Another mystery of history, to which modern scientists still cannot find an answer, is associated with the death of biblical Babylon and the famous Tower of Babel in Borsippa. This tower, half burned and melted to a glassy state by a monstrous temperature, has survived to this day as a symbol of God's wrath.
It is a clear confirmation of the veracity of biblical texts about the terrible fury of heavenly fire that struck the Earth in the middle of the second millennium BC.
According to biblical legend, Babylon was built by Nimrod, who is usually identified with the giant hunter Orion. This is a very important circumstance in the astral legend, defining one of the five places of previous appearances of the “retribution comet” in the night sky, which will be discussed in the appropriate place.
Nimrod was the son of Cush and a descendant of Ham, one of the three sons of Noah: “Cush also begat Nimrod: he began to be strong on earth. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord; That is why it is said: a strong hunter is like Nimrod before the Lord. His kingdom at first consisted of: Babylon, Erech, Akkad and Chalne, in the land of Shinar." /Gen. 10:8-10/
The biblical myth tells that after Noah's flood people attempted to build the city of Babylon (from Sumerian Bab-ily - “gate of God.”) and the Tower of Babel “high to the very heavens.”
And here it is appropriate to say that in mythological texts the names “gates of God”, “heavenly gates”, as well as “gates of hell” are used to designate places of cosmic explosions, at the epicenter of which all living things perished from heavenly fire.
Angered by the unheard-of human insolence, God “confused their languages” and scattered the builders of the Tower of Babel throughout the entire earth, as a result of which people ceased to understand each other: “And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men were building. And the Lord said: Behold, there is one people, and they all have one language; and this is what they began to do, and they will not deviate from what they planned to do. Let us go down and confuse their language there, so that one does not understand the speech of the other. And the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth; and they stopped building the city. Therefore the name was given to it: Babylon; For there the Lord confused the language of all the earth, and from there the Lord scattered them throughout all the earth” /Gen. 11:5-9/.
Therefore, another meaning of the word Babylon is reproduced from the Hebrew word balal - “confusion.”
TURRIS BABEL Athanasius Kircher, 1679
This deliberate biblical distortion of the name of the city, based on the similarity of the sound of words, actually reflects historical reality. The results of archaeological excavations indicate that the time of the death of Babylon was a time of great migration of tribes and peoples, the mixing of their languages and customs, the development and seizure of new territories.
Not far from the city of Babylon are the ruins of Borsippa with the preserved ruins of a charred ancient temple and a huge temple tower, which is considered to be the legendary Tower of Babel mentioned in the Bible.
True, some archaeologists dispute this name, on the grounds that within the city of Babylon there was its own temple tower, and no less impressive in size.
As archaeologists have determined, the tower from Borsippa previously consisted of seven tiers of steps standing on a massive square base.
Previously, they were painted in seven colors: black, white, purple-red, blue, bright red, silver and gold. Even now, the remains of the tower are impressive. Its melted skeleton, standing on a hill, rises 46 meters above the base of the tower.
The walls of the tower, made of baked brick, as well as the huge religious premises inside, were badly damaged by the fire.
From the heat of an unimaginable temperature, the upper, most part of the tower literally evaporated, and the remaining, smaller part of the tower melted into a single glassy mass, both from the inside and from the outside.
This is how Erich Tseren writes about it: “It is impossible to find an explanation for where such heat came from, which not only heated, but also melted hundreds of baked bricks, scorching the entire frame of the tower, all its clay walls.”
It is also interesting to cite the testimony of Wilhelm Koenig, who tried to understand the cause of the incredible heat that literally melted the stepped ziggurat tower in Borsippa: “Ordinary building bricks can only melt in very strong fire.
ROMANESQUE PAINTER, French The Building of the Tower of Babel Fresco - Abbey Church, Saint-Savin-sur-Gartempe
And here is how Mark Twain, traveling through Mesopotamia in 1867, described the tower from Borsippa:
“...it had eight tiers, two of which still stand to this day - a gigantic brickwork, crushed in the middle by the earthquake, scorched and half melted by the lightning of an angry G-d.”
It must be said that to date, not a single researcher has been able to satisfactorily explain this monstrous melting, under the influence of an unimaginable temperature, due to which the upper part of the masonry turned into steam, and the remains of the melted tower seemed to split from top to bottom.
Attempts to explain this melting by a high-power lightning strike cannot be considered convincing, as can be clearly seen from the information about linear lightning given below.
According to modern concepts, linear lightning is giant sparks that appear between clouds, or between a cloud and the surface of the earth. Their average size is several kilometers, but sometimes lightning up to fifty and even one hundred and fifty kilometers can be found. The average discharge current is from 20 to 100 kiloamperes, but sometimes reaches 500 kiloamperes.
The average temperature of a lightning channel is 25,000-30,000 degrees Kelvin.
It is quite obvious that not a single, even super-powerful lightning could have fused the Tower of Babel into a single monolith. And even more so, to destroy the temple adjacent to it, as well as the city of Babylon, located one and a half dozen kilometers from it, the circumference of which, according to data clarified by archaeologists, was 18 kilometers, and the thickness of the walls is estimated at 25 meters.
Pieter Brugel - THE TOWER OF BABYLON 1563
According to Herodotus, the city of Babylon was an almost regular quadrangle, and was located on both sides of the Euphrates River. Each side of this quadrangle was approximately 22 kilometers, and the thickness of the walls was 50 cubits (a cubit is about 52 cm), and six chariots could simultaneously pass along them in a row.
And the height of the walls, and it’s almost impossible to believe, reached 100 meters. The city walls had 100 copper gates, and on the walls themselves there were 250 towers. The entire city was surrounded by a wide and deep ditch.
In the middle of the second millennium BC, Babylon was the cultural, spiritual and political center of Chaldea, and one of the richest and most powerful cities in the entire Ancient World. This was the time of the heyday and greatness of Babylon. The city had the largest reserve of gold in the world, and it seemed that nothing could shake its power.
Contemporaries called it “the beauty of Chaldea”, “the granary of Chaldea”, “the pride of Chaldea”, “the glory of the kingdoms”, “the golden city”. Biblical texts report that “Babylon was a golden cup in the hand of the Lord.”
So what destroyed Babylon and melted the Tower of Babel to a glassy state?
There is no doubt that this monstrous temperature, which is comparable only to the heat of a nuclear explosion, arose as a result of a gigantic electric discharge explosion of a falling celestial body, the fiery column of which covered the temple tower, and the released energy of the discharge, in the form of a colossal power of the blast wave, hit the city of Babylon, in in a matter of minutes turning it into piles of ruins.
The death of the city was so terrible that the compilers of biblical texts have difficulty choosing epithets to denote its terrible destruction.
Babylon, which was “a golden cup in the hand of the Lord,” suddenly in one day “became a terror among the nations,” “a desolate wilderness,” “a heap of ruins,” “a house of desolation,” and “a habitation of jackals.”
This is what the biblical prophecies look like about the destruction of Babylon, which took place: “Behold, a fierce day comes, with anger and burning rage, to make the land desolate and to destroy its sinners from it. The heavenly stars and luminaries do not give light from themselves; the sun darkens when it rises, and the moon does not shine with its light. I will punish the world for its evil, and the wicked for their iniquities, and I will put an end to the arrogance of the proud, and I will destroy the arrogance of the oppressors; … For this purpose I will shake the heavens, and the earth will move from its place from the wrath of the Lord of hosts, on the day of His burning wrath…. And Babylon, the beauty of kingdoms, the pride of the Chaldeans, will be overthrown by G-d, like Sodom and Gomorrah. It will never be inhabited, and for generations there will be no inhabitants in it.” /Is. 13:9-11,13,19-20/
It must be said that the power of the electric discharge explosion of a large meteorite can amount to hundreds of thousands of megatons in TNT equivalent, which significantly exceeds the power of modern thermonuclear charges, so the death of Babylon, surrounded by the Cyclopean walls, with its giant ziggurats, as biblical texts testify, lasted less than one hour.
The city was literally wiped off the face of the earth by a colossal blast wave, turning into huge mountains of charred rubble and debris.
The ruins of ancient Babylon are located on the banks of the Euphrates, about a hundred kilometers from the modern capital of Iraq, Baghdad, and after the explosion they were giant mountains of garbage and are located near the later Arab settlement of Gillah.
These hills of rubble were called Amran ibn Ali, Babil, Jumjuma and Qasr by the Arabs.
The location of ancient Babylon was initially known to archaeologists, and some of them, including the successful Layard and Oppert, even made test excavations on its ruins, but realizing the huge volume of excavation work and the amount of money required for this, did not dare to organize serious archaeological research.
And only at the very end of the nineteenth century, in the spring of 1899, the German archaeologist Robert Koldewey, having received a fabulous sum at that time of half a million gold marks for the work, risked starting excavations, of course not assuming that it would take him eighteen years to get to the ruins of the capital ancient Chaldea.
To carry out a volume of excavation work that had never been carried out before, he had to order a field railway from Germany and lay a railway track to the excavation site. It must be said that the railway was the first, and, it seems, the only time, used in archaeological work of this scale.
The thickness of the layer of earth mixed with desert sand, ash and ash above the ruins of Babylon exceeded ten meters, but hard work in the hellish desert conditions was rewarded with discoveries that brought Robert Koldewey well-deserved world fame.
Based on the excavations of the expedition of Robert Koldewey, it became possible to reproduce the reconstruction of Ancient Babylon, in the ruins of which, during the excavation of the gates of the goddess Ishtar, images of the syncretic animal “Sirrush” were found, consisting of parts of four syncretic animals: a fantastic four-legged animal, which could not be identified, an eagle, a snake and a scorpion, which allows us to consider it a prototype of the Great Sphinx.
Biblical texts call Babylon a city of sin and debauchery, but in fact it was a real city of gods. Archaeologists have excavated dozens of temples of the supreme god Marduk and hundreds of sanctuaries of other deities on its territory. For example, according to cuneiform texts, the city contained “53 temples, 55 sanctuaries of the supreme god Marduk, 300 sanctuaries of earthly and 600 celestial deities, 180 altars of Ishtar, 180 altars of Nergal and Adadi, and 12 other altars.”
But this did not save him from the fury of cosmic fire and the flood.
Remains of the original Tower of Babel, excavated by Robert Koldewey
It must be said that none of the researchers and archaeologists wants to pay attention to the fact that the ruins of Babylon, destroyed by an electric discharge explosion, were also flooded by the waters of Noah’s flood.
Babylon, which Koldewey's workers were excavating, was a city built on the ruins of numerous, even more ancient buildings, but many years of attempts to reach these cultural layers were unsuccessful, groundwater constantly flooded the mines.
The catastrophe that destroyed Babylon undermined all the foundations of the Babylonian kingdom and became the cause of its decline.
Historical documents have absolutely accurately recorded the date considered to be the beginning of the Neo-Babylonian kingdom - 1596 BC. in modern chronology.
And this once again indicates that the death of the Old Babylonian kingdom was a consequence of the cosmic catastrophe of 1596 BC, which modern historians are not yet aware of.
Tower of Babel illustration for the Bible by Gustave Dore
Scientists are increasingly turning to the Bible as a reliable historical source, and this is bearing fruit in the form of sensational discoveries. Thus, one of the Old Testament legends about the construction of the Tower of Babel gained the glory of a genuine event.
The second chapter of “Noah” of the book of Genesis tells that after the Flood, humanity found itself in the lower reaches of the Tigris and Euphrates, in the land of Shinar. People spoke the same language and were one people. Here they came up with a bold idea to build a tower that would touch the heavens. God became furious at human insolence and gave the builders different languages so that they would no longer understand each other and would not finish building the tower.
In 1899, German archaeologist Robert Koldewey arrived in the vicinity of Baghdad, where the area was replete with strange hills. Their tops were flat, and the slopes suddenly ended, as if they had been cut by a giant sword. No one before Kolvedey was interested in these hills, and the local Bedouins used them as convenient places to rest.
From the very first days of the excavations, Koldewey discovered dozens, hundreds of evidence of the existence of an ancient great civilization here. Hour after hour, workers lifted from the ground statues of winged lions, magnificent bas-reliefs, cuneiform tablets, and fragments of glazed brick. Soon the copper-clad city gates were found. But what kind of city was revealed to people’s eyes? Each find did not speak, but shouted that this was... the legendary Babylon!
Kolveday was completely convinced of his guesses when the workers freed the mud brick walls from the ground. Two 12-meter walls were spaced 12 meters apart, and behind them was a third wall 8 meters high. The scientist found that initially the space between the first two walls was filled with soil, which turned them into an impregnable rampart, and the third, inner wall had observation towers every 50 meters. A total of 360 towers! The length of the walls was 18 kilometers. Everything is as it was told about Babylon in traditions and legends.
In short, it was the largest fortified city of all fortified cities ever built. Even medieval city policies were much smaller in size, but Babylon existed over 4 thousand years ago! However, the main sensation was still waiting in the wings. This became the foundation, which was 90 meters wide. Foundation of the Tower of Babel.
Robert Kolveday devoted fifteen years to the study of Babylon and the Tower of Babel. In parallel with the excavations, he became acquainted with all possible written sources that testified to the tower, and each time the next discovery exactly coincided with the descriptions left by ancient storytellers.
In addition, a lot of valuable information was provided directly by the Babylonian tablets. Some of them literally contained architectural calculations and images of the tower. In the end, the scientist was able to describe the legendary structure as if he had seen it with his own eyes.
So, the Tower of Babel rose 90 meters in height and consisted of seven terraces installed on a rectangular 33-meter base. The terraces were twisted in a spiral, and the top one was a 15-meter high temple of the god Morduk. A monumental staircase led from the ground to this temple. In total, the construction of the tower took 85 million bricks!
Separately, it is worth mentioning the upper terrace. The outside was covered with blue glazed brick and gold inlay. In sunny weather, the walls began to shine with a mystical fire, visible for many kilometers around. Inside the temple there was a golden table and a bed. The god Morduk himself was supposed to rest here. Every evening the most beautiful girl of Babylon rose here to please the great god until the morning.
The first floor of the tower was also distinguished by its splendor. Among other decorations, there was a statue of the god Morduk, cast from pure gold. It weighed 24 tons. The so-called processional road led to the entrance. It was made of powerful square slabs, which in turn rested on a layer of asphalt and brick flooring. The edges of the slabs were covered with precious inlay. By the way, Kolvedey excavated this road in almost all its glory.
True, the history of the Tower of Babel established by Kolvedey and his followers differs somewhat from the legend from the Old Testament. It turns out that the tower was destroyed and rebuilt several times. For example, to one of the destructions in 689 BC. The Assyrian king Sennacherib had a hand. It was restored by Novohudonosor II. The Jews resettled by him to Babylon saw precisely this process.
The Persian king Xerxes also gained fame as a destroyer. Although his people were not able to bring down the tower to the ground, they monstrously disfigured it. Alexander the Great, who then arrived in Babylon, was in awe of the colossal ruins. He interrupted his campaign in India and ordered his soldiers to clear the tower of debris. The soldiers worked for two whole months.
It is unknown when the Tower of Babel was first erected and when it finally fell. The origin of the civilization of the Babylonians, who could afford such great achievements in architecture, also remains a mystery. After all, in addition to the tower, Babylon also owned the Gardens of Babylon, one of the seven wonders of the world.
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The ruins of giant stone structures in the area of the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers still remain a mystery to scientists. Information about them came back in the 16th century from Portuguese traders who visited the coastal regions of Africa in search of gold, slaves and ivory. Many believed then that we were talking about the biblical land of Ophir, where at one time the golden mines of King Solomon were located.
MYSTERIOUS AFRICAN RUINS
Portuguese traders heard about the huge stone "houses" from Africans coming to the coast to exchange goods from the continent's interior. But only in the 19th century did Europeans finally see the mysterious buildings. According to some sources, the first to discover the mysterious ruins was the traveler and elephant hunter Adam Rendere, but more often their discovery is attributed to the German geologist Karl Mauch.
This scientist repeatedly heard from Africans about giant stone structures in unexplored areas north of the Limpopo River. No one knew when or by whom they were built, and the German scientist decided to go on a risky journey to the mysterious ruins.
In 1867, Mauch found the ancient country and saw a complex of buildings that later became known as Great Zimbabwe (in the language of the local Shona tribe, the word “Zimbabwe” meant “stone house”). The scientist was shocked by what he saw. The structure that appeared before his eyes amazed the researcher with its size and unusual layout.
An impressive stone wall, at least 250 meters long, about 10 meters high and up to 5 meters wide at the base, surrounded the settlement, where, apparently, the residence of the ruler of this ancient country was once located.
Now this structure is called the Temple, or the Elliptical Building. It was possible to enter the walled area through three narrow passages. All buildings were erected using the dry masonry method, when stones were stacked on top of each other without fastening mortar. 800 meters north of the walled settlement, on the top of a granite hill, were the ruins of another structure, called the Stone Fortress, or Acropolis.
Although Mauch discovered among the ruins some household items characteristic of the local culture, it did not even occur to him that the architectural complex of Zimbabwe could have been built by Africans. Traditionally, local tribes built their houses and other structures using clay, wood and dried grass, so the use of stone as a building material looked clearly anomalous.
IN THE LAND OF GOLD MINES
So, Mauch decided that Great Zimbabwe was built not by Africans, but by whites who visited these parts in ancient times. According to his assumption, the legendary King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba could have been involved in the construction of the complex of stone buildings, and this place itself was the biblical Ophir, the land of gold mines.
The scientist finally believed in his assumption when he discovered that the beam of one of the doorways was made of cedar. It could only have been brought from Lebanon, but it was King Solomon who widely used cedar in the construction of his palaces.
Ultimately, Karl Mauch came to the conclusion that it was the Queen of Sheba who was the mistress of Zimbabwe. Such a sensational conclusion by the scientist led to rather disastrous consequences. Numerous adventurers began to flock to the ancient ruins, who dreamed of finding the treasury of the Queen of Sheba, because an ancient gold mine once existed next to the complex. It is not known whether anyone managed to discover the treasures, but the damage to the ancient structures was colossal, and this subsequently greatly hampered archaeological research.
Mauch's conclusions were challenged in 1905 by the British archaeologist David Randall-MacIver. He conducted independent excavations in Great Zimbabwe and stated that the buildings are not that ancient and were erected between the 11th and 15th centuries.
It turned out that Great Zimbabwe could well have been built by indigenous Africans. It was quite difficult to get to the ancient ruins, so the next expedition appeared in these parts only in 1929. It was led by British feminist archaeologist Gertrude Caton-Thompson, and her team included only women.
By that time, treasure hunters had already caused such damage to the complex that Caton-Thompson was forced to begin work by searching for intact buildings. The brave researcher decided to use an airplane for her search. She managed to agree on a winged car, she personally took off with the pilot and discovered another stone structure at a distance from the settlement.
After the excavations, Caton-Thompson fully confirmed Randall-MacIver's conclusions about the time of construction of Great Zimbabwe. In addition, she firmly stated that the complex of structures was, without a doubt, built by black Africans.
AFRICAN STONEHENGE?
Scientists have been studying Great Zimbabwe for almost a century and a half, however, despite such a long period, Great Zimbabwe has managed to preserve many more secrets. It is still unknown from whom its builders defended themselves with the help of such powerful defensive structures. Not everything is clear about the start time of their construction.
For example, under the wall of the Elliptical Building, fragments of drainage wood were discovered that date back to the period between 591 (give or take 120 years) and 702 AD. e. (plus or minus 92 years). Perhaps the wall was built on a much older foundation.
During excavations, scientists discovered several figurines of birds made of steatite (soap stone), suggesting that the ancient inhabitants of Greater Zimbabwe worshiped bird-like gods. It is possible that the most mysterious structure of Great Zimbabwe - the conical tower near the wall of the Elliptical Building - is somehow connected with this cult. Its height reaches 10 meters, and its base circumference is 17 meters.
It was built using the dry masonry method and is similar in shape to the granaries of local peasants, but the tower has no entrance, no windows, no stairs. Until now, the purpose of this structure remains an insoluble mystery for archaeologists.
However, there is a very interesting hypothesis by Richard Wade from the Nkwe Ridge Observatory, according to which the Temple (Elliptical building) was once used in a similar way to the famous Stonehenge. Stone walls, a mysterious tower, various monoliths - all this was used to observe the Sun, Moon, planets and stars. Is it so? Only further research can provide the answer.
CAPITAL OF A MIGHTY EMPIRE
At the moment, few scientists doubt that Great Zimbabwe was built by Africans. According to archaeologists, in the 14th century this African kingdom experienced its heyday and could be compared in area to London.
Its population was about 18 thousand people. Greater Zimbabwe was the capital of a vast empire that stretched over thousands of kilometers and united dozens, perhaps hundreds of tribes.
Although mines operated on the territory of the kingdom and gold was mined, the main wealth of the inhabitants was cattle. The mined gold and ivory were delivered from Zimbabwe to the east coast of Africa, where ports existed at that time, with their help trade with Arabia, India and the Far East was supported. The fact that Zimbabwe had connections with the outside world is evidenced by archaeological finds of Arab and Persian origin.
It is believed that Great Zimbabwe was a center of mining: numerous mine workings have been discovered at different distances from the complex of stone buildings. According to some scholars, the African empire existed until 1750, and then fell into decline.
It is worth noting that for Africans Great Zimbabwe is a real shrine. In honor of this archaeological site, Southern Rhodesia, on whose territory it is located, was renamed Zimbabwe in 1980.
Andrey SIDORENKO
Scientists are increasingly turning to the Bible as a reliable historical source, and this is bearing fruit in the form of sensational discoveries. Thus, one of the Old Testament legends about the construction of the Tower of Babel gained the glory of a genuine event.
The second chapter of “Noah” of the book of Genesis tells that after the Flood, humanity found itself in the lower reaches of the Tigris and Euphrates, in the land of Shinar. People spoke the same language and were one people. Here they came up with a bold idea to build a tower that would touch the heavens. God became furious at human insolence and gave the builders different languages so that they would no longer understand each other and would not finish building the tower.
In 1899, German archaeologist Robert Koldewey arrived in the vicinity of Baghdad, where the area was replete with strange hills. Their tops were flat, and the slopes suddenly ended, as if they had been cut by a giant sword. No one before Kolvedey was interested in these hills, and the local Bedouins used them as convenient places to rest.
From the very first days of the excavations, Koldewey discovered dozens, hundreds of evidence of the existence of an ancient great civilization here. Hour after hour, workers lifted from the ground statues of winged lions, magnificent bas-reliefs, cuneiform tablets, and fragments of glazed brick. Soon the copper-clad city gates were found. But what kind of city was revealed to people’s eyes? Each find did not speak, but shouted that this was... the legendary Babylon!
Kolveday was completely convinced of his guesses when the workers freed the mud brick walls from the ground. Two 12-meter walls were spaced 12 meters apart, and behind them was a third wall 8 meters high. The scientist found that initially the space between the first two walls was filled with soil, which turned them into an impregnable rampart, and the third, inner wall had observation towers every 50 meters. A total of 360 towers! The length of the walls was 18 kilometers. Everything is as it was told about Babylon in traditions and legends.
In short, it was the largest fortified city of all fortified cities ever built. Even medieval city policies were much smaller in size, but Babylon existed over 4 thousand years ago! However, the main sensation was still waiting in the wings. This became the foundation, which was 90 meters wide. Foundation of the Tower of Babel.
Robert Kolveday devoted fifteen years to the study of Babylon and the Tower of Babel. In parallel with the excavations, he became acquainted with all possible written sources that testified to the tower, and each time the next discovery exactly coincided with the descriptions left by ancient storytellers.
In addition, a lot of valuable information was provided directly by the Babylonian tablets. Some of them literally contained architectural calculations and images of the tower. In the end, the scientist was able to describe the legendary structure as if he had seen it with his own eyes.
So, the Tower of Babel rose 90 meters in height and consisted of seven terraces installed on a rectangular 33-meter base. The terraces were twisted in a spiral, and the top one was a 15-meter high temple of the god Morduk. A monumental staircase led from the ground to this temple. In total, the construction of the tower took 85 million bricks!
Separately, it is worth mentioning the upper terrace. The outside was covered with blue glazed brick and gold inlay. In sunny weather, the walls began to shine with a mystical fire, visible for many kilometers around. Inside the temple there was a golden table and a bed. The god Morduk himself was supposed to rest here. Every evening the most beautiful girl of Babylon rose here to please the great god until the morning.
The first floor of the tower was also distinguished by its splendor. Among other decorations, there was a statue of the god Morduk, cast from pure gold. It weighed 24 tons. The so-called processional road led to the entrance. It was made of powerful square slabs, which in turn rested on a layer of asphalt and brick flooring. The edges of the slabs were covered with precious inlay. By the way, Kolvedey excavated this road in almost all its glory.
True, the history of the Tower of Babel established by Kolvedey and his followers differs somewhat from the legend from the Old Testament. It turns out that the tower was destroyed and rebuilt several times. For example, to one of the destructions in 689 BC. The Assyrian king Sennacherib had a hand. It was restored by Novohudonosor II. The Jews resettled by him to Babylon saw precisely this process.
The Persian king Xerxes also gained fame as a destroyer. Although his people were not able to bring down the tower to the ground, they monstrously disfigured it. Alexander the Great, who then arrived in Babylon, was in awe of the colossal ruins. He interrupted his campaign in India and ordered his soldiers to clear the tower of debris. The soldiers worked for two whole months.
It is unknown when the Tower of Babel was first erected and when it finally fell. The origin of the civilization of the Babylonians, who could afford such great achievements in architecture, also remains a mystery. After all, in addition to the tower, Babylon also owned the Gardens of Babylon, one of the seven wonders of the world.
When the Spaniards conquered Central America, they were shocked by the “brutal” traditions of the local people. Most of all the horror, awe and disgust of the invaders was caused by the numerous human sacrifices that the Aztecs made. Spanish sailors talked for a long time about the nightmarish “towers of skulls” that Native Americans built, replenishing the ossuary after each ritual.
For a long time, the stories of the Spanish conquistadors about the “towers of skulls” were perceived by modern historians with a huge amount of skepticism. Researchers believed that this was another “soldier’s story” and another convenient excuse for the invaders. However, recent archaeological excavations have confirmed that these towers really existed. Further research shed light on the terrible secret.
A stunning (from the point of view of historiography) discovery was made in Mexico City. Thanks to her, it was possible to confirm the existence of one of the most cruel customs of the Aztecs. Excavations at the Templo Mayor complex of religious buildings began back in 2015. It was there that scientists discovered hundreds of human skulls and continue to find them. Under the ground, two of the same “towers of skulls” that the pioneer conquerors spoke about were also found.
Each tower is a cylindrical structure with a diameter of 5 meters and a height of at least 1.7 meters. Between them is the tzompantli, a special structure on which the skulls were laid out before they were placed in the tower. The length of the tzompantli is 35 meters, the width is 12-14 meters, and the height is 4-5 meters. Most likely, the structures found were erected between 1486 and 1502.
The Aztecs believed that skulls were the seeds of life, ensuring the continued existence of all humanity. In their society, skulls were treated much like modern people treat spring flowers, scientists are convinced. Representatives of the local cultures believed that the gods fed on sacrifices. Without them, the afterlife would collapse. Therefore, to be on the sacrificial table (according to the beliefs of the Aztecs) is a great honor, since the sacrificed person occupied a place of honor in the afterlife.
At the moment, 180 complete skulls have been found, as well as more fragments from more than 2 thousand human skulls. The absolute majority - 75% - belong to men aged 20 to 35 years. Scientists hope that the collected data will allow them to study the genetic diversity of Mexico during that period of history.
