Tower of Babel.
The Tower of Babel (Hebrew: מִגְדָּל בָּלַל Migdal Bavel) is a tower to which the biblical legend is dedicated, set out in chapter 2 “Noah” (verses 11:1-11:9) of the book of Genesis.
The Tower of Babel is not on the "official" list of wonders of the world. However, it is one of the most outstanding buildings of Ancient Babylon, and its name is still a symbol of confusion and disorder.
Jan Collaert 1579
According to the ancient biblical legend, after the Flood, more than four thousand years ago, all people lived in Mesopotamia (from the east people came to the land of Shinar), that is, in the basin of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, and everyone spoke the same language. Since the land of these places was very fertile, people lived richly. They decided to build a city (Babylon) and a tower as high as the heavens to “make a name for themselves.”
Marten Van Valckenborch I (1535-1612)
To build a monumental structure, people did not use stone, but unfired raw brick; bitumen (mountain tar) was used instead of lime to join the bricks. The tower grew and grew in height.
Theodosius Rihel 1574-1578
Finally God became angry with the foolish and vain people and punished them: he forced the builders to speak different languages. As a result, the stupid, proud people ceased to understand each other and, abandoning their guns, stopped building the tower, and then dispersed into different sides Earth. So the tower turned out to be unfinished, and the city where construction took place and all languages were mixed was called Babylon. Thus, the story of the Tower of Babel explains the emergence different languages after the Great Flood.
A number of biblical scholars trace the connection between the legend of the Tower of Babel and the construction of high tower-temples called ziggurats in Mesopotamia. The tops of the towers served for religious rites and astronomical observations.
Fresco 1100
The tallest ziggurat (91 m high, one rectangular step and seven spiral ones - 8 in total) was located in Babylon. It was called Etemenanki, which means “the house where heaven meets earth.” It is unknown when exactly the original construction of this tower was carried out, but it already existed during the reign of Hammurabi (1792-1750 BC).
Assyrian king Sennacherib in 689 BC. e. destroyed Babylon, Etemenanki suffered the same fate. The ziggurat was restored by Nebuchadnezzar II. The Jews, forcibly resettled by Nebuchadnezzar to Babylon after the destruction of the Kingdom of Judah, became acquainted with the culture and religion of Mesopotamia and undoubtedly knew about the existence of ziggurats.
During excavations in Babylon, the German scientist Robert Koldewey managed to discover the foundation and ruins of a tower. The tower mentioned in the Bible was probably destroyed before the time of Hammurabi. To replace it, another was built, which was erected in memory of the first. According to Koldewey, it had a square base, each side of which was 90 meters. The height of the tower was also 90 m, the first tier had a height of 33 m, the second - 18, the third and fifth - 6 m each, the seventh - the sanctuary of the god Marduk - was 15 m high. By today's standards, the structure reached a height of 30 - storey skyscraper.
Calculations suggest that about 85 million bricks were used to build this tower. A monumental staircase led to the upper platform of the tower, where the temple soared into the sky. The tower was part of a temple complex located on the banks of the Euphrates River. Clay tablets with inscriptions found by archaeologists suggest that each section of the tower had its own special meaning. The same signs give information about religious rituals who went to this temple.
The tower stood on the left bank of the Euphrates on the Sakhn plain, which literally translates as “frying pan.” It was surrounded by the houses of priests, temple buildings and houses for pilgrims who flocked here from all over Babylonia. A description of the Tower of Babel was left by Herodotus, who thoroughly examined it and, perhaps, even visited its top. This is the only documented account of an eyewitness from Europe.
Tobias Verhaecht, The Tower Of Babel.
The Tower of Babel was a stepped eight-tiered pyramid, lined with baked bricks on the outside. Moreover, each tier had a strictly defined color. At the top of the ziggurat there was a sanctuary lined with blue tiles and decorated at the corners with golden horns (a symbol of fertility). It was considered the habitat of the god Marduk, the patron saint of the city. In addition, inside the sanctuary there were a gilded table and bed of Marduk. Stairs led to the tiers; Religious processions ascended along them. The ziggurat was a shrine that belonged to the entire people, it was a place where thousands of people flocked to worship the supreme deity Marduk.
The upper platforms of the ziggurats were used not only for cultic purposes, but also for practical purposes: for warrior-guards to view the surrounding area. Cyrus, who took control of Babylon after the death of Nebuchadnezzar, was the first conqueror to leave the city undestroyed. He was struck by the scale of Etemenanki, and he not only forbade the destruction of anything, but ordered the construction of a monument on his grave in the form of a miniature ziggurat, a small Tower of Babel.
Hendrick III van Cleve (1525 - 1589)
And yet the tower was destroyed again. The Persian king Xerxes left only ruins of it, which Alexander the Great saw on his way to India. He, too, was struck by the gigantic ruins - he, too, stood in front of them as if spellbound. Alexander the Great intended to build it again. “But,” as Strabo writes, “this work required a lot of time and effort, because ten thousand people would have had to clear the ruins for two months, and he did not realize his plan, since he soon fell ill and died.”
Lucas van Valckenborch 1594
Lucas van Valckenborch 1595
Currently, only the foundation and the lower part of the wall remain from the legendary Tower of Babel. But thanks to cuneiform tablets, there is a description of the famous ziggurat and even its image.
Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Tower of Babel 1564.
The story of the Tower of Babel is widespread in Christian iconography - in numerous miniatures, handwritten and printed editions of the Bible (for example, in a miniature of an English manuscript of the 11th century); as well as in mosaics and frescoes of cathedrals and churches (for example, the mosaic of the Cathedral of San Marco in Venice, late XII - early XIII century).
Fresco of the Tower of Babel from the Venetian Cathedral of San Marco.
Towers of this type still exist in Iraq - very tall, stepped or spiral-shaped. In Babylon itself, almost nothing reminds of the tower; only part of the wall and foundation have been preserved there, as well as beautiful ancient reliefs of the royal palace in excavations.
The current building of the European Parliament is designed after a painting of the unfinished Tower of Babel painted in 1563 by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. The motto of the European Parliament in French: “Many languages, one voice” distorts the meaning of the biblical text. The building was built to give the impression of being unfinished. In fact, this is the completed building of the European Parliament, the construction of which was completed in December 2000.
Scientists from all over the world for a long time They believed that the story of how the Tower of Babel was built was a legend about human arrogance, and nothing more. This was the case until archaeologists arriving from Europe discovered the exact location of the ancient ruins of Babylon. A hundred kilometers from Baghdad, lifeless hills with steep slopes and flat tops rose for many centuries. Local residents thought that these were natural features of the relief. No one knew that under their feet was the greatest city and the great Tower of Babel. In 1899, an archaeologist from Germany, Robert Koldewey, went down here in history as the man who excavated Babylon.
Tower of Babel - history
The descendants of Noah were one people and all spoke the same language. They lived in the valley of Shinar between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers.
They decided to build themselves a city and a high tower - up to the heavens. Prepared a large number of bricks - homemade, from baked clay, and actively began construction. But the Lord considered their intention to be pride and became angry - he made it so that people began to speak completely different languages and ceased to understand each other at all. So the tower and the city remained unfinished, and the punished descendants of Noah began to settle throughout different lands, while forming different peoples.
The unfinished city was called Babylon, which, according to the Bible, means “confusion”: in that place the Lord confused the languages of the whole world, and from that place he spread throughout the whole earth.
The Tower of Babel, resembling a pillar, is considered a real personification of human pride, and its long construction (mass pandemonium) is a symbol of chaos and crowds. It turns out that the legend is not a legend at all, and the Tower of Babel actually existed in
In chapter 11 we find a biblical legend dedicated to the construction of the Tower of Babel / Pandemonium of Babel.
Biblical legend about the Tower of Babel.
Tower of Babel. Hendrik III van Cleve, 1563After the Great Flood, only members of his family managed to escape. Accordingly, humanity in the years after the Flood was represented by one people speaking one language. Humanity spread across the earth, but they had a common language. When Noah and his family left the Ark, God commanded them:
“Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.”
However, Noah's descendants moved east and decided to build a city and a tower
"before being scattered over the face of the whole earth."
The descendants of Noah decided to build the city of Babylon (“the gate of the gods”) and a tower to heaven. These people wanted to elevate themselves with a tower to heaven, or, as the Bible says, “to make a name for themselves.” Surprisingly, the phrases “Tower of Babel” and “Panebble of Babel” are not mentioned in the Bible. In the Bible we only find “city and tower.” According to the Bible, the city of Babylon received the name "Babel" from the Hebrew word ball, that is mix and confuse.
The tower was supposed to elevate man, but not God, so the Lord was angry. God interrupted the construction of the Tower of Babel by creating different languages to prevent builders from communicating. People, having ceased to understand each other, left Babylon and scattered across the Earth.
The story of the Tower of Babel - biblical version the emergence of different languages.
Interesting fact: Chapter 10 of Genesis tells about the descendants of Noah, about 70 of them are mentioned. Interestingly, there are also about 70 separate language groups on Earth.
The story of the Tower of Babel in biblical and apocryphal texts.
The story of the Tower of Babel appears in several texts:
Genesis. Beginning of Chapter 11:
1 Throughout the whole earth there was one language and one dialect.
2 Traveling from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there.
3 And they said to one another, “Let us make bricks and burn them with fire.” And they used bricks instead of stones, and earthen resin instead of lime.
4 And they said, “Let us build ourselves a city and a tower, its height reaching to heaven, and let us make a name for ourselves, before we are scattered over the face of all the earth.”
5 And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men were building.
6 And the Lord said, Behold, there is one people, and they all have one language; and this is what they began to do, and they will not deviate from what they planned to do;
7 Let us go down and confuse their language there, so that one does not understand the speech of the other.
8 And the Lord scattered them from there throughout all the earth; and they stopped building the city [and the tower].
9 Therefore the name was given to it: Babylon, for there the Lord confused the language of all the earth, and from there the Lord scattered them throughout all the earth.
Book of Jubilees. Chapter 10.
Gives the most detailed description tower construction.
“Behold, the sons of men became evil through the vile plan that they would build themselves a city and a tower in the land of Sinaar, for they moved from Ararat east to Sinaar.” For in his days they built a city and a tower, saying, “We will ascend by it to heaven.” And they began to build in the fourth week, and baked (bricks) with fire, and the bricks served them instead of stone, and the cement with which they strengthened the gaps was asphalt from the sea and from the water sources in the land of Sinaar. And they built it for forty-three years. And the Lord our God said to us: “Behold, this is one people, and they began to do this! And now I will not leave them! Behold, we will come down and confuse their languages, so that they will not understand each other and will be scattered among countries and nations, and may their plan never be realized until the day of judgment!” And the Lord came down, and we came down with Him, to see the city and the tower which the sons of men were building; and He destroyed every word of their tongue, and no one understood the word of another. And so they refused to build the city and the tower. For this reason, the entire country of Sinaar was named Babel (Babylon). For thus God destroyed all the tongues of the sons of men; and from there they were scattered to their cities according to their languages and nations. And God sent strong wind on their tower and threw it to the ground. And so she stood between the country of Asshur and Babylon in the land of Sinaar; and they called it the name of the ruin.
Greek apocalypse of Baruch. Chapter 3.
And I asked the Angel: “Please, sir, tell me who these people are?”
And he said: “These are the ones who gave advice to build the tower.
They themselves, whom you see, drove out many men and women to make bricks.
The woman alone, who was making bricks, when the time came for her to give birth, they did not allow her to leave, but while making bricks, she gave birth and carried her child in a towel, and made bricks.
And Yahweh appeared to them and changed their tongues when the tower reached a height of three hundred and sixty-three cubits.
And taking a drill, they began to try to drill into the sky, saying: “Let's see if the sky is clay, copper or iron.”
Seeing this, God did not allow them, but struck them with blindness and multilingualism and left them as you see them.”
The story of the construction of the Tower of Babel from the point of view of Christian morality.
The story of the Tower of Babel highlights the stark contrast between a person's opinion of his own achievements and God's point view of these achievements. The Tower of Babel was supposed to be humanity's first great construction project, but it wasn't.
According to the Bible, people used brick instead of stone and tar instead of mortar for construction—they used “man-made” rather than natural “God-given” materials. The people did not trust the Lord in their construction, and therefore they failed. The Tower of Babel was created by people to draw attention to their abilities and achievements, not to give glory to God.
However, the history of the construction of the Tower of Babel also teaches us that in unity is our strength. However, this power is not always for the benefit of a person. The book of Genesis says:
… And the Lord said: Behold, there is one people, and they all have one language; and this is what they began to do, and they will not deviate from what they planned to do.
By this, God indicates that when people are united in their goals, they can accomplish impossible feats, noble and ignoble.
The Bible teaches that there is strength in unity, but we must be careful: unity of purpose in worldly affairs can ultimately be destructive. Division and one's own point of view in worldly affairs are sometimes preferable to great universal feats for the glory of idolatry and apostasy. For this reason, God sometimes intervenes in human affairs to prevent further human arrogance. God thwarts people's plans so that they do not transgress God's limits.
The story of the Tower of Babel is also interesting in the sense that here for the first time the Lord speaks of himself in the plural person, referring to the Trinity:
... let us go down and confuse their language there ...
The story of the Tower of Babel continues the theme of competition between man and God, begun in. Josephus explains the construction of the tower as an arrogant act of defiance against the God of the arrogant tyrant Nimrod. The Bible does not directly indicate that Nimrod ordered the construction of the Tower of Babel, but many other sources link its construction to Nimrod.
Some researchers, historians and biblical scholars have an alternative point of view on the meaning of the episode of the construction of the Tower of Babel. They see the Lord's punishment not as punishment for pride, but as God's understanding of the need for cultural differences. These scholars present Babylon as the cradle of all civilizations.
What do scientists say about the Tower of Babel?
One possible approach to the story of the Babylonian Pandemonium is a literal approach. If we accept that the Tower of Babel is historical fact, then one would expect that some remains or ruins of the Tower of Babel exist and will be found. However, the remains of the Tower have not been found by archaeologists.
However, perhaps the story still has a historical background. Many scientists, including biblical scholars, compare the Tower of Babel with the ancient buildings of Mesopotamia - ziggurats. Ziggurats also served for religious ceremonies. The Jews who fell into Babylonian captivity were undoubtedly aware of these buildings.
A candidate for the title of the Tower of Babel is the ziggurat of Etemenanki in Babylon. It was a ziggurat dedicated to Marduk, the patron god of Babylon, the supreme deity of the Babylonian pantheon. It is known that this highest ziggurat was located in Babylon. The tower was probably higher than 90 meters. The time of construction is unknown, but it is known for certain that in the 18th century BC. the tower already existed. The tower (ziggurat) was destroyed, or rather dismantled, by Alexander the Great for the purpose of its reconstruction. However, the plans were not destined to come true due to the death of Alexander. The ruins of the ziggurat were discovered by the German scientist R. Koldewey in 1897-1898.
Ziggurat of Etemenanki in Babylon. Astronomical version.
There is another explanation (pseudo-scientific?) of the Babylonian pandemonium, this time from the point of view of astronomical phenomena. It is known that at the time of the supposed construction of the Tower of Babel, disturbances in the atmosphere of Jupiter affected the movement of Mercury, pushing it closer to the Sun. In its new orbit, Mercury came into close contact with Earth. Their magnetospheres touched each other, causing a surge of electromagnetic energy towards the Earth. Perhaps this phenomenon influenced the thinking of people on Earth. This version takes place, since it has been proven that with electric shock a person can lose speech and memory. If a similar electromagnetic surge was observed in Babylon, then this could be the reason for the confusion of languages and the Babylonian Pandemonium.
Who is the author of the story about the construction of the Tower of Babel?
The tradition is to attribute the authorship of Genesis, and indeed the entire Pentateuch, to Moses; however, at the end of the 19th century a different hypothesis was put forward ( documentary hypothesis) about the existence of four primary sources, called sources J, E, P and D. According to this version, the story of the Tower of Babel came to us from source J (Yahwist).
Phraseologism Tower of Babel.
What does the phraseological unit Tower of Babel mean?
Definition 1.
Tower of Babel – high building, building.
Definition 2.
The Tower of Babel is a grandiose project, the implementation of which is problematic.
Definition 3.
The Tower of Babel is an undertaking that will die due to excessive pride and arrogance.
Phraseologism Pandemonium of Babel.
Pandemonium of Babel meaning 1.
The word pandemonium means the construction of a pillar (the Church Slavonic name for a tower).
Expression Babel means confusion, disorderly, fussy, disordered activity that is not capable of leading to positive results.
Pandemonium of Babel meaning 2.
Phraseologism Babylonian pandemonium - means polyphonic noise, turmoil, din, chaotic gathering of people.
Stories about the Tower of Babel in culture.
Painting.
The story of the construction of the Tower of Babel is reflected in many paintings. For example, the Tower of Babel is the subject of three paintings by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. The first painting was created after Bruegel’s visit to Rome and was a miniature on ivory. Unfortunately, this picture has not reached us. Two other paintings, painted in 1563, survive.
These paintings are called “Tower of Babel” and “Little Tower of Babel”
Small Tower of Babel Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1563 (Rotterdam)
Tower of Babel. Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1563 (Vienna) Bruegel's depictions of the Tower of Babel deliberately resemble the Roman Colosseum, which Christians have long seen as a symbol of pride.
Lucas Van Valckenborch, a contemporary of Bruegel, also depicted the Tower of Babel in his canvases.
Tower of Babel. Lucas van Valckenborch, 1595 
Tower of Babel. Lucas van Valckenborch, 1594 The story of the Tower of Babel is common in Christian iconography.
Tower of Babel in literature.
The story of the Tower of Babel has received widespread understanding in world literature. He was addressed by Franz Kafka in the parable “Coat of Arms of the City”, Thomas Mann in the novel “Joseph and His Brothers”, Andrei Platonov in the story “The Pit”, Ray Bradberry in the dystopian novel “Fahrenheit 451”, Clive Lewis in the novel “The Vile One” power”, Victor Pelevin in the novel “Generation P”, Neal Stevenson in the novel “Avalanche”, etc.
Tower of Babel in music.
The most famous interpretation of the plot of the construction of the Tower of Babel in music is the oratorio “The Tower of Babel” by A. Rubinstein. The Tower of Babel is often mentioned in popular music (Elton John, Bobby McFerrin, Bad Religion, Aquarium, Kipelov, etc.)
The Tower of Babel is one of the most outstanding structures of Ancient Babylon. It was built more than four thousand years ago, but even today its name is a symbol of confusion and disorder.
A biblical legend is dedicated to the Tower of Babel, which says that initially there was one language throughout the entire Earth, people succeeded in their development and learned to make bricks from baked clay. They decided to build a tower as high as the sky. And when the Lord saw such a tower towering very high above earth's surface, decided to mix languages so that construction would no longer move.
Historians have proven that the biblical legend was about a real structure. The Tower of Babel, called the ziggurat, was actually built in the 2nd millennium BC. e., then it was destroyed many times, and it was rebuilt again. According to modern data, this structure was equal in height to a 30-story skyscraper.
The Tower of Babel was a pyramid lined with baked bricks on the outside. Each tier had its own specific color. At the top was the sanctuary of the god Marduk, the patron saint of the city. At the corners it was decorated with golden horns - a symbol of fertility. Inside the ziggurat, in the sanctuary on the lower tier, there was a golden statue of Zeus, as well as a golden table and throne. Religious processions ascended the tiers along wide staircases.
The tower rose on the left bank of the Euphrates. It was surrounded by the houses of priests, numerous temple buildings and special buildings for pilgrims who flocked here from all over Babylonia. The only written testimony of a European eyewitness was left by Herodotus. According to his description, the tower had eight tiers, with the width of the lower one being 180 meters. However, this statement is at odds with modern archaeological data.
The ruins and foundation of the tower in Babylon were discovered by the German scientist Robert Koldewey during excavations in 1897-1898. The researcher calls the tower seven-tiered, and the width of the lower tier, in his opinion, is 90 meters. Such discrepancies with Herodotus may be explained by the difference of 24 centuries. The tower was rebuilt, destroyed and restored many times. Everyone had their own ziggurat Big City Babylonia, but none of them could compete with the Tower of Babel.
This grandiose building was a shrine not only of the city, but of the entire people who worshiped the deity Marduk. The tower was built under several generations of rulers and required enormous expenditures of labor and materials. Thus, it is known that its construction required about 85 thousand bricks. The ziggurat in Babylon has not survived to this day. But the fact that the Tower of Babel described in the Bible really existed on earth is undeniable today.
Tower of Babel. Artist Pieter Bruegel.
Among the problems related to ancient history humanity, the question of the origin of language is one of the most fascinating and at the same time the most difficult questions. The authors of the initial chapters of the book of Genesis, who reflected here their primitive ideas about the origin of man, do not tell us anything about how, in their opinion, man acquired the most important of all abilities that distinguishes him from animals - the ability to articulate speech. On the contrary, they seemed to imagine that man possessed this priceless gift from the very beginning; Moreover, animals shared this property with him, judging by the example of the serpent who spoke to man in Eden. Nevertheless, the variety of languages spoken by different peoples naturally attracted the attention of the ancient Jews, and the following legend was invented to explain this phenomenon.
Noah's descendants descend to the plain. After the flood, all people spoke the same language, since they were the descendants of Noah alone. Over time, they decided to look for a more suitable land for life and descended from the mountains to a flat plain, which they called Shinar (the meaning of this ancient word scientists were unable to find out). Shinar is located in the south of Mesopotamia - the country through which they flow south and flow into Persian Gulf two great rivers, the swift Tigris with steep banks and smoothly carrying its muddy waters Euphrates. The ancient Greeks called this country Mesopotamia [from the words “meso” - between, and “potamos” - river, this is where our words Mesopotamia or Mesopotamia come from, and it is more correct to use the term “Mesopotamia”, because we mean here not only the country between the Tigris and Euphrates , but also the territories adjacent to these rivers from the west and east.
People build the first city and tower on earth. In Mesopotamia there was no stone, and people built their homes from clay. The fortress walls and other structures and buildings were made of clay, the dishes were made of clay, and special writing tablets were made of clay, which replaced books and notebooks for the ancient inhabitants of Mesopotamia.
For construction, bricks made of clay and air-dried were used [such bricks are called mud bricks]. But somehow they noticed that a brick caught in a fire acquires the strength of a stone. The Bible tells how people, having learned how to make baked bricks, decided to build the first city on earth, and in it a huge tower (pillar), whose top would reach the sky [let’s not forget that the creators of the Bible considered the sky to be solid]. Their goal was to glorify their name, as well as to prevent the possibility of people being scattered throughout the entire earth: if someone happens to leave the city and go astray among the vast plain, then if the tower is to the west of him, he will see in the distance on against the clear background of the evening sky, its huge dark silhouette, and if it is east of the traveler, its top, illuminated by the last rays of the setting sun; this will help the traveler choose the right direction; the tower will serve as a landmark and show him the way back to home.
The plan was good, but people did not take into account the jealous suspicion and omnipotence of the deity.
The builders got together, and work began to boil: some sculpted bricks, others fired them, others transported bricks to the construction site, and others built floors of the tower, which rose higher and higher. The tower was not built in a year or two. It took thirty-five million bricks alone! And I had to build houses for myself, so that there would be a place to relax after work, and plant bushes and trees near the houses so that the birds would have a place to sing.
And on the mountain, every day, higher and higher, with ledges, the beautiful tower rose; wide at the bottom, narrower at the top. And each ledge of this tower was painted a different color; in black, in yellow, in red, in green, in white, in orange. They came up with the idea of making the top blue, so that it would be like the sky, and the roof - golden, so that it would sparkle like the sun!
To fasten the bricks together, they used natural asphalt, which in the Bible is called earth resin [there were entire asphalt lakes in the south of Mesopotamia in those places where oil came to the surface of the earth].
The tower was built for many years. It finally reached such a height that the mason, with a burden on his back, had to climb from the ground to the top for a whole year. If he fell and crashed to death, then no one felt sorry for the person, but everyone cried when the brick fell, because it was necessary not to less than a year to carry him to the top of the tower again. People worked so hard that women engaged in making bricks did not stop their work even during childbirth, and the newborn child was wrapped in cloth and tied to her body, continuing to sculpt bricks from clay as if nothing had happened. Work was in full swing day and night. From a dizzying height, people shot into the sky, and the arrows fell back, spattered with blood. Then they shouted: “We have killed all the celestials.”
And now the tower is almost ready. Blacksmiths are already forging gold for the roof, painters are dipping their brushes into buckets of blue paint.
God was seriously worried that people would actually climb into heaven and do something in his own home. He said to himself: “Here is one people, and they all have one language; and this is what they began to do, and they will not cease from what they have decided to do.”
Finally, God's patience was exhausted. He turned to the seventy angels surrounding his throne and invited everyone to descend to earth and confuse the speech of people. No sooner said than done.
And then God sent a great storm to the earth. While the storm raged, the wind carried away all the words that people were accustomed to say to each other.
Soon the storm subsided, and people went back to work. They did not yet know what misfortune befell them. They stopped understanding each other. Everyone has given up work, walks around as if lost in the water and searches: who could understand them?
And people began to take a closer look: with whom they spoke the same way, they tried to stick with them. And people dispersed to different ends of the earth, each with their own language, and began to build their own cities. And the tower began to fall apart little by little.
But people want to believe that fragments of bricks from the Tower of Babel can still be found in every city. Because many took them with them as a memory of those times when there was peace on earth and people understood each other.
And the city where they built the tower was called Babylon (“confusion”), since God mixed languages there...
After thousands of years, archaeologists came to the deserted sand-covered plain. They excavated the hills under which lay the ruins of Babylon, one of the most famous cities of antiquity, and found out that the Tower of Babel really existed, and more than one. The inhabitants of Mesopotamia built stepped towers, called ziggurats, in honor of the local gods. The name of the main god of Babylon is Marduk. His temple was located at the top of a tower, and the Babylonians believed that once a year the god spent the night in his temple. The tower itself was called Esagila in ancient times. Until now, the hill where it was located is called Babil (derived from “Babylon”). The word "Babylon" actually comes from the ancient "Bab-Ili", which means "gate of God."
Scientists have different opinions: which of these ancient structures should be recognized?
"Tower of Babel"? Local and Jewish traditions identify the legendary
tower with ruins "Birs-Nimrud" in Borsippa. From the one found at that place
inscriptions we learn that the ancient Babylonian king who began construction
temple-tower in Borsippa, did not complete this structure, which remained
without a roof. It is possible that this huge unfinished temple served as the reason for
the origin of the legend of the Tower of Babel. However, in ancient Babylonia there were many other similar tower temples; the legend that interests us may be related to any of them.
When did the construction of the Tower of Babel begin? 
There are few legends in Christendom more famous than the story of the Babylonian Pandemonium. The Bible (Genesis 11:1-9) puts it this way:
“The whole earth had one language and one dialect. Moving from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. And they said to each other: Let us make bricks and burn them with fire. And they used bricks instead of stones, and earthen resin instead of lime. And they said, “Let us build ourselves a city and a tower, its height reaching to heaven, and let us make a name for ourselves, before we are scattered over the face of the whole earth.” And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men were building. And the Lord said: Behold, there is one people, and they all have one language; and this is what they began to do, and they will not deviate from what they planned to do; Let us go down and confuse their language there, so that one does not understand the speech of the other. And the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth; and they stopped building the city. Therefore the name was given to it: Babylon, for there the Lord confused the language of all the earth, and from there the Lord scattered them throughout all the earth.”
What is Shinar, where the proud decided to build a colossus? This is how the Bible calls the lands between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in ancient times. He is also Sumer, geographically modern Iraq.
The events described take place in the period between the Flood and the resettlement of Abraham from Mesopotamia to Palestine. Biblical scholars (believing biblical scholars) date the life of Abraham to the beginning of the second millennium BC. Therefore, the Babylonian Confusion in the literal biblical version takes place sometime in the third millennium BC, several generations before Abraham (the reality of the character is not the topic of this article).
Josephus supports this version: post-flood people do not want to depend on the gods and build a tower to heaven. The gods are angry - confusion of languages, cessation of construction.
We already have something: the tower was built in Sumer in the 3rd millennium BC. However, for historians the Bible alone is not enough, so let us next listen to the inhabitants of Mesopotamia themselves:
“By this time, Marduk commanded me to erect the Tower of Babel, which before me had been weakened and brought to the point of falling, with its foundation installed on my chest underworld, and its top should go into the sky,” writes the Babylonian king Nabopolassar.
“I had a hand in completing the peak of Etemenanka so that it could compete with the sky,” writes his son, Nebuchadnezzar.
In 1899, German archaeologist Robert Koldewey, exploring the desert hills 100 kilometers south of Baghdad, discovers the ruins of a forgotten Babylon. Koldewey will excavate this city for the next 15 years of his life. And it will confirm two legends: about the Gardens of Babylon and about the Tower of Babel.
Koldewey discovered the square base of the Etemenanka temple, 90 meters wide. The above words of the kings were discovered precisely during these excavations on cuneiform clay tablets of Babylon. Every Big city Babylon was supposed to have a ziggurat (pyramid-temple). The Etemenanki Temple (“Temple of the Cornerstone of Heaven and Earth”) had 7 tiers, painted in different colors. Each tier functioned as a temple to a deity. The pyramid was crowned with a golden statue of Marduk, the supreme god of the Babylonians. The height of Etemenanka was 91 meters. Compared to the Pyramid of Cheops (142 meters), this is a rather impressive structure. To ancient man the pyramid seemed like a stairway to heaven. And this “stairs” was built from baked clay bricks, as it is written in the Bible.
Now let's connect the data. How did the Etemenanka Temple get into the Bible?
Nebuchadnezzar II (Nebuchadnezzar II) at the beginning of the 6th century BC destroyed the kingdom of Judah and resettled its population to Babylon. There are Jews who by that time had not yet completed their formation Old Testament, and saw the ziggurats that struck their imagination. And the dilapidated or unfinished temple of Etemenanka. It is most likely that Nebuchadnezzar used the captives to restore the cultural monuments of his ancestors and build new ones. There the slave version appeared (“balal” - “mixture” in Hebrew). After all, Jews had never encountered such multilingualism before. But on native language"Babylon" meant "God's Gate". There a version appeared that God once destroyed this tower. The ancient Jews seem to be trying, through myth, to condemn construction work involving slaves. Where the Babylonians wanted to become closer to the gods, the Jews saw sacrilege.
Herodotus describes the Tower of Babel as 8-tiered, 180 meters at the base. It is quite possible that under our ziggurat there is another, missing tier. In addition, there is indirect evidence that the Etemenanka Temple already stood under King Hammurabi (XVIII century BC). And yet, when construction began is still unknown.
There are many peoples who have tried to explain the multilingualism of the human race without any connection with the construction of the Tower of Babel or other similar buildings. So, for example, the Greeks had a legend that in ancient times people lived in peace, had neither cities nor laws, all spoke the same language and were ruled by one god, Zeus. Subsequently, Hermes introduced various dialects and divided humanity into separate nations. Then for the first time discord appeared among mortals, and Zeus, tired of their strife, refused to rule over them and transferred his dominion into the hands of the Argive hero Phoroneus, the first king on earth.
The Wa-Sena tribe (in East Africa) says that once all the peoples of the earth knew only one language, but one day, during a severe famine, people went crazy and scattered to all ends of the earth, muttering incomprehensible words; Since then, various human dialects have arisen.
The Tlingits of Alaska explain the existence of various dialects by a tale of a great flood, apparently borrowed from Christian missionaries or traders. The Quiché tribe living in Guatemala had a legend about that primitive time when all people lived together, spoke only one language, did not worship Trees and stones, and sacredly kept in their memory the words of “the creator, the heart of heaven and earth.” But over time, the tribes multiplied and, leaving their old homeland, gathered in one place called Tulan. Here, according to legend, the human language disintegrated and various dialects arose; people stopped understanding other people's speech and scattered all over the world in search of a new homeland.
Many legends trying to explain the diversity of languages do not mention the Tower of Babel at all and therefore, with the possible exception of the Tlingit legend, can be recognized as completely independent attempts of the human mind to solve such a difficult problem.
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