In 1971, Led Zeppelin released a song titled Stairway to Heaven possibly getting the name from the ladder Jacob saw leading to heaven in Genesis 28:12. However, the original stairway to heaven occurs in Genesis 11:1-9 and is widely known as the Tower of Babel.
According to Genesis, the people of the ancient times decided to ignore God’s command to “fill the earth and subdue it” but instead they all gathered in the land of Shinar, also known as Mesopotamia. They decided to make a tower to heaven to make a name for themselves and God disagreed.
The tower of Babel is likely one of the largest of many towers called ziggurats, built as religious temples to gods. In the ancient ruins of Babylon, outside of Baghdad, archaeologists have uncovered multiples sites which probably were the base of large structures such as ziggurats. One of these sites is a square, 300 feet on each side.
There are many other theories that place the tower in Turkey, but the best description of a ziggurat comes from Greek historian Herodotus, who visited Babylon and the tower in 440 BC.
In the middle of the precinct there was a tower of solid masonry, a furlong 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.
The tower Herodotus referred to was likely a restoration of the original tower of Babel. The fact that Herodotus was so amazed by its size is important because the tower had probably been deteriorating since the city was taken over by Persian King Xerxes in 478 BC.
Besides the disobeying of his command to fill the earth, God may have been angry at the construction of the tower for other reasons as well. The ziggurats usually had a stairway wrapping around the outside and it was built high enough so you could ascend to the heavens where the gods resided. Another possible reason for his anger is that the ziggurats were built with elaborate drainage systems to avoid erosion. Many think that since they were built to withstand water, the people thought they could use the tower to avoid being destroyed by God like their grandfathers were in the flood.
The height of the tower seems to be the most desired trivia piece, so I would be cruel to leave you in ignorance. One source claims it was 8,150 feet high, which seems impossible since it would be four times larger than the largest structures today. The other puts the tower at about 694.5 feet making it larger than the Great Pyramid at Giza, but about 300 feet short of the Eiffel Tower.
The theories about the location and specifics of the tower of Babel are based on slight references to large towers from multiple ancient documents. The true nature of the tower of Babel may have to remain from educated guesses or maybe it can be found by playing Stairway to Heaven backwards…
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