Legend has it that Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar built the Hanging Gardens of Babylon for his young wife, Amytis, who was homesick for the mountain hom
e of her childhood. 
That home? — ancient Ecbatana, modern Iran’s Hamadan, one mile above sea level in the shadow of snow-c0vered Mt. Alvand. Looking at pictures of the place, so unlike what most of us imagine Iran to be, is it any wonder that she’d miss such a place?!
Even before Amytis and Nebuchadnezzar (6th cent, BC), people from Israel’s northern tribes were uprooted from Israel (by conquering Assyrians) and settled in Ecbatana/Hamadan. The modern city contains a structure known as the tomb of (the biblical) Esther and her uncle Mordecai.
After Nebuchadnezzar died, Amytis returned to Ecbatana in ancient Media. When her father was defeated by Cyrus the Great, her nephew, she became the king’s new wife and, as I imagine in my book, an influential great-aunt to the princess Atossa.
