Ancient and Medieval Gardens

This material is presented solely for non-commercial educational/research purposes.


Wikipedia articles:

History of Gardening
Gardens of Ancient Egypt
Hanging Gardens of Babylon

Greek Gardens
Roman Gardens

Gardens of Sallust
Gardens of Lucullus
Vatican Gardens

Persian Gardens
Mughal Gardens

Chinese Garden
Classical Gardens of Suzhou


Encyclopaedia Iranica articles:
Achaemenid Gardens, by Mehrdad Fakour.
Gardens in the Islamic Period, by Lisa Golombek.
The Influence of Persian Gardens in India, by Howard Crane.
Čahārbāḡ, by David Stronach.
Sites and Studies:
Persian Gardens, Chahar Bagh, Pairidaeza, Baghs, by K. E. Eduljee, at heritageinstitute.com.

Middle East Garden Traditions, at Dumbarton Oaks. Includes al-Andalus, Mughal, Ottoman, Persian, and Syrian.

Byzantine Garden Culture, at Dumbarton Oaks.

History of Gardens in East Asia: Online Resources, at Bard University.

Geoponica. This unusual and undervalued work was prepared for the mid-10th century Byzantine emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus. Geoponica/Geoponika is a compilation on agricultural topics based on the writings of earlier authors, some extending back to Roman and Hellenistic times. In addition to discussions of gardening, there are entries on medicinal wines, thunder divination (brontoscopy), and other remarkable topics. The work became widely known in the Aegean and Middle East during the 10-13th centuries through translations from the Greek original into Syriac, Pahlavi, Arabic, and Armenian (Girk' vastakots' [Book of Labors]).
Download Geoponika: Agricultural Pursuits, translated from Greek by Thomas Owen in two volumes: volume 1 (London, 1805), in 347 searchable pdf pages. File size: 14.6 MB; volume 2, (London, 1806) in 345 searchable pdf pages. File size: 13.9 MB.

Download Kepopoiïa: Garden Making and Garden Culture in the Geoponika, by Robert Rodgers, from Byzantine Garden Culture (Washington, D.C., 2002), pp. 160-175, in 18 pdf pages. Dumbarton Oaks publication. Download here: Kepopoiïa: Garden Making and Garden Culture in the Geoponika.

Download The Folklore of the Geoponica, by H. J. Rose, from Folklore, Vol. 44, No. 1 (Mar., 1933), pp. 57-90, in 35 pdf pages. Download here: The Folklore of the Geoponica. File size: 2.9 MB.

List of Botanical Gardens, at Wikipedia.
Lists of Gardens, at Wikipedia.

Remote and Classical Antiquity
History Workshop Menu

--   This is a (shortened) mirror of one of Robert Bedrosian's web pages   --