1 jan 2951 ano antes da era comum - Etemenanki Ziggurat (Tower of Babel)

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DID NIMROD BUILD THE TOWER OF BABEL ? by Gerard Gertoux

The Esagila, É.SAG.ÍL “temple whose top is lofty”, was the temple dedicated to Marduk. It lay south of the ziggurat Etemenanki its main building. The ziggurat É.TEMEN.AN.KI “Temple of the foundation of heaven/sky and earth”, now exists only in ruins (pdf), located about 90 kilometres south of Baghdad, Iraq. E. Robert Koldewey directed the excavations at Babylon from 1899 to 1914, but the rising water table now prevents further research. Moreover, as carbon-14 measurements only became available from 1950 onwards, it was not possible to assess the date of the bitumen-covered foundation bricks. However, archaeological excavations have made it possible to reconstruct the shapes and dimensions of the ziggurat Etemenanki, the Tower of Babel (André-Salvini: 2013, 29-42), and to trace its history through inscriptions and representations of this ziggurat on seals.

The Tower of Babel was long considered a myth by archaeologists until the text of the Esagila tablet was translated (17). This text, copied from an earlier document dated around 570 BCE, succinctly describes the temple called the Esagila. The text first gives a double description of the base of the multi-storey tower placed in the enclosure or ziggurat, then describes the main temple, and finally gives the measurements of the multi-storey tower called É.TEMEN.AN.KI. This tower, whose base was a square of 90 meters on each side, had seven floors (in 570 BCE), arranged in tiers, surmounted by a temple at the top. For a long time Assyriologists considered that this was a representation of an ideal tower and not a real one.... However, the discovery of a stele (MS 2063) in Babylon has changed this view (George: 2011, 153-169).
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17 This tablet (Louvre AO 6555) is a Neo-Babylonian mathematical text that has come down to us in the form of a late copy written in Uruk in 229 BCE. The title does not exactly cover the content of the text, since the only parts of Esagila dealt with by the scribes are two inner courts of the temple. The rest of the tablet concerns the Etemenanki ziggurat. The tablet, described by George Smith in 1872, disappeared for some time into private hands before it resurfaced and began to be interpreted. It has been republished in emended form by Andrew R. George in 1992.
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On this stele (pdf) there is a bas-relief representation of a king wearing the neo-Babylonian conical tiara, who must be Nebuchadnezzar II, next to a seven-storey tower (the first floor is three times as high as the following floors) with a square base and a temple at the top bearing a small cuneiform inscription: Etemenanki, the Babylonian ziggurat. As the king holds a stylus in his right hand and a surveyor's staff in his left, it seemed logical to conclude that Nebuchadnezzar II was the designer of this new tower.

German excavations confirmed the dimensions of its square base, measuring 91.5m on each side. They revealed that three large staircases, supported on the south side, gave access to the first floor, which was higher than the others, and to the second floor. Smaller staircases led to the top. The dimensions of this tower and its location were therefore confirmed by archaeology, but today only a huge square hole of 91.5 m on each side remains with a heap of debris. These excavations also made it possible to rehabilitate the testimony of Herodotus who had given a description of the famous tower when he visited Babylon around 450 BCE:
The two quarters of the city had in their centre each a fortified enclosure: in the one the royal palace surrounded by a high and solid wall, in the other a sanctuary of the god Bel with bronze gates, which still existed in my time: it is a square of two stadia on a side [≈ 354 m]; in the middle stands a massive tower, one stadia long and wide [≈ 177 m], surmounted by another tower which supports a third, and so on, up to 8 towers. An outer ramp spirals up to the last tower; about halfway up there is a landing and seats, so that one can sit and rest during the ascent. The last tower contains a chapel, and in the chapel there is [according to the priests] a bed richly set up, and near it a golden table (...) These same Chaldeans say (but I do not believe them) that the god himself is wont to visit the shrine (...) the gold of the whole was said by the Chaldeans to be of 800 talents' weight (...) in the days of Cyrus there was still in this sacred demesne a statue of gold 12 cubits high. I myself have not seen it, but I tell what is told by the Chaldeans. Darius son of Hystaspes purposed to take this statue but dared not; Xerxes his son took it, and slew the priest who warned him not to move the statue (The Histories I:181-183).

The only Mesopotamian king who could have built such a ziggurat can only be the powerful king who dominated all of Mesopotamia before the Uruk expansion (c. 3000 BCE) and who built the White Temple at Uruk and the Abzu temple at Eridu. There are only two Sumerian inscriptions from this early period (c. 2900 BCE), but a seal found depicts this tower of Babel. For example, a four-storey ziggurat appears (pdf) on a seal of the Kish cemetery (Parrot: 1960, 98), dated around 2800 BCE (Amiet: 1951, 85).

The city of Kish was the seat of the first Sumerian dynasty after the flood according to the Sumerian king lists. This building is therefore the oldest ziggurat in the world, and as it already existed in 2800 BCE, it was not built by one of the kings of Kish, as excavations revealed that the oldest ziggurat built in this city, called É.U6.NIR.KI.TUŠ.MAH, was built by King Hammurabi (Joannès: 2001, 450-451). It is noted that a temple is placed on the fourth floor of the ziggurat to complete it. During the period 2800-2500 BCE the Sumerian king lists mention only one exceptional event that occurred during the reign of Etana (2638-2613), the 13th king of Kish: Etana the shepherd, who ascended to heaven and consolidated all the foreign countries. The ancient title of the “Legend of Etana” was “the gods drew the plan of the city.” We do not know if the name Etana, “he who went up to heaven/God”, was drawn from the legend or the legend was constructed around the name. However, there is reason to think that the story is very old (Glassner: 2005, 82,91,121). It is difficult to interpret this ancient legend but as the Tower of Babel “Gate of God” was to access God, it is possible that Etana started to restore the Esagila which legitimised the kingship of Kish.

Two other clues prove that the four-storey ziggurat on the seal of Kish is indeed the Tower of Babel built by King Marduk: 1) the first ziggurat built by the Sumerians was that of King Ur-Namma (2020-2002), of which the first two storeys have been preserved and the ruins of the third one have made it possible to reconstitute the original form of this four-storey ziggurat; 2) on the seal (pdf) of the Sumerian high priestess Enheduanna, daughter of King Sargon of Akkad (2243-2187), a four-storey tower clearly appears left, which can only be the Tower of Babel (Winter: 2009, 65-78).

On the back of the disk an inscription identifies her as en EN.HÉ.DU7.AN.NA “high priestess-ornament of heaven” in Sumerian. Enheduanna (2194-2159) was the high-priestess of the moon god Nanna in the Sumerian city-state of Ur in the reign of her father, Sargon of Akkad. Since the four-storey tower that appears on the Enheduanna disc is that of the time of this high priestess, about 200 years before the reign of Ur-Namma (2020-2002), it cannot be the ziggurat of Ur but must be the ziggurat of Babylon. After the fall ofUr in 1912 BCE, the Sumerian empire collapsed for good and the rivalry between the ancient Sumerian cities started again, so the construction of new ziggurats stopped temporarily because of the lack of means of the emerging cities. The first Babylonian dynasty was founded by Sumu-abum (1799-1785) who chose Babylon as the capital of his kingdom, then Hammurabi (1697-1654) chose to establish the divine king Marduk as the head of the Babylonian pantheon. After the fall of Babylon in 1499 BCE29, the Kassite dynasty took control of Babylonia and revived the programme of building new ziggurats, the most prestigious being that of Aqarquf, the capital of the Kassite kingdom, which was erected by Kurigalzu I (1391-1375). Among all these ziggurats, there are two similarities, without exception, they all have four floors and their first floor is always larger than the following ones, which are all of the same dimensions.

The Kassite dynasty disappeared when its last king, Enlil-nâdin-aḫi (1158-1155), was overthrown by Marduk-kabit-aḫḫešu (1159-1141) a Babylonian king who chose Babylon as his capital again and was the first to use the name of Marduk in his throne name which means “Marduk has given an heir”. On the kudurru of Marduk-apla-iddina30 (1172-1159) one can see a four-storey tower (pdf), the first of which is double the other three (Parrot: 1950, 41). The second and third floors are segmented by vertical lines. At the foot of the ziggurat, a dragon wearing a
tiara lies down and carries on its back the sign of Nabu, as on the kudurru of Meli-Shipak, which makes it possible to identify the badge of the divine king Marduk. The dynasty of Isin II founded by Marduk-kabit-aḫḫešu was
mainly concerned with regaining the supremacy of Babylon. Under Nebuchadnezzar I (1127-1105), the dynasty reconquered the whole of Babylonia from the Elamites. This victory restored Babylon's power but rekindled the rivalry with the Assyrian Empire. The latter severely repelled the Babylonian assaults in 1084 BCE. From the reign of Adad-apla-iddina (1070-1048), the incursions of the Arameans led to the fall of the dynasty in 1027 BCE, which stopped the maintenance of the ziggurats, except for that of Babylon. The kings of the later dynasties, until Nabonidus (556-539), were only concerned with the maintenance of the Tower of Babel which was sacked by Sennacherib in 689 BCE.

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