Tower of Babel

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This article is about the Biblical story. For other meanings, see Tower of Babel (disambiguation).

Image:Confusion of Tongues.pngAccording to the narrative in Genesis Chapter 11 of the Bible, the Tower of Babel was a tower built by a united humanity to reach the heavens. Because man had it in his heart to be like God, God stopped this project by confusing their languages so that each spoke a different language. As a result, they could no longer communicate with one another and the work stopped. The builders were then scattered to different parts of Earth. This story is used to explain the existence of many different languages and races.

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Narrative

The story is found in Genesis 11:1-9 as follows:

1 Now the entire earth was of one language and uniform words. 2 And it came to pass when they traveled from the east, that they found a valley in the land of Shinar and settled there. 3 And they said to one another, "Come, let us make bricks and fire them thoroughly"; so the bricks were to them for stones, and the clay was to them for mortar. 4 And they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make ourselves a name, lest we be scattered upon the face of the entire earth". 5 And the Lord descended to see the city and the tower that the sons of man had built. 6 And The LORD said, "Lo! [they are] one people, and they all have one language, and this is what they have commenced to do. Now, will it not be withheld from them, all that they have planned to do? 7 Come, let us descend and confuse their language, so that one will not understand the language of his companion". 8 And the Lord scattered them from there upon the face of the entire earth, and they ceased building the city. 9 Therefore, He named it Babel, for there the Lord confused the language of the entire earth, and from there the Lord scattered them upon the face of the entire earth.
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Historicity

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Historical and Linguistic context

Image:Brueghel-tower-of-babel.jpg The Greek form of the name, Babylon, is from the native Akkadian Bāb-ilu, which means "Gate of the god". This correctly summarizes the religious purpose of the great temple towers (the ziggurats) of ancient Sumer (Biblical Shinar in modern southern Iraq). These huge, squared-off stepped temples were intended as gateways for the gods to come to earth, literal stairways to heaven. ("Reaching heaven" is a common description in temple tower inscriptions.) This is the type of structure referred to in the Biblical narrative. The common conical depictions of the tower (as shown here) resemble much later Muslim towers observed by 19th century explorers in the area.

Ziggurats are among the largest religious structures ever built, and their use dates back to the dawn of history. The Biblical narrative is a reaction to the ancient Mesopotamian system of beliefs reflected in these impressive structures, beliefs that ruled the hearts and minds of some of the greatest civilizations of ancient times.

The Hebrew version of the name of the city and the tower, Babel, is attributed in Gen. 11:9 to the verb balal, which means to confuse or confound in Hebrew.

According to the documentary hypothesis, the passage derives from the Jahwist source, a writer whose work is full of puns, and like many of the other puns in the Jahwist text, the element of the story concerning the scattering of languages is thought by many to be a folk etymology for the name Babel, attached to a more historic story of a collapsing tower.

Historical linguistics has long wrestled with the idea of a single original language. Attempts to identify this language with a currently existing language have been rejected by the academic community. This was the case with Hebrew, and with Basque (as proposed by Manuel de Larramendi). Yet the well-documented branching of languages from common ancestors (such as modern European languages from ancient Indo-European) points in the direction of a single ancestral language. The main issue of dispute is the date, which most modern scholars would put several thousand years before the Bible's own date for the demise of the Tower of Babel.

A large construction project in the ancient world might have used pressed labour from a diverse set of conquered or subject populations, and the domain of the empires covering Babylon would have contained some non-Semitic languages, such as Hurrian, Kassite, Sumerian, and Elamite, among others.

There is a similar story to that of the Tower of Babel in Sumerian mythology called Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta, where the two rival gods, Enki and Enlil end up confusing the tongues of all humankind as collateral damage arising from their argument.

In Genesis 10, Babel is said to have formed part of Nimrod's kingdom. Although not specifically mentioned in the Bible, Nimrod is often associated with the construction of the tower in other sources. One recent theory advanced by David Rohl associates Nimrod with Enmerkar, and proposes that the actual remains of the Tower of Babel are really the much older ruins of the ziggurat of Eridu, just south of Ur, rather than of Babylon. Among the reasons for this association are the larger size of the ruins, the older age of the ruins, and the fact that one title of Eridu was NUN.KI ("mighty place"), which later became a title of Babylon.

Traditionally, the peoples listed in Chapter 10 of Genesis (the Table of Nations) are understood to have been scattered over the face of the earth from Shinar only after the abandonment of The Tower, which follows as an explanation of this cultural diversity. Some, however, see a contradiction between the mention already in Genesis 10:5 that "the isles of the Gentiles [were] divided in their lands; every one after his tongue" and the subsequent Babel story, which begins "Now the entire earth was of one language and uniform words" (Genesis 11:1).

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The Tower

Image:Maciejowski Tower of Babel.jpg In 440 BC Herodotus wrote,

Babylon's outer wall is the main defence of the city. There is, however, a second inner wall, of less thickness than the first, but very little inferior to it in strength. The center of each division of the town was occupied by a fortress. In the one stood the palace of the kings, surrounded by a wall of great strength and size: in the other was the sacred precinct of Jupiter(Zeus) Belus, a square enclosure two furlongs [402 m] each way, with gates of solid brass; which was also remaining in my time. In the middle of the precinct there was a tower of solid masonry, a furlong [201 m] in length and breadth, upon which was raised a second tower, and on that a third, and so on up to eight. The ascent to the top is on the outside, by a path which winds round all the towers. When one is about half-way up, one finds a resting-place and seats, where persons are wont to sit some time on their way to the summit. On the topmost tower there is a spacious temple, and inside the temple stands a couch of unusual size, richly adorned, with a golden table by its side. There is no statue of any kind set up in the place, nor is the chamber occupied of nights by any one but a single native woman, who, as the Chaldeans, the priests of this god, affirm, is chosen for himself by the deity out of all the women of the land.

This, Tower of Jupiter Belus, is believed to refer to the Akkadian god Bel, whose name has been hellenised by Herodotus to Zeus (Jupiter) Belus. It is likely that it corresponds to the giant ziggurat to Marduk (Etemenanki), an ancient ziggurat which was abandoned, falling into ruin due to earthquakes, and lightning damaging the clay. This huge ziggurat, and its downfall is thought by many academics to have inspired the story of the Tower of Babel. However, it would also fit nicely into the Biblical narrative--providing some archaeological support for the story. More evidence can be gleaned from what King Nebuchadnezzar inscribed on the ruins of this ziggurat.

In c. 570 BC Nebuchadnezzar, seeking to restore the ziggurat, wrote of its ruinous state,

A former king built [the Temple of the Seven Lights of the Earth ], but he did not complete its head. Since a remote time, people had abandoned it, without order expressing their words. Since that time earthquakes and lightning had dispersed its sun-dried clay; the bricks of the casing had split, and the earth of the interior had been scattered in heaps. Merodach, the great lord, excited my mind to repair this building. I did not change the site, nor did I take away the foundation stone ? as it had been in former times. So I founded it, I made it; as it had been in ancient days, I so exalted the summit.
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In other sources

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The destruction

It is not mentioned in the Genesis account that God directly destroyed the tower; however, the accounts in the Book of Jubilees, Cornelius Alexander (frag. 10), Abydenus (frags. 5 and 6), Josephus (Antiquities 1.4.3), and the Sibylline Oracles (iii. 117-129) do state the tradition that God overturned the tower with a great wind.

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Jubilees

Image:Tower of babel.gif The Book of Jubilees, known to have been in use between at least 200 BC and 90 AD, contains one of the most detailed accounts found anywhere of the Tower.

And they began to build, and in the fourth week they made brick with fire, and the bricks served them for stone, and the clay with which they cemented them together was asphalt which comes out of the sea, and out of the fountains of water in the land of Shinar. And they built it: forty and three years were they building it; its breadth was 203 bricks, and the height [of a brick] was the third of one; its height amounted to 5433 cubits and 2 palms, and [the extent of one wall was] thirteen stades [and of the other thirty stades]. (Jubilees 10:20-21, Charles' 1913 translation)
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Midrash

Rabbinic literature offers many different accounts of other causes for building the Tower of Babel, and of the intentions of its builders. It was regarded in the Mishnah as a rebellion against God. Some later midrash record that the builders of the Tower, called "the generation of secession" in the Jewish sources, said: "God has no right to choose the upper world for Himself, and to leave the lower world to us; therefore we will build us a tower, with an idol on the top holding a sword, so that it may appear as if it intended to war with God" (Gen. R. xxxviii. 7; Tan., ed. Buber, Noah, xxvii. et seq.).

The building of the Tower was meant to bid defiance not only to God, but also to Abraham, who exhorted the builders to reverence. The passage mentions that the builders spoke sharp words against God, not cited in the Bible, saying that once every 1,656 years, heaven tottered so that the water poured down upon the earth, therefore they would support it by columns that there might not be another deluge (Gen. R. l.c.; Tan. l.c.; similarly Josephus, "Ant." i. 4, § 2).

Some among that sinful generation even wanted to war against God in heaven (Talmud Sanhedrin 109a.) They were encouraged in this wild undertaking by the fact that arrows which they shot into the sky fell back dripping with blood, so that the people really believed that they could wage war against the inhabitants of the heavens (Sefer ha-Yashar, Noah, ed. Leghorn, 12b). According to Josephus and Midrash Pirke R. El. xxiv., it was mainly Nimrod who persuaded his contemporaries to build the Tower, while other rabbinical sources assert, on the contrary, that Nimrod separated from the builders.

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Apocalypse of Baruch

The Third Apocalypse of Baruch, known only from Greek and Slavonic copies, seems to allude to the Tower, and may be consistent with Jewish tradition. In it, Baruch is first taken (in a vision) to see the resting place of the souls of "those who built the tower of strife against God, and the Lord banished them." Next he is shown another place, and there, occupying the form of dogs,

Those who gave counsel to build the tower, for they whom thou seest drove forth multitudes of both men and women, to make bricks; among whom, a woman making bricks was not allowed to be released in the hour of child-birth, but brought forth while she was making bricks, and carried her child in her apron, and continued to make bricks. And the Lord appeared to them and confused their speech, when they had built the tower to the height of four hundred and sixty-three cubits. And they took a gimlet, and sought to pierce the heavens, saying, Let us see (whether) the heaven is made of clay, or of brass, or of iron. When God saw this He did not permit them, but smote them with blindness and confusion of speech, and rendered them as thou seest. (Greek Apocalypse of Baruch, 3:5-8)
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Qur'an and Islamic traditions

Though not mentioned by name, the Qur'an has a story with similarities to the Biblical story of the Tower of Babel, though set in the Egypt of Moses. In Suras 28:38 and 40:36-37 Pharaoh asks Haman to build him a clay tower so that he can mount up to heaven and confront the God of Moses.

Another story in Sura 2:96 mentions the name of Babil, but gives few additional details about it. However, the tale appears more fully in Islamic writings of Yaqut (i, 448 f.) and the Lisan el-'Arab (xiii. 72), but without the tower: mankind were swept together by winds into the plain that was afterwards called "Babil", where they were assigned their separate languages by Allah, and were then scattered again in the same way.

In the History of the Prophets and Kings by the 9th century Muslim historian al-Tabari, a fuller version is given: Nimrod has the tower built in Babil, Allah destroys it, and the language of mankind, formerly Syriac, is then confused into 72 languages. Another Muslim historian of the 13th century, Abu al-Fida relates the same story, adding that the patriarch Eber (an ancestor of Abraham) was allowed to keep the original tongue, Hebrew in this case, because he would not partake in the building.

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Book of Mormon

The Book of Mormon records some information about the tower in the Book of Ether that agrees with the Bible. According to the book, a group called the Jaredites left without their language being confused and settled in North America. The remains of the Jaredite nation were then discoverd by the descendants of Lehi, who were thought to have lived in the lower part of the continent, perhaps north of the isthmus of Panama, a "narrow neck of land." The Jaredites however, cannot be confirmed in any ancient literature found to date. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints also cautions the readers of the Book of Mormon not to make erroneous conclusions as to where the Jaredites settled. There simply are no official declarations from either the founders of the Church of Jesus Christ or from any church officials living or dead.

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Other traditions

Various traditions similar to that of the tower of Babel are found in Central America. One holds that Xelhua, one of the seven giants rescued from the deluge, built the Great Pyramid of Cholula in order to storm Heaven. The gods destroyed it with fire and confounded the language of the builders. The Dominican Diego Duran (1537-1588) reported hearing this account from a hundred-year-old priest at Cholula, shortly after the conquest of Mexico.

Another legend, attributed by the native historian Don Ferdinand d'Alva Ixtilxochitl (c. 1565-1648) to the ancient Toltecs, states that after men had multiplied following a great deluge, they erected a tall zacuali or tower, to preserve themselves in the event of a second deluge. However, their languages were confounded and they went to separate parts of the earth.

Still another legend, attributed to the Tohono O'odham Indians, holds that Montezuma escaped a great flood, then became wicked and attempted to build a house reaching to heaven, but the Great Spirit destroyed it with thunderbolts. (Bancroft, vol. 3, p.76; also in History of Arizona)

Traces of a somewhat similar story have also been reported among the Tharus of Nepal and northern India (Report of the Census of Bengal, 1872, p. 160); and according to Dr Livingstone, the Africans whom he met living near Lake Ngami in 1879 had such a tradition, but with the builders' heads getting "cracked by the fall of the scaffolding" (Missionary Travels, chap. 26)

The Estonian myth of " the Cooking of Languages " (Kohl, Reisen in die 'Ostseeprovinzen, ii. 251-255) has also been compared, as well as the Australian legend of the origin of the diversity of speech (Gerstacker, Reisen, vol. iv. pp. 381 seq.).

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Height of the tower

The height of the tower is largely a matter of speculation, but since the tower symbolically can be considered a precursor to man's desire to build tall structures throughout history, its height is a significant aspect of its mythos. The historic Tower commissioned by Nebuchadnezzar in about 560 BC in the form of an eight level ziggurat is believed by historians to have been about 100 meters (328 feet) in height.

The biblical Tower of Babel however would have been built about 2000 years earlier. The narrative in the book of Genesis does not mention how tall the tower was, and thus it has not been much of a subject of debate among fundamentalist Christians. There are however two extra-canonical sources that mention the tower's height.

The Book of Jubilees mentions the tower's height as being 5433 cubits and 2 palms (8,150 feet, 2,484 meters high). This would be approximately four times taller than the world's tallest structures of today and in all of human history. Such a claim would be considered as mythical to most scholars since builders in such ancient times would be considered incapable of building a structure nearly 2.5 kilometers tall.

The other extra-canonical source is found in the Third Apocalypse of Baruch; it mentions that the tower reached a height of four hundred and sixty-three cubits (694 feet and 6 inches, 212 meters high). This would be taller than any other structure built in the ancient world such as the Pyramid of Cheops in Giza, Egypt and taller than any structure built in human history until the construction of the Eiffel Tower in 1889. While a tower of such a height in the ancient world would have been so incredible as to warrant its reputation and mention in the Bible and other historical texts, it is also arguably within the range of engineering feasability for ancient builders.

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Popular culture and Modern influence

The ill-fated Tower has become a potent symbol of overambitious projects destined to end in confusion, and a potent motif generating images of unfinished buildings reaching towards the sky, throughout religious art. In mediaeval English culture, the motif of overambitious projects became referred to as castles in the sky, one of many references to the Tower of Babel.

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In Architecture

Several large tower projects have evoked Babel in their designs. The unbuilt Palace of Soviets in Moscow, with it's receding tiers of cylindrical masses, was to have held the World Congress of Soviets. The Burj Dubai, which is currently under construction, is also reminiscent.

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In Television

An episode of Dilbert was called Tower of Babel. The tower Dilbert was to build for the location of the new company headquarters was built like the Tower of Babel and had some landmarks at the top.

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In Film

In Fritz Lang's Metropolis, the story of the Tower of Babel is told by the evangelist Maria to a crowd of workers under the city. The moral she attaches to the story and the city's huge skyscrapers foreshadow the film's ending.

In the 1927 and 2001 film versions of Metropolis, the newly-rebuilt Tower of Babel (known in the 2001 anime film version as the Ziggurat) is the symbol of the titular grand city-state and the center of human imperial power. In the 2001 anime film version, the superhuman robot clone of Duke Red's daughter, Tima is to sit on her throne to activate the Ziggurat's revolutionary solar superweapon of mass destruction in order to achieve the goal of reaching the stars and domination of the entire Earth. Like the Tower of Babel, the new Tower/Ziggurat was destroyed.

The Shop on Main Street (Obchod na korze), an 1965 Czechoslovak film directed by Jan Kadar and Elmar Klos, makes reference to the Tower of Babel. In this film, the tower is a wooden eyesore constructed by the Slovaks who are loyal to German fascists. In addition to a multitude of other Christian symbols, it serves in illustrating the fact that the Nazis are playing God by liquidating Jewish individuals.

In the 1966 movie The Bible there is a short segment that portrays the construction of the tower and the confusing of the languages per the book of Genesis. However, it inaccurately shows the tower being destroyed.

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In Music

In the song "Der Schacht Von Babel" from the album "Ende Neu" by Einstürzende Neubauten, instead of building the Tower of Babel skywards, it is dug deep into the earth as a shaft or tunnel.

The second song on Elton John's autobiographical album "Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy" is called "Tower of Babel" in accordance with the Western Country style of the album.

Rocker and poetess Patti Smith makes frequent use of Babel-related imagery in her work.

In the Gorillaz music video for "Feel Good, Inc.", it has been suggested that the Tower in the sky represents the Tower of Babel, symbolizing hedonism and excess arrogance, as the Gorillaz had felt that they experienced from immense success.

The Bad Religion song "Skyscraper" is generally thought to criticize the biblical story of the Tower of Babel. The song's lyrics suggest that the story depicts God unfairly holding back human potential.

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In Literature

The Babel legend has appeared regularly in western literature and art since the middle ages - for a chronology see The Virtual Babel Encyclopedia. The image of language multiplication as a curse instead of enriching has been used in the promotion of international auxiliary languages. However, in Douglas Adams' science fiction series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a "Babel fish" is a fictional fish that one can insert into one's ear, and thus be able to understand any language in the universe.

Robert Sawyer's Quintaglio Ascension Trilogy alludes to the Tower of Babel when discussing the engineering difficulties of a space elevator. And it has been suggested in Neal Stephenson's science fiction book Snow Crash that the line, "Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven", (or "Come, let us build us a city, and a tower with its top in the sky", New JPS Translation) actually refers to the sky charts painted in the top of the ziggurats of ancient Babylon. Snow Crash also speculates much more on the Tower's real meanings: according to the book, the Tower of Babel was a metaphor. Following the spreading of the Asherah virus, which made evolution in the Sumerian society practically non-existent, the god Enki (portrayed as a priest who happens to be the first hacker in history), as a counter-measure, produces a nam-shub -- a spell that stops everyone from speaking the Sumerian language. This way, the Asherah virus, which used oral and verbal means of transmission, was stopped.

Some recent commentators (e.g. Rabbi Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler) have claimed similarities between the materialistic stance of the "tower builders" and the dialectic materialism of communism.

Ted Chiang's award-winning short story "Tower of Babylon" depicts the events that might have occurred if the Tower of Babel project had been completed.

In Yuichi Kumakura's King of Bandit: Jing anime and manga, the first adventure undertook by the thief takes place in "The City of Thieves", which was apparently designed on the Tower of Babel.

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In computer and video games

In the video game Xenogears a structure known as Babel Tower is a massive ruined tower that stretches miles and miles into air from an island in the southern world. The mysterious tower is actually a piece of a massive spaceship that crash landed on the planet where the game takes place. The tower was sealed and no one was permitted to enter or go near it by the corrupt and false Ethos Church in order to keep people ignorant of their true origins on the planet.

Image:Babil (Final Fantasy IV).png

In the video game Final Fantasy IV a structure known as the Tower of Bab-il is the tallest building on the world-map. It streches from the underworld through a hole in the surface and far into the sky. The Tower of Bab-il uses the power of Eight Elemental Crystals to activate the Giant of Bab-il and open the way to the moon.

In Sid Meier's Civilization III during the opening sequence, one can see a tower reaching from ground level to the clouds, with different technologies being used to construct different segments (e.g. wench and pully lifting stones at the base, modern crane lifting steel and glass at the top)

The Tower of Babel is the eighth and last mission of the second episode (The Shores of Hell) of the video game Doom, and consists of a battle against the Cyberdemon. Instead of a tower leading to heaven, it leads to Hell. However, the structure seen is too short to be considered a "tower", due to limited display resources (making the tower taller would require more processing power).

In Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, the Tower of Babel makes an appearance. The Prince must climb the tower from the outside. The tower itself is quite high and gives the player the vertigo feeling.

In the video game Doshin the Giant (released only in Japan and Europe), the Tower of Babel is the last monument the villagers build for the Giant. It blocks out the sun, and causes the whole island to sink into the ocean, but not before the Giant tries to help the villagers in trying to stop the tower from falling on them.

In Serious Sam: Second Encounter, the Tower of Babel is home to the second boss. It appears as an extremely tall ziggurat, but the player is not allowed to climb it.

The Tower of Babel is also mentioned in relation to Etemenanki, referred to as Etamnanki or ETAK in the PC game Freespace 2. The ETAK project is one that allows communication between the human race and Shivans via modulated quantum pulses.

Painkiller: The Tower of Babel is the battleground in levels three and five of chapter four, and also where players fight the fourth general, Alastor.

The Tower of Babel was also the last level in the Super Nintendo game, Illusion of Gaia. It can be seen on the world map, and played through.

In Crusader of Centy, a game for the Sega Mega Drive, the Tower of Babel is where the protagonist regains his ability to speak to humans, after it had been replaced, earlier, by the ability to speak to animals and monsters.

In Shadow of the Colossus, the shrine of worship that houses Dormin (whose name is Nimrod backwards) represents the tower of Babel. Using a secret method, the main character can climb the tower to a secret garden, a place symbolic of Heaven or any other form of paradise.

In Devil May Cry 3, there is a tower known as the Temen-ni-gru that may be inspired by the Tower of Babel - however, instead of trying to reach Heaven, those who built it attempted to open a gate to hell.

A depiction of something like the Tower of Babel is featured on one of the covers of Civilization III as well as on its menu screen and introduction video.

In Mega Man X: Command Mission, the location of the final boss battle is the Orbital Elevator Babel.

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See also

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External links

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References

This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition{{#if:{{{article|}}}| article {{#if:{{{url|}}}|[{{{url|}}}}} "{{{article}}}"{{#if:{{{url|}}}|]}}{{#if:{{{author|}}}| by {{{author}}}}}}}, a publication now in the public domain.

  • Pr. Diego Duran, Historia Antiqua de la Nueva Espana (Madrid, 1585)
  • Ixtilxochitl, Don Ferdinand d'Alva, Historia Chichimeca, 1658
  • Lord Kingsborough, Antiquities of Mexico, vol. 9
  • H.H. Bancroft, Native Races of the Pacific States (New York, 1874)am:የባቢሎን ግንብ

ca:Torre de Babel da:Babelstårnet de:Turmbau zu Babel eo:Babela Turo es:Torre de Babel et:Paabel fr:Tour de Babel gl:Torre de Babel ko:바벨탑 he:מגדל בבל hu:Bábel tornya nl:Toren van Babel ja:バベルの塔 pl:Wieża Babel pt:Torre de Babel fi:Babylonin torni sv:Babels torn zh:巴別塔

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