The ancient Babylonians called these brick mountains a ziqqurratu or ziggurat, which can be translated as "rising building" (Akkadian zaqâru, "to rise high"). He had a second temple in the neighborhood, the Esagila. This must be the building known as E-temen-an-ki, the 'House of the foundation of heaven on earth', a giant mountain of bricks and tiles with, on top, a temple for the god Marduk. So there is nothing that keeps us from identifying the Biblical building with a monument in ancient Babylon. This country is known from other books of the Bible ( Isaiah 11.11 and Zechariah 5.11) and is translated as " Babylonia" in the Septuagint. (Imagine a legend about the unity of mankind, which is situated by scholars in Union, Connecticut.) Fortunately, the story contains a second geographical clue: the tower was erected on "a plain in the land of Šin'âr". The Hebrew word Bâbel, Confusion, is often used for Babylon (Akkadian Bab-ili), but this is not sufficient to prove the identification of the tower with a monument in this big city. Let's start our discussion of the Etemenanki with some remarks about this Biblical story. Therefore is the name of it called Bâbel (that is "Confusion") because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth. Come, let Us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech." So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth and they left off building the city. And the Lord said, "Behold, the people are one and they have all one language, and this they begin to do and now nothing will be withheld from them which they have imagined to do. And they said, "Come, let us build us a city and a tower whose top may reach unto heaven and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth."Īnd the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the children of men built. And they said one to another, "Come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly." And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar. And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Šin'âr, and they dwelt there. The whole earth was of one language, and of one speech. The story of the Tower of Babel, found in the Biblical book of Genesis, is one of the most famous and beloved legends of mankind.
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