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The visual representations and natural recreations of the North Syrian landscape in the royal gardens and palaces of Nineveh acted as clear displays of the relationship the Assyrians shared with their surrounding environment. Scenes of natural chaos and fertility were presented in the city as evidence of the city’s possession of distant, exotic lands and of the city’s prosperity. The royal gardens existed not only as a retreat for the king from the stresses and problems of urban life, but as a public display of the wide reaches of the king’s power. Nature was valued as a measure of royal conquest in the unusual flora, fauna, and features it presented to the Assyrians. As such, royal power grew not from the destruction of the natural world, but from the inclusion of wilderness (or depictions of it), with all its flourishing and exotic features, within the city of Nineveh.

Albenda, Pauline. “Grapevines in Ashurbanipal’s Garden.” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research No. 215 (Oct.,         1974): 5-17. Web.

Foster, Karen Polinger. “Gardens of Eden: Exotic Flora and Fauna in the Ancient Near East.” Bulletin Series of the Yale School of         Forestry and Environmental Studies 103 (1998): 320-329. Web.

Dalley, Stephanie. “Ancient Mesopotamian Gardens and the Identification of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon Resolved.” Garden         History Vol. 21 No. 1 (Summer, 1993): 1-13. Web.

Oppenheim, A. Leo. "On Royal Gardens in Mesopotamia." Journal of Near Eastern Studies Vol.24 No. 4, Erich F. Schmidt Memorial     Issue (Oct., 1965): 328-333. Web.

Thomason, Allison Karmel. “Representations of the North Syrian Landscape in Neo-Assyrian Art.” Bulletin of the American Schools         of Oriental Research No. 323 (Aug., 2001): 63-96. Web.

Wiseman, D.J. “Mesopotamian Gardens.” Anatolian Studies Vol. 33 (1983): 137-144. Web.