Babel tower country. Tower of Babel. Myths and history

The city of Babylon, which means "Gate of God", was founded in ancient times on the banks of the Euphrates. He was one of largest cities ancient world and was the capital of Babylonia - a kingdom that existed for one and a half millennia in the south of Mesopotamia (the territory of modern Iraq).

The architecture of Mesopotamia was based on secular buildings - palaces and religious monumental structures - ziggurats. Powerful cult towers, called ziggurats (ziggurat - holy mountain), were square and resembled a stepped pyramid. The steps were connected by stairs, along the edge of the wall there was a ramp leading to the temple. The walls were painted black (asphalt), white (lime) and red (brick).

Jan il Vecchio Bruegel

According to the biblical tradition, after the Flood, humanity was represented by one people who spoke the same language. From the east people came to the land of Shinar (in downstream Tigris and Euphrates), where they decided to build a city (Babylon) and a tower as high as heaven in order to "make a name for themselves."

Jan Collaert, 1579

The construction of the tower was interrupted by God, who created new languages ​​for different people, because of which they ceased to understand each other, could not continue the construction of the city and the tower, and were scattered throughout the land of Babylon.

The tower stood on the left bank of the Euphrates in the Sahn 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 the Babylonian kingdom. The description of the Tower of Babel was left by Herodotus, who thoroughly examined it and, perhaps, even visited its top.

...Babylon was built like this ... It lies on a vast plain, forming a quadrangle, each side of which is 120 stadia (meters) long. The circumference of all four sides of the city is 480 stadia (meters). Babylon was not only very big city but also the most beautiful of all the cities that I know. First of all, the city is surrounded by a deep, wide and full of water moat, then there is a wall 50 royal (Persian) cubits (26.64 meters) wide and 200 (106.56 meters) high.

Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1563

If tower of babel existed, what did it look like and what did it serve? What was it - a mystical way to heaven in the abode of the gods? Or maybe a temple or an astronomical observatory? scientific history The search for the Tower of Babel began with several pieces of painted bricks found at the site of the Babylonian kingdom by the German architect and archaeologist Robert Koldewey. The fragments of the brick bas-relief were good enough reason for Kaiser Wilhelm II and the newly founded German Oriental Society to generously fund the excavations of the ancient city.

On March 26, 1899, Robert Koldewey solemnly began excavations. But only in 1913, due to the fact that the groundwater level decreased, archaeologists were able to start exploring the remains of the legendary tower. At the bottom of deep excavations, they freed from under the layers the preserved part of the foundation made of bricks and several steps of the stairs.

Marten Van Valckenborch I

Since then, and to this day, an irreconcilable struggle continues between supporters of various hypotheses, representing the shape of this building and its height in different ways. The location of the stairs causes the most controversy: some researchers are sure that the steps were outside, others insist on placing the stairs inside the tower.

The tower referred to in the Bible was probably destroyed before the era of Hammurabi. To replace it, another was built, which was erected in memory of the first. The Tower of Babel was a stepped eight-tiered pyramid, each tier of which had a strictly defined color. Each side of the square base was 90 meters.

Marten van Valckenborch, 1595

The height of the tower was also 90 meters, the first tier had a height of 33 meters, the second - 18, the third and fifth - 6 meters each, the seventh - the sanctuary of the god Marduk was 15 meters high. By today's standards, the building reached the height of a 25-story building.

Calculations suggest that about 85 million mud bricks from a mixture of clay, sand and straw were used to build the Tower of Babel, since there are few trees and stones in Mesopotamia. Bitumen (mountain resin) was used to connect bricks.

Marten van Valckenborch, around 1600

Robert Koldewey managed to unearth in Babylon the famous Hanging Gardens of Babylon, which were not erected by this legendary queen, but were built by order of Nebuchadnezzar II for his beloved wife Amitis, an Indian princess, who in dusty Babylon yearned for green hills of their homeland. Magnificent gardens with rare trees, fragrant flowers and coolness in a sultry city, they were truly a wonder of the world.

In 1962, an expedition led by the architect Hans-Georg Schmidt continued to explore the ruins of the tower. Professor Schmidt created new model buildings: two side stairs led to a wide terrace located at a height of 31 meters from the ground, a monumental central staircase ended on the second tier at a height of 48 meters. Four more flights of stairs led up from there, and at the top of the tower stood a temple - the sanctuary of the god Marduk, lined with blue tiles and decorated in the corners with golden horns - a symbol of fertility. Inside the sanctuary were the gilded table and bed of Marduk. The ziggurat was a shrine that belonged to all the people, it was a place where thousands of people flocked to worship the supreme deity Marduk.

Professor Schmidt compared his calculations with data on a small clay tablet found by archaeologists. This unique document contains a description of a multi-tiered tower in the Babylonian kingdom - famous temple supreme deity Marduk. The tower was called Etemenanki, which means "the house where the heavens meet the earth." It is not known exactly when the original construction of this tower was carried out, but it already existed during the reign of Hammurabi (1792-1750 BC). Now on the site of the “temple-skyscraper” there is a swamp overgrown with reeds.

Cyrus, who took possession of Babylon after the death of Nebuchadnezzar, was the first conqueror to leave the city intact. He was struck by the scale of Etemenanki, and he not only forbade anything to be destroyed, but ordered that a monument be erected on his grave in the form of a miniature ziggurat - a small Tower of Babel.

During its three-thousand-year history, Babylon was razed to the ground three times and each time rose again from the ashes, until it completely fell into decay under the rule of the Persians and Macedonians in the 6th-5th centuries BC. The Persian king Xerxes left only the ruins of the Tower of Babel, which Alexander the Great saw on his way to India. He intended to build it again. “But,” as Strabo writes, “this work required a lot of time and effort, because the ruins would have to be removed by ten thousand people for two months, and he did not fulfill his plan, as he soon fell ill and died.”

The Tower of Babel, which in those days was just a miracle of technology, brought fame to its city. This ziggurat was the tallest and latest structure of its type, but by no means the only high-rise temple in Mesopotamia. Along the two mighty rivers - the Tigris and the Euphrates, colossal shrines stood in a long line.

The tradition of building towers was born among the Sumerians in the south of Mesopotamia. Already seven thousand years ago, the first stepped temple was built in Eridu with a terrace only one meter high. Over time, architects learned to design taller buildings and developed construction technology that made it possible to achieve stability and strength of walls.

In European painting, the most famous painting on this subject is Pieter Brueghel the Elder's "Babylon Pandemic" (1563). A more stylized geometric structure was depicted by M. Escher in an engraving in 1928.

Literature

The plot of the Tower of Babel has been widely understood in European literature:

• Franz Kafka wrote a parable on this subject called "The coat of arms of the city" (Emblem of the city)
• Clive Lewis, The Foulest Might novel
• Victor Pelevin, novel "Generation P"
• Neil Stevenson in Avalanche interesting version construction and significance of the Tower of Babel.

Music

It should be noted that many of the above songs contain the word Babylon in the title, but they do not mention the Tower of Babel.

Theater

Categories:

• ancient babylon
• Non-embodied ultra-tall structures
• Plots of the Old Testament
• Concepts and terms in the Bible
• Ziggurat
• tower of babel
• Genesis
• Jewish mythology

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See what the "Tower of Babel" is in other dictionaries:

TOWER OF BABYLON- and the confusion of languages, two legends about Ancient Babylon (combined in the canonical text of the Bible into a single story): 1) about the construction of the city and the confusion of languages, and 2) about the construction of the tower and the dispersion of people. These legends are dated to the "beginning of history" ... ... Encyclopedia of mythology

TOWER OF BABYLON- THE TOWER OF BABYLON. Painting by Pieter Brueghel the Elder. a building that, according to biblical tradition (Genesis 11:1-9), the descendants of Noah erected in the land of Shinar (Babylonia) in order to reach heaven. God, angered by the plan and actions of the builders, ... ... Collier Encyclopedia

tower of babel- in the Bible, a legend dedicated to the beginning of the history of mankind (after the flood), when they built a city and a tower to heaven (the first great construction of people). If the city was built by settled residents who knew how to burn bricks, then the tower was built by nomads from the East; ... ... Historical dictionary

TOWER OF BABYLON- the most important episode from the story of ancient mankind in the book. Genesis (11.19). According to the biblical story, the descendants of Noah spoke the same language and settled in the valley of Shinar. Here they began the construction of a city and a tower "as high as the heavens... Orthodox Encyclopedia

tower of babel- Babylonian pandemonium. Tower of Babel. Painting by P. Brueghel the Elder. 1563. Museum of the History of Art. Vein. Babel. Tower of Babel. Painting by P. Brueghel the Elder. 1563. Museum of the History of Art. Vein. Tower of Babel in ... ... Encyclopedic Dictionary "World History"

Babel Tower- the most important episode from the story of ancient mankind in the book of Genesis (see Gen. 11, 1-9). According to the biblical story, the descendants of Noah spoke the same language and settled in the valley of Shinar. Here they began the construction of the city and the tower, ... ... Orthodoxy. Dictionary-reference

tower of babel- Book. Oh very tall building, building. On that day, the ocean gave people a real massacre ... The ether was full of messages about the emergency condition of the ships of many countries. Under the blows, the "Tower of Babel" of our days collapsed cyclopean building,… … Phraseological dictionary of the Russian literary language

A few days ago, I remembered that there was a city of Babylon, which was considered the largest and most beautiful city and wondered what was left of him today. And there is a lot left. (By the way, let me remind you, I did a similar one almost two months ago).

Briefly about Babylon - a city that was located (from my memory) 70 km south of today's Baghdad, on the eternal river Euphrates. It has been known since about 2000 BC. e., but by the beginning of the new era, due to various circumstances, ceased to exist. The most famous king of Babylon (a country centered in the city of Babylon) was Hamurappi, who ruled in the 18th century BC. and gave the country (and the world) a lot of innovations and an impetus to development, including the most famous - the Code of Laws. Later, Babylon was conquered by Assyria, who established dominance in Mesopotamia for many centuries, but by the 7th century BC. e. Assyria fell with the direct participation of Babylon itself. This was followed by the second "golden age" of Babylon under King Nebuchadnezzar, Babylon subjugated all of Mesopotamia and the Middle East. However, later the country was conquered by Achaemenid Persia (which, however, did not interfere with the development of the city), but by the 4th century it was conquered by Macedonian and subsequently gradually ceased to exist.

The word Babylon to some extent has become a household word, a designation of greatness. It should also be noted the important role brought by Babylon to science. 3,000 years ago, the first abacus, the abacus, was invented in Babylon. Initially, the counting system in Babylon was 60, if memory serves. In Babylon they invented moon calendar and 7 day week. Also invented in Babylon, a solar, water clock. The usual names of the stars are Sirius, Orion, also Babylonian. The first world geographical map, also Babylonian, although called geographic Maps I would not become a Babylonian invention. By the way, Armenia is also on this map. - This is the same card, in the shape of a star.

Sunset in Babylon (painting by Raphael Lacoste). The painting shows the construction of the Tower of Babel, with the Hanging Gardens in the background.



ABOUT hanging gardens I think everyone knows. Briefly about the Tower of Babel, which formed the basis of the biblical myth. Many similar towers were built in Babylon, but the highest of them reached, as it is now believed, 91 m in height, and possibly more. Jews resettled by the Assyrians in Mesopotamia in the 7th century BC. e. they saw the tower and saw in it a rebellion against God, a desire to reach heaven, because for those times it was a colossal structure. Most likely destroyed by an earthquake. As I recently found out, the building of the European Parliament was built on the model of the Tower of Babel, which is quite remarkable :)

Now briefly about the population of Babylon.
Like a city on world stage he came to the fore in the 18th century BC. Already by 1600, it became the second in the then world after the Egyptian Avaris. The population of Babylon was 60 thousand people (Avaris - 100 thousand). Then followed the decline of Babylon. The city revived relatively by the 11th century BC and again became one of the largest cities, its population amounted to 45 thousand people. By 800 B.C. e., after two centuries, the population of Babylon increased by only 2 thousand, amounting to 47 thousand people, and by 650 BC. - already 60 thousand people. Interestingly, Babylon reached its peak already in the period of Achaemenid Persia (my article about Achaemenid Persia and its relations with Armenia, with historical maps, can be viewed). According to Chandler, from "Tables of World" s Largest Cities 2250 B.C. - 1975", the population of Babylon by 430 BC amounted to 200 thousand people. At that moment, Babylon was the largest city in the world, overtaking such cities as Athens (155 thousand), Sicilian Syracuse and many others. The greatness of Babylon was put end at the end of the 4th century BC, in 312 its population was resettled by one of the generals of Alexander.By 200 BC Babylon had significantly lost its position.Inhabitants left only 60 thousand people, and after another three hundred years - even smaller. Subsequently, it finally ceased to exist. It should be noted that Babylon was a very large city in terms of area, hardly inferior in this to today's New York. The population of Babylonia itself (Babylonians) is referred to in the Bible as the Chaldeans. The Chaldeans were one of the first to adopt Christianity.After the invasion of the Arabs in the 7th century, the Christian interfluve fell and the Arabs made up the majority there, simultaneously Muslimizing the population and forcing out those who did not want to convert to Islam.Today, the Chaldeans usually unite in one ethno-religious group with the Assyrians (Assyrochaldeans). They live mainly in Iraq and in diasporas in the United States, Scandinavian countries and etc.

Babylonian lion

Ishtar Gate, reconstructed today

Gatekeeper statue from Nemrut Palace, 9th century BC

Illustration of the royal procession in front of the entrance to Babylon, Ishtar Gate

Reconstruction of the Tower of Babel and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon

Painting by Pieter Brueghel the Elder "Tower of Babel"

European Parliament building

Law Code of Hammurabi

This is what the Hanging Gardens probably looked like.

General view of Babylon. The Tower of Babel is on the left, then the Ishtar Gate, on the right is the palace of Nebuchadnezzar.

Walls of Babylon. We walk along the ancient road.

Walls of Babylon, Pergamon Museum, Berlin (

Tower of Babel.

The Tower of Babel (Heb. מִגְדָּל בָּלַל‎ Migdal Bavel) is the tower to which the biblical tradition is dedicated, set forth in chapter 2 “Noah” (verses 11:1-11:9) of the book of Genesis.

The Tower of Babel is not included in the "official" list of wonders of the world. However, it is one of the most outstanding structures Ancient Babylon, and its name is still a symbol of confusion and disorder.

Jan Collaert 1579

According to an 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)

For the construction of a monumental structure, people used not a stone, but an unbaked raw brick; to connect bricks, bitumen (mountain resin) was used instead of lime. The tower grew and grew in height.

Theodosius Rihel 1574-1578

Finally, God was angry with the unreasonable and conceited people and punished them: he forced the builders to speak in different languages. Because of this, the stupid proud people ceased to understand each other and, having abandoned their tools, stopped building the tower, and then dispersed in different directions of the Earth. So the tower turned out to be unfinished, and the city where construction took place and all languages ​​\u200b\u200bmixed was called Babylon. Thus, the story of the Tower of Babel explains the appearance of various languages ​​after the Flood.

A number of biblical scholars trace the connection of the legend of the Tower of Babel with the construction of high temple towers called ziggurats in Mesopotamia. The tops of the towers were used for religious rites and astronomical observations.

Fresco 1100.

The highest 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 the heavens meet the earth." It is not known exactly when 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, got 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 the tower. The tower referred to in the Bible was probably destroyed even before the era 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 rushed into the sky. The tower was part 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 tablets give information about the religious rituals that took place in this temple.

The tower stood on the left bank of the Euphrates in the Sahn 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. The description of the Tower of Babel was left by Herodotus, who thoroughly examined it and, perhaps, even visited its top. This is the only documentary description of an eyewitness from Europe.

Tobias Verhaecht, The Tower Of Babel.

The Tower of Babel was a stepped eight-tiered pyramid lined with burnt 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 with golden horns (a symbol of fertility) at the corners. It was considered the dwelling place of the god Marduk, the patron of the city. In addition, inside the sanctuary were the gilded table and bed of Marduk. Stairs led to the tiers; religious processions rose along them. The ziggurat was a shrine that belonged to all the 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 cult, but also for practical purposes: for the observation of the surrounding area by the guard soldiers. Cyrus, who took possession of Babylon after the death of Nebuchadnezzar, was the first conqueror to leave the city intact. He was struck by the scale of Etemenanki, and he not only forbade anything to be destroyed, but ordered that a monument be erected 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 again destroyed. The Persian king Xerxes left only the ruins that 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 the ruins would have to be removed by ten thousand people for two months, and he did not fulfill his plan, as he soon fell ill and died.”

Lucas van Valckenborch 1594

Lucas van Valckenborch 1595

At present, 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 Brueghel the Elder. Tower of Babel 1564.

The plot of the Tower of Babel is widespread in Christian iconography - in numerous miniatures, handwritten and printed publications Bibles (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, the end of the 12th - the beginning of the 13th century).

Fresco of the Tower of Babel from the Venetian Cathedral of San Marco.

In Iraq, there are still towers of this type - very high, stepped or spiral. In Babylon itself, almost nothing reminds of the tower, only part of the wall and the foundation, as well as beautiful ancient reliefs, have been preserved there. royal palace in excavations.

The current building of the European Parliament is modeled after a painting of the unfinished Tower of Babel painted in 1563 by Pieter Brueghel 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 in such a way as 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.

The Tower of Babel is one of the most prominent 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.

The Tower of Babel is dedicated to the biblical tradition, which says that initially there was one language throughout the Earth, people succeeded in their development and learned how 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, rising very high above the earth's surface, he decided to confuse the languages ​​so that the 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 building was equal in height to a 30-story skyscraper.

The Tower of Babel was a pyramid lined with baked bricks. Each of its tiers had its own specific color. At the top was the sanctuary of the god Marduk, the patron saint of the city. In 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 rushed here from all over Babylonia. Herodotus left the only written evidence of a European eyewitness. According to his description, the tower had eight tiers, with the lower one 180 meters wide. However, this statement diverges from modern archeological 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 can be explained by the difference in the 24th century. The tower was rebuilt many times, destroyed and restored. Everyone had their own ziggurat Big City Babylonia, but none of them could compete with the Tower of Babel.

This grand building was a shrine not only for the city, but for the entire people who worshiped the deity Marduk. The tower was built under several generations of rulers and required enormous labor and material costs. So, it is known that about 85 thousand bricks were required for its construction. 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.