From the Cedar Forest of the Epic of Gilgamesh to the engineered terraces of the Neo-Babylonian era. The Epic of Gilgamesh confirms the "Great Trees" of Ancient Lebanon existed. When Gilgamesh and Enkidu slew Humbaba and harvested the cedars for the gates of Uruk, they initiated the first major ecological shift in the Near East—warning man that the "jeweled garden" of the gods cannot be possessed by mortals. By 600 BCE, the natural lushness of the Fertile Crescent had been heavily exploited. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon (attributed to Nebuchadnezzar II) were probably a desperate attempt to synthesize a lost environment. They attempted to simulate the rain-fed mountain forests of their ancestors in the dry plains of Mesopotamia, even without evidence. The Balkans represent the first natural oasis that could sustain such a garden without artificial irrigation after passing through the Syrian and Anatolian desert creating a fundamental cultural divide that exists to this day!