bible and other works, there may have been a kernel of truth that became “intensified” over time to suit someone’s needs. I have become cynical in my old age.
Like most myths….a small hold on the truth…..chuq
I remember the time some ignorant curator of an outside Indigenous People’s exhibit (A reconstructed village) told me that the population of the village had all died out because all they had to eat was vegetables. (No protein.) He insisted this was true even though there was a river full of fish next to the village and a large wooded area that was surely saturated with game back in the day. The village even boasted a display of sewing needles made from fish bones. And this idiot had a degree in Anthropology.