In the photo: The relief drawing has been badly damaged over time, but you can still see the tower
In the UK, a team of scholars said they had found evidence of the biblical Tower of Babel - a chunk of carved stone and tablets with inscriptions dating back to 604-562 BC - during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II, in which Babylonia became a prosperous country
The fragment and the texts are in the collection of Martin Schoen, a Norwegian businessman and collector of antiquities, who owns the largest private collection of ancient manuscripts - including cuneiform tablets, which are some of the first known written documents.
A number of biblical scholars trace the connection between the legend of the Tower of Babel and the construction of high temple towers in Mesopotamia, called ziggurats. The tops of the towers were used for religious rites and astronomical observations.
The highest ziggurat (91 m high, one rectangular step and seven spiral steps - eight in total) was located in Babylon. It was called Etemenanki, which means "the house where heaven meets earth." It is not known exactly when the original construction of this tower was carried out, but it already existed during the reign of Hammurabi (1792-1750 BC). Assyrian king Sinacherib in 689 BC e. destroyed Babylon, Etemenanki suffered the same fate. The ziggurat was restored by Nebuchadnezzar II. The Jews, forcibly resettled by Nebuchadnezzar to Babylon after the destruction of the Kingdom of Judah, became acquainted with the culture and religion of Mesopotamia and, undoubtedly, knew about the existence of ziggurats.
The tower itself was destroyed and reconstructed several times. Only after the last and largest reconstruction, the foundation of the tower reached a width of 90 m at the same height of the structure. Calculations suggest that about 85 million bricks were used to build this tower. A monumental staircase led to the upper platform of the tower, where a two-story temple rushed into the sky.
The tower was part of a temple complex located on the banks of the Euphrates River. Clay tablets with inscriptions found by archaeologists make it possible to assert that each section of the tower had its own special meaning. The same tablets provide information about the religious rituals performed in this temple.
The fragment of the stone depicts Nebuchadnezzar II in a chariot, holding a staff in his left hand and a scroll with plans to restore the tower in his right hand.
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Note, the tower, which is dedicated to the biblical tradition, set out in the 2nd chapter of "Noach" of the book of Genesis. According to this legend, after the Flood, mankind was represented by one people speaking the same language. From the east, people came to the land of Shinar (in the lower reaches of the Tigris and Euphrates), where they decided to build a city (Babylon) and a tower up to the heavens to "make a name for themselves." The construction of the tower was interrupted by God, who created new languages for different people, because of which they ceased to understand each other, could not continue building the city and the tower, and scattered throughout the earth. Thus, the story of the Tower of Babel explains the emergence of different languages after the Flood.