For all the means of communication and exchange we’ve established between the cultures of the world, no matter how distant they may be from one another, we still have no truly universal single human language. The reason could date back to antiquity, when we first attempted a grand collective project: that of building a tower that would reach the heavens. Determined to punish our effrontery, God not only destroyed the work in progress, but rendered our languages mutually unintelligible in order to hinder any further attempts to do it again. Or at least that’s how one story goes.
You may not subscribe to a literal reading of the account of the Tower of Babel as it appears in the Bible’s Book of Genesis, but according to the Hochelaga video above, the structure does have a fairly plausible basis in history.
It could be a legendary version of Etemenanki, a Mesopotamian ziggurat built to honor the god Marduk at such a scale that it inspired tall tales, as it were, spread far and wide in the ancient world, such as the rumor that its construction required mobilizing the manpower of all humanity. But it really did exist, as evidenced by its ruins discovered at the site of the ancient city of Babylon — which, in Hebrew, was called Babel.
A cuneiform-covered tablet conveniently found at the same location describes a construction project of Etemenanki’s size as using materials like bitumen and baked brick, which aligns with biblical details of the Tower of Babel, as do the Greek historian Herodotus’s references to its layout and structure. Also relevant is the Babylonians’ 587 BC invasion of Jerusalem, which brought captives to the capital. It’s hardly impossible that some of those displaced Jews would have the looming Etemenanki in mind when they went on to write the histories that would ultimately find their way into the Hebrew Bible. They may have had no hope of returning to their homeland, but they must, at least, have felt reasonably certain that Marduk’s days were numbered.
Related content:
A Map of All the Countries Mentioned in the Bible: What The Countries Were Called Then, and Now
A Survival Guide to the Biblical Apocalypse
Did Psychedelic Mushrooms Appear in Medieval Christian Art?: A Video Essay
Based in Seoul, Colin Marshall writes and broadcasts on cities, language, and culture. His projects include the Substack newsletter Books on Cities and the book The Stateless City: a Walk through 21st-Century Los Angeles. Follow him on the social network formerly known as Twitter at @colinmarshall.
