Octave Marsal

My Final Project is about myths, legend, the destruction of cultural heritage and the geo-political transfer of power through time and civilization. 

More specifically, the project highlights the destruction of cultural heritage by ISIS since 2014 in Iraq, Lybia and Syria.

It is To illustrate this subject, I chose to question the mystery surrounding the «  Hanging Garden of Babylon ». It is the only Wonder of the 'Seven Wonders of the Ancient World' for which we lack any concrete evidence that it actually existed. For a long time, Ancient texts and experts claimed that the Hanging Gardens were built in the Mesopotamian city of Babylon around 600 BC by the Emperor Nebuchadnezzar for his wife Amytis.

Yet, the Gardens’ descriptions gave rise to the idea of a magnificent feat of engineering that still fascinates people today: a luxurious garden in an arid desert. an early utopia.

Modern archaeologists and historians have scoured the location of the ancient city, but despite extensive excavation, they have been unable to find any physical evidence of the existence of the Gardens.

Water is said to have been transported using a similar principle as Archimedes’ screw – a pump that scoops up water in a spiral tube and carries it to the top. Given their size, historians have estimated that the gardens would have needed 8,200 gallons of water a day to water the plants. The pump is widely believed to have been invented by Archimedes is the 3rd Century BC- yet if a similar system was used in the gardens, it would predate the Greek scientist’s life my almost 350 years.

Part 1 : The Hanging Garden of Nineveh by Sennacherib. King of Assyria. (700B.C) 

THe work was inspired by the 18 years of textual research by Dr. Dalley (Oxford University) which reveals the truth about this astonishing wonder of the ancient world in her book "The Mystery of the Hanging Garden of Babylon" (2013). It is a detective story, which reveals this astonishing creation involving sophisticated hydraulics to create a garden so marvelous that it challenged God. Dr. Dalley proves that the Hanging Garden were built at Nineveh not Babylon, by Sennacherib, not Nabuchadnezzar. and like the other six, this Wonder really existed, and can no longer be written off as a figment of the imagination, a legend without historical substance.

Part 2 : "Vision of today's Nineveh Ruins, Destroyed by Daesh in 2016". Mosul, Iraq. 

Part 3 : The Hanging Garden of Babylon by Nabuchadnezzar, King of Babylon ( 600 B.C). Etching on Copper Plate .

p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000} p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000; min-height: 15.0px} p.p3 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000} p.p4 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; color: #1d2129; -webkit-text-stroke: #1d2129} span.s1 {font-kerning: none}

Part 4 ( with Pietro Caracciolo)  : The nightmare of Kata’ib Taswiya ( Special Unit of ISIS) was conceived as reconstruction of the archeological sites and artwork from Palmyra, Nineveh, Hatra and Mosul that ISIS destroy. The idea is to preserve our shared memory of this cultural heritage