Tower of Babel
The Book of Genesis in the Bible states "As the population grew and spread eastward, a plain was discovered in the land of Babylon, and was soon thickly populated. The people who lived there began to talk about building a temple-tower reaching to the skies--a proud, eternal monument to themselves. "This will weld us together," they said, "and keep us from scattering all over the world." So they made great piles of hard-burned brick, and collected bitumen to use as mortar." (Chapter 11 verses 2-4) Because of their sinful motives, Jehovah punished these people resulting in the temple work stopping and leading to the dilapidation of the tower.
However, it is believed that the site of the Tower of Babel is inside the city of Babylon and that this tower was reconstructed under the direction of King Nebuchadnezzar. Archaeological evidence has shown that the Etemenanki, one of the chief temples of Marduk, was indeed the Biblical Tower of Babel. Marduk was the chief god of the Babylonian pantheon and was believed to descend to the top of this tower every new year to copulate with the young priestess which was sent up there.
Unfortunately, over the past twenty-two hundred years, the tower has been all but destroyed through the scavenging of bricks to build houses, roads, and other projects. Through Babylonian texts and eye witness accounts such as Herodotus and Ctesias (Appendices A and B), the approximate size of the this tower has been determined. The tower was square and made of eight distinct levels. The first level was 108 feet tall and 300 feet square, the second 60 feet high and 256 feet square, and the third 20 feet high and 197 feet square. The fourth level was 20 feet high and 167 feet square while the fifth tier was also 20 feet high but 138 feet square. The sixth level is thought to be 20 feet high and 108 feet square but the seventh step may have been 56 feet high and 79 by 69 feet for its length and width. (Macqueen, 1965, pp. 176) Atop all of this would be a temple room of some sort containing a golden couch for the god Marduk, upon which he could lay when he descended. The exact dimensions of this final tier are not known. All together, this tower was over three hundred feet tall. Since the tallest buildings in the rest of the city of Babylon were no more than three stories, Etemenanki was clearly visible against the outline of the city. It is thought that the tower was visible over sixty miles away on the Babylonian plane and may have looked similar to Figure 6. (Wyatt, 1997, Online) Gold was used extensively in both Esagila and Etemenanki and according to Herodotus it weighed more than 18 tons. The value today of this gold assuming $340 per ounce is over $195 million!
While today a three hundred foot building is not that significant, one has to remember that this tower was ten times taller than any other building in the city. If the Etemenanki was built in New York City, it would need to be ten times taller than the World Trade Center, or over one thousand stories! The estimated number of bricks used in the construction of this tower assuming the same type of bricks as before and the entire tower being solid yields over 10.5 million bricks! (Appendix D) It is really no wonder that even though the local people have been scavenging for bricks with which to build over the last two thousand plus years, there are still remains to the city of Babylon and its monuments.