France: The Building of the Tower of Babel, folio 17v, "The Bedford Hours" , Paris,...

The Tower of Babel, according to the Book of Genesis, was an enormous tower built in the plain of Shinar. According to the biblical account, a united humanity of the generations following the Great Flood, speaking a single language and migrating from the east, came to the land of Shinar, where they resolved to build a city with a tower 'with its top in the heavens...lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the Earth'. God came down to see what they did and said: 'They are one people and have one language, and nothing will be withholden from them which they purpose to do'. So God said, 'Come, let us go down and confound their speech'. And so God scattered them upon the face of the Earth, and confused their languages, and they left off building the city, which was called Babel 'because God there confounded the language of all the Earth'. (Genesis 11:5-8). The Tower of Babel has often been associated with known structures, notably the Etemenanki, a ziggurat dedicated to Marduk by Nabopolassar (c. 610 BCE). The Great Ziggurat of Babylon base was square (not round), 91 metres (300 ft) in height, but demolished by Alexander the Great. A Sumerian story with some similar elements is preserved in Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta.