The Tower of Babel

Babel


Now the whole
earth had one language and few words. And as men
migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land
of Shinar and settled there. And they said to one
another, "Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly."
And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. Then they
said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a
tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a
name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad upon
the face of the whole earth."
And
the Lord came down to see the city and the tower,
which the sons of men had built. And the Lord said,
"Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language;
and this is only the beginning of what they will do; and nothing
that they propose to do will now be impossible for
them. Come, let us go down, and there confuse their
language, that they may not understand one another's
speech."
So the Lord scattered them abroad
from there over the face of the earth, and they left
off building the city. Therefore its name was called
Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of
all the earth; and from there the Lord scattered them
abroad over the face of the earth. - Genesis 11.
The
story of the tower of Babel found in the Bible is
familiar to many. Is there evidence that such a tower really
existed? There are archaeological indications that it did,
indeed.
In the fertile Mesopotamian plain between
the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, in what is now modern
Iraq, is a mound, or tell, of broken mud-brick
buildings and debris. This is all that remains of the
ancient famed city of Babylon.
Babylon was one of a
number of cities built by a succession of peoples
that lived on the plain starting around 5,500 years
ago. There developed a tradition in each city of
building a temple in the shape of a stepped pyramid. These temples,
or ziggurates, most likely honored a particular
god. The people of Mesopotamia believed in many gods
and often a city might have several ziggurates. Over
time Babylon became the most influential city on the
plain and its ziggurat, honoring the god Marduk, was
built, destroyed and rebuilt until it was the tallest
tower.
Archaeologists
examining the remains of the city of Babylon have
found what appears to be the foundation of the tower: a
square of earthen embankments some three-hundred feet
on each side. The tower's most splendid incarnation
was probably under King Nebuchadnezzar II who lived
from 605-562 BC. The King rebuilt the tower to stand
295 feet high. According to an inscription made by the
king the tower was constructed of "baked brick enameled in brilliant
blue." The terraces of the tower may have also been
planted with flowers and trees.
Constructing
ziggurats on the Mesopotamian plain was not easy. The
area lacks the stone deposits the Egyptians used
effectively for their timeless monuments. The wood available
is mostly palm, not the best for construction, so the people
used what they had in abundance: mud and straw. The bulk
of the towers were constructed of crude bricks made by
mixing chopped straw with clay and pouring the
results into molds. After the bricks were allowed to
bake in the sun they were joined in construction by
using bitumen, a slimey material imported from the Iranian
plateau. Bitumen was used widely as a binding and coating material
throughout the Mesopotamian plain.
The
tower, referred to by the Babylonians as Etemenanki,
was only one of the marvels of the city. Down the street was
the Hanging Gardens,
one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
Nebuchadnezzar also had two impressive palaces inside
the city. The final beginning of the end of the tower
of Babel probably began around 478 BC. The city had been
taken over by the Persian King Xerxes who crushed a rebellion
there that year. The tower was neglected and crumbled .

Because of the use of mud-baked bricks, ziggurats
needed constant maintenance. Often they had elaborate
internal drainage systems to channel rain water away
so that the bricks would not be eroded. If the pipes
on a ziggurat were not cleaned regularly and allowed
to jam the tower would slowly crumble. Ziggurats were
also highly susceptible to earthquake damage. Their
height amplified the effect of quake forces while the
rigid, unreinforced-brick construction did not allow the structures
to flex with the shaking.
Although the
Tower of Babel now gone, a few lessor ziggurats still
exist. The largest surviving, (although damaged)
temple is now found in western Iran, in what was once the ancient
land of Elam. It is located about 18 miles from the capital
of Elam, a city named Susa. Built in 1250 BC by the
King Untash-Napirisha it once had five levels and
stood 170 feet in height.
What
we know about the Tower of Babel today comes only
from the little archaeological evidence found and a
few ancient writings. Nebuchadnezzar described how
"gold, silver and precious stones from the mountain
and from the sea were liberally set into the foundations" and
how to rebuild it he called on "various peoples of the Empire,
from north and south, from mountains and the coasts" to
help with the construction.
Even
in 460 BC, after the tower had been crumbling for many
years, the Greek historian Herodotus visited the tower
and was very impressed. "It has a solid central tower, one furlong
square, with a second erected on top of it and then a
third, and so on up to eight. All eight towers can be
climbed by a spiral way running around the outside,
and about halfway up there are seats for those who
make the journey to rest on."
Though the tower has
been gone for many years, its biblical story has
continued to inspire artists. It was a favorite
subject during the 14th century when several well-known
paintings were done. As archaeological and historical research
has shown most were not truly representative of the actual
building.