EXPLORING THE TOWER OF BABEL.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 17, Issue 3, 13 January 1903, Page 2

EXPLORING THE TOWER OF BABEL.

THE WORLD’S GREATEST TREASURY OF ANTIQUITIES.

We learn from the " New York Journal ” that an expedition of American archaeologists have determined to excavate and restore the ruins of the Tower of Babel, by which men at the dawn of creation impiously sought to climb to heaven, and were stricken with the confusion of tongues, as described in the eleventh chapter of Genesis. The ruins are by many men considered to constitute the world’s greatest treasury of antiquities.

The site of the Tower is well known to-day, and has been explored to some extent. It stands ten miles from the ruins of Babylon. The Arabs call the remains - of the Tower ” Birs Nimrud,” or the “ Tower of Nimrod.” It consists of a mountain of debris, surrounded by a ruined tower of incalculable antiquity. This mass of material contains records of mankind going back to the beginning of creation, to a period that is now considered pro-historic. The earliest legends of man are here graven on bricks so hard that they can scarcely be cut with the best modern steel.

Although the building of the tower to heaven was stopped by divine decree at the beginning, it yet remained one of the great monuments of the world for thousands of years. It was repaired and beautified by Nebuchadnezzar, Assurbanipal, and others of the splendid succession of Babylonian and Assyrian monarchs who ruled this region of the earth at the remote period when it was the centre of civilization—before Egypt had risen to the zenith of her glory or Greece had emerged from barbarism. According to the Rev. Clifton H. Levy, a well known archaeologist, the Tower of Babel as it appears today covers an area ol 49,U001t. and is nearly :400fL. high. Travellers are struck with its remarkable appearance, even us a ruin and Herodotus, who saw it while more or loss intact, has left a good account of it. He describes it as a building extending two stadia ( furlongs ) on every side ; the lower was one stadium in length and one in breadth. On this tower another was erected, which again bore another, and so on to the number of eight.

They were ascended from the outside by a way running spirally around them, and provided in the middle with convenient resting places. f

In the uppermost storey was a spacious temple. It was partially destroyed by Xeixoa when he returned from Greece (B. C. ,490 ). A part of this magnificiont temple existed still more than live centuries later, but the other part was in tho time of Alexander the Groat a heap of ruins. The ambitious Macedonian determined to rebuild it. He issued the orders accordingly, and, when the work did not proceed with the vigour and result ho had anticipated he resolved to undertake it himself with his whole army, but when he found that 1.0,000 workmen were unable to remove the rubbish within two months, he became disgusted and stopped.

The oldest known Babylonian legends are most interesting to compare with the Biblical account of the building of the Tower of Babel. One of Hie most ancient sources of the history of ancient nations is that account of Clin Idea written by Abydernis, an Egyptian priest of the Temple of Osiris, at Aby<tos, composed with the aid of the work of Berosus. The original book is lost but a fragment quoted from it by a later writer reads as follows : ”It is said that the first men. pulled up beyond measure by their strength and their great height, grew to despise the gods and to count themselves their superiors. Incited by this notion they reared a tower of prodigious height, which is now Babylon. It had nearly reached the heavens when the winds came to the succor of the gods and overthrew the entire scaffolding, casting it down upon the builders. Its ruins are called Babylon, and men who had until then only one language, began from that time to speak, by command of the gods, diflorent dialects.”

George Smith, the famous archaeologist, who found the tablets containing the story of the Deluge in Babylonian cuneiform characters in 1872, also found some mutilated tablets, evidently referring to the building of the ’rower of Babel.

Professor Hnyco says of those fragments ; “ They are so remarkable that it is unfortunate we have not the remainder of the tablets, In the first part we have the anger of Bel, the father of the gods, at the sin of those who wore building the walls of Babylon, and a mould of the tower or palace. This mould is termed the " illustrious and the god, Ann, who destroyed the builders is accordingly called Sar-luli-elli, the king of the illustrious mound.” Since the Babylonian name of the month Tishri, our October, meant "the month of the illustrious mound ” it would be believed that the construction of it had iaken plage at the time ol the autumnal equinox. The builders were punished by the deity, and the walls that had been set up in the day were destroyed in the night. Ho fur the most remarkable evidence bearing on the building of the tower is contained in two clay cylinders, alleged to have been discovered at the base of the tower itself. Translated they read :

“ The temple of the seven lights of

the earth, the Tower of Borsippa, which a former king had erected and hud completed to a height of

42 yards, whose pinnacle ho had however, not set up, since remote days had fallen to ruins. There was no proper care of the gutters lor its water ; rain and storm had washed away its bricks ; the tiles of its, roofing were split ; the bricks of the building wore flooded away to heaps of ruins. To restore it the good god Merodach urged my mind ; its site, however, I did not injure, did not change its foundation walls. In a month of good fortune, on an auspicious day, I improved the bricks of its building and the tiles of its roofing, into a compound edifice, renewed its sub-structure, and put the inscription of my name on the corner of its edifice. To restore it and set up its pinnacle I raised my hand as it was ages before I built it anew as it was in remote days I erected its pinnacle.”

NEBUCHADNEZZAR TELLS HOW

HE RESTORED THE TOWER

The name of Nebuchadnezzar appears on these cylinders showing that his was a work of restoration and completion, pointing to the fact as chronicled in the Bible, that when the tower was first built it was not finished, because of some great calamity. This great temple was dedicated to Nebo, the Babylonian god of letters. His temple at Borsippa was called E-Zidda, *' the lasting house,” and that it has lasted long is proved by the fact that before 2000 B, C. the central priestly college of Babylon was in this tower. The bronze door-step of the temple is now in the British Museum, and is inscribed thus : ‘‘ Nebnchandnozzar, the King of Babylon, supporters o! the temples of E-Sigella and E-Zid-da, the eldest son of Nabopolassar, King of Babylon, am I. For Nebo, the supreme lord prolonger of the time of my life, E-Zidda his house in Borsippa anew I built. ’ All the bricks from this site are inscribed with the name and titles of Nebuchadnezzar 11., who restored the temple with great splendour Being the great educational centre of Babylonia, whore certainly several languages were taught, it is more than possible that the ” confusion of tongues ” arose from this fact. But important as the memorials of Nebuchadnezzar are in their bearing upon the history of the actual Tower of Babel, the inscriptions of an Assyrian monarch, who ruled before him point more definitely to the character of the treasures which are undoubtedly covered by the ruins of Birs Nimrud. Assurbanipal was the most powerful and magnificent monarch who ever ruled Assyria. He is mentioned in Ezra IV. 10 as the “ great and noble Asnapper,” ruling about 608-62 G B. 0. Had it not been for his great and original ideas our knowledge of Assyrian literature would be much less than it is, for it was the extensive library of Assurbanipal, that was found at Nineveh by Layard, Rossam, and George Smith ; and most notable of all this library is only a copy of the works which were then in tin* priestly library in the Temple of Nebo, at Birs Nimrud.

It was in this library that the tablets telling ol' the Creation and the Deluge were found, besides many other valuable literary works. One of the most remarkable series of tablets discovered was the so-cal-led syllabaries, comparable to our primers, intended for the use of the youngest pupils, showing them how to write the Babylonian characters and their meanings and sounds, and at the same time showing the same words in the more ancient Sumerian language which preceded Assyrian. These tablets alone would have been sufficient to account lor the story in Genesis of the “ of tongues " for there are two languages written side by side on the same tablets.

One important purpose of the Tower of Babel still remains to be noted. It has been especially remarked by travellers who have visited the ruins, that the four corners of the tower mark precisely the four cardinal points of the compass, and from what we know of the science of the Babylonians, it is certain that here must have been located one of the great astronomical and astrological schools of ancient Babylonia. In fact, on one cuneiform tabled descovercd was a text treating of the beginning of the science of astronomy, and pointing out the significance of the summer and winter solstices, of the vernal and autumnal equinoxes, of the connection of the oracles of the full moon, of the influence of the sun and the heat of summer on the diseases of man. The world may then,* be indebted to the Tower of Babel for the beginning of astronomy, as well as the variety of languages ; and in this connection it is interesting to point out that the first instrument for recording the advance of the sun through the sky, ami so dividing the time into equal sections —that is to say, the concave sundial with its index—was brought by the Peloponnesus from the banks of the Euphrates. The system of intercalary months, still used in the Jewish calendar, kept the Babylonian year almost in accordance with the progress of the sun. It is probable that the division of. the lunar month into periods of seven days also originated in Babylonia where certainly a Slmhbatu. or Sabbath, was kept. The division of the hour into 60 minutes belongs to the sexagesimal system of notation, which was peculiar to the Babylonians. The imagination falters in the attempt to picture all that may be buried beneath the great mound of ruins which was once the 'lower of Babel, waiting for centuries for spades to bring these secrets of the most distant past to the eager eyes of the twentieth century.

There probably lie some of the verv earliest records of man —the earliest accounts of the Creation

and of the Flood, a possible key to the puzzle of the philologists as to , the beginning of new languages and

dialects, together with the first attempts to measure time and locate the stars.

Archaeologists will await with anxious interest the results of the American expedition's investigations in what one well-known authority has described as the world’s greatest treasury of antiquities