Tower of Babel: Monumental chaos

But no one knows for sure why it was built or how it looked.

“We can imagine what the tower looked like,” said Giorgio Gullino of Italy’s Torino University. “We can do it in our computers. But I am afraid we will be far from archaeological fact.”

Gullino spent three years excavating in Babylon, which is 90 km south of the Capital, Baghdad, before the Iraq-Kuwait crisis of 1990.

The week-long conference, which ends tomorrow, has drawn 50 experts from Iraq, Britain, France, Austria, Italy, Germany, Poland, and the United States.

Those attending the sessions presented a variety of views on what the Tower of Babel might have looked like.

Muaayad Saeed, head of Iraq’santiquities department, said he would review them all and to try to reach a conclusion.

The Tower of Babel is mentioned in the Bible (genesis 11:1-9), which says the people of Babylon were trying to build a tower to heaven. God disapproved and caused the workers to speak in different languages, scuttling the project.

Saeed and other Iraqi archaeologists presented further evidence of an ancient tower from a cuneiform text, which they attribute to Nebuchadnezzar, and a description provided by Greek historian Herodotus in the fifth century BC.

Baghdad University’s Abdulillah Fadhil proffered a sketch based on the ancient writings. But the western scholars were skeptical of its accuracy.

Joachim Marzhan of the German institute of near eastern antiquities in Berlin discounted Herodotus’ description, saying “no one is sure that this father of history landed in Babylon”.

A German expedition that spent 12 years digging in Babylon at the turn of the century uncovered what it believed was the foundation ofNebuchadnezzar’s tower. That base, now submerged in water, was 90 square meters.

Johan Schmid of Hamburg University said a computer analysis indicated the foundation wouldn’t support a tower built to Nebuchadnezzar’s specifications.

“Cuneiform texts tell us it was a monument of astounding beauty, dedicated to the supreme Mesopotamian God Murdoch and his spouse Zarpanitu,” said Fran Reynold from Britain’s University of Birmingham.

Mcguire Gibson from the Oriental Institute of Chicago University said he doubted if scholars would ever have an exact image of the Tower of Babel.

History indicates that Alexander the Great, who occupied Babylon in the fourth century BC, dismantled Nebuchadnezzar’s tower. He had planned to refurbish and rebuild it but died before accomplishing his wish,” Gibson said. Alexander’s successor carted the stones away to build a new capital elsewhere, he said.