According to legend, the gardens have been built in the eleventh century BC in that time reigned in Babylon Shammuramat, called Semíramis by the Greeks, as regent for her son Adadnirari III. It was a brave queen, who conquered India and Egypt. But she could not resist her son conspired to defeat her, and ended up committing suicide.

With the possible fall of Babylon and the end of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, the gardens were abandoned progressively. When Alexander the Great came to the city in the fourth century BC, the gardens were already partially ruined and totally abandoned. Finally the gardens were destroyed by King Euhemerus in the year 126. BC.

Modern historians argue that when the soldiers of Alexander the Great came to the land of the Fertile Moon, Mesopotamia, and saw the city of Babylon with its gardens, fragrant and lush flowers and its walls and they were impressed. Upon returning to their hometowns these soldiers started talking about the amazing gardens and the magnificent palace of Nebuchadnezzar and about the Tower of Babel in Mesopotamia, and still to this date some wonder if the imagination of poets and ancient historians that blended all these elements together to produce one of the seven wonders of the world. Today archaeologists are still working to collect the necessary evidence before reaching final conclusions about the location of gardens, irrigation system, and how they originally looked.