Once the Bir Cylinders were translated, its claims raised the eyebrow of many Biblical skeptics. The set of clay cylinders (600 b.c.) would serve as further proof that what some consider to be one of the most bizarre and barely believable accounts— actually happened. They were discovered by Sir Henry Rawlinson during the mid-19th century at the Babylonian site of Borsippa. The cylinders, covered in parallel inscriptions, were found inside the walls of a gigantic, heavily damaged tower at the site. This tower—a type of the Mesopotamian ziggurat —had been repaired extensively during the reign of the infamous King Nebuchadnezzar. Bricks were unearthed that were stamped with the name of the king but the cylinders inside those ancient walls were what stole the spotlight. Rawlinson (known as the father of Assyriology) translated the inscriptions as follows:
“I am Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon … my great lord has established me in strength, and has urged me to repair his buildings … the Tower of Babylon, I have made and finished … the Tower of Borsippa had been built by a former king. He had completed 42 [cubits?], but he did not finish its head; from the lapse of time it had become ruined … the rain and wet had penetrated into the brickwork; the casing of burnt brick had bulged out … Merodach, my great lord, inclined my heart to repair the building. I did not change its site, nor did I destroy its foundation platform; but, in a fortunate month, and upon an auspicious day, I undertook the rebuilding … I set my hand to build it up, and to finish its summit. As it had been in ancient times, so I built up its structure..”
There’s another translation of this text that’s even more direct. This one was done by Rawlinson’s contemporary Assyriologist, Julius Oppert. He would translate a few of lines with a slight, but illuminating variation:
“… the most ancient monument of Babylon; I built and finished it … A former king built it—they reckon 42 ages [ago]—but he did not complete its head. For a long time, people had abandoned it without order expressing their words ….”
But Wait, There’s More
The Tower of Babel Stele is an inky black colored ceremonial stone and it’s only about 20 inches tall. It was discovered over a century ago among the ruins of the city of Babylon. Since then, it has been kept as part of a private Norwegian Collection.
The tablet, belonging to King Nebuchadnezzar, dates to around 600 b.c. and it includes an illustration of the king standing next to a diagram of a large, seven-storied tower; above it, a separate floor plan of the massive “temple” that crowned the top. The lower part of the tablet contains an inscription, describing Nebuchadnezzar’s tower-building strategy. What could be translated from the partial text is as follows:
“Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon am I: In order to complete [the towers] Etemenanki and Eurmeiminanki, I mobilized all countries everywhere … the base I filled in to make a high terrace. I built their structures with bitumen and baked brick throughout. I completed it raising its top to the heaven ….”
The Etemenanki ziggurat (the Borsippa tower) as described by fifth-century b.c. historian Herodotus:
“In the middle of [Babylon’s] precinct there was a tower of solid masonry … upon which was raised a second tower, and on that a third, and so on up to eight. The ascent to the top is on the outside, by a path which winds round all the towers. … On the topmost tower there is a spacious temple … There is no statue of any kind set up in the place, nor is the chamber occupied of nights by any one but a single native woman, who, as the Chaldeans, the priests of this god, affirm, is chosen for himself by the deity out of all the women of the land.”
The ‘Tower of Babel Stele’
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