The biblical story about a grandiose structure - the Tower of Babel, still haunts numerous scientists who are trying to either refute or prove the truth of this story. According to this well-known legend, once people wanted to build such a tower that would reach the sky, and this did not please God very much, who, as punishment for human pride and self-confidence, deprived people of a common language.
The builders, who had ceased to understand each other, left their venture, and the place where this significant historical event took place was called Babylon, which in translation from Aramaic means "confusion".
However, some philologists are ready to argue with this interpretation, since in Hebrew Babylon sounds like Babel. And the words Bab-il and Bab-ilu that are often found in ancient inscriptions in tune with "Babylon" most likely mean "the gate of God", which is more consonant with the original than the Aramaic balbel.
Be that as it may, but experts from all over the world are trying to find traces of the legendary building that took place in antiquity. According to British scientists, they managed to find reliable evidence of the existence of the Tower of Babel. And they were helped in this by a private collection of one of the businessmen, which includes cuneiform tablets and a shard of carved stone. Deciphering the inscriptions made it possible to establish that they contain a detailed description of the "Stele of the Tower of Babel", and the figure shows King Nebuchadnezzar himself, who ruled Babylon 2500 years ago.
According to the current version, the famous Tower of Babel is the ziggurat of Etemenanki, an ancient temple with a height of 91 meters. This assumption was put forward by experts for a long time, since at the end of the nineteenth century, Robert Koldewey discovered the ruins of the once great Babylon. The newly opened city confirmed the existence of one of the wonders of the world - the Gardens of Semiramis, and also provided "information for thought" about the biblical tower.
Actually, the structure found (the temple of Etemenanki) is not quite a tower, but rather a pyramid, the width of which is 90 meters. The top of this structure was once crowned with a golden statue of the supreme god of the Babylonians - Marduk. According to one version, when building this grandiose temple, King Nebuchadnezzar used captive slaves captured in the Kingdom of Judea who spoke different dialects, and such a variety of languages amazed the Jews, who had not yet encountered multilingualism. Perhaps it was this moment that served as the basis for the plot of the Tower of Babel.
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The found ziggurat of Etemenanki has seven tiers, but the famous historian Herodotus describes the Tower of Babel as eight tiers, with a width of 180 meters at the base. Archaeologists suggest that the "missing" tier may well be below the ground.
Despite the fact that experts seem to have decided on the location of the Tower of Babel, a similar legend is formed about the pyramid located in the city of Cholula (Mexico). This grandiose structure, up to 160 feet high, is very similar to the pyramids of Egypt, and even surpasses them in size. The legend about this unique building was recorded back in 1579 by the historian Duran, and the plot is very similar to the biblical one. Although it is highly likely that it was the Spanish missionaries who presented the construction of this colossal pyramid in this way.
In general, the legend of the mixing of languages with the help of the Tower of Babel is unique in its own way, since the legends of other peoples are similar to it either in the first part (the construction of a "staircase" to heaven), or in the second, where it is simply said about the mixing of languages.
For example, some African tribes in the vicinity of the Zambezi have legends that tell that the god Niambe once demanded obedience from people. But people did not want to submit to him and decided to kill Niambe. Then the god hastily climbed into the sky, and the masts fastened together, along which people also climbed to the sky in an attempt to catch the fugitive, collapsed, and the pursuers died.
Ashanti also has a similar legend, where the offended god left the earth, ascending to heaven. Only in this case, the pestles for pushing the grains, which were placed one on top of the other, acted as a ladder for people.
In the same Africa (in the wa-sena tribe) there is a very entertaining legend about how people began to speak different languages. As expected, at first all peoples had one language, however, during a severe famine, people lost their minds and scattered to different parts of the world, muttering incomprehensible words, which later became the language of any nationality. The Californian Maidu Indians also have their own version of the mixing of languages, according to which on the eve of one of the festivities people stopped understanding each other, and only married couples could communicate with each other in the same language.
But God appeared at night to one of the spellcasters and gave him the gift to understand each of the languages, and this "mediator" taught people everything: to cook food, to hunt, to observe the established laws. Then all the people were sent to different directions.
The legends of many nations find a reflection of the fact that people once had a common language, and some of the scientists are even trying to establish what language the first inhabitants of the Garden of Eden spoke, including the insidious serpent. There were and are a great many languages and dialects on the planet, and a huge number of them can no longer be restored.
Unfortunately, these initially imperceptible losses turn into complex puzzles over time, enclosed in symbols and letters incomprehensible to subsequent generations. While some of these inscriptions no doubt contain information that could shed light on some of history's greatest mysteries.