100 Francs CFA Hanging Gardens of Babylon

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon present an immediate problem for commemorative issuers: there is no archaeological confirmation they existed at all. No Babylonian text mentions them, and the earliest descriptions come from Greek and Roman sources writing centuries after the fact. Some scholars, including Stephanie Dalley of Oxford, have argued the gardens were actually at Nineveh under Sennacherib — a misattribution that hardened into myth over two millennia.

Ivory Coast has issued extensively in this fractional gold format for the collector market, with subjects drawn from world heritage and ancient wonders. KM#161 belongs to that broader program rather than any domestic monetary need.