Spring is upon us in the northern hemisphere and people are venturing out into the open again: into their gardens, onto their balconies, into urban parks or the countryside to enjoy the miracle of spring and the verdant, flowering flora that accompanies it. Green spaces are ubiquitous in urban fabrics, and often among their most celebrated landmarks, from New York’s urban garden – the famous Central Park – to Tokyo’s Ueno Park. What fewer people think of, though, is that cultivated gardens and open spaces were an inherent – and necessary – part of urban life in the ancient world. Such areas in and around cities kept societies going – from the agriculture feeding sometimes large populations to the lush greenery and the shade it cast, making life in warm climates more bearable in the summer months.
The Garden of Eden in the Bible is, of course, one of the most famous examples of thinking about green spaces and the temptations that can lurk there. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon offer another well-known case. Elsewhere, ancient Egyptians left vivid wall-paintings of their urban gardens in Thebes and Tell el-Amarna, and so did the Persians on often-monumental reliefs showing an abundance of flowers, shrubs, and trees. Other instances include the lush oases in places such as Dakhla and Palmyra; the large urban gardens – public and private – of ancient Rome, Athens, and beyond; as well as the intense cultivation of semi-arid zones in antiquity. All of these places, and many more besides, can convey vivid impressions of past life. While some never existed physically, others have vanished due to modern development, conflicts, and climate change. So the discovery and investigation of such spaces is today achieved through archaeology – though it is a kind of archaeology that demands a particular skillset. After all, garden archaeology can often be an archaeology of the invisible.
Urban oases
Gardens could even be found in the famously crowded and drab medieval and early modern cities. In 2010, Swedish archaeologists investigated urban gardens from the 17th century at the site of Gothenburg’s predecessor: the town of Nya Lödöse. Along with the remains of carefully planned raised beds, they found seeds from a range of plants with medicinal properties. These may have served a nearby hospital. Anaesthetics like henbane or the antihypertensive motherwort were supplied from backyards, thriving perhaps in the nutrient-rich soil created by that most abundant urban product: waste, especially of the human kind.
Excavating Berkshire