Amazingly, the Tower of Babel almost certainly did exist. For about 350 years it stood in the city of Babel, capitol of the Assyrian Empire.

From around the year 680 BC, the successive Assyrian kings Esarhaddon, Nabopolassar and Nebuchadnezzar II brought together labourers from all parts of the country to erect a large, stepped pyramid (called a ‘ziggurat’) in the center of the city of Babel.

Ancient non-biblical texts say that it took the Assyrians 43 years to complete the tower. It was meant for religious purposes. And it had a name: ‘Etemenanki’.

	Big Babel
	French archaeologists reconstructed the Tower of Babel in this maquette

The Tower of Babel was huge! An ancient inscription says that Nebuchadnezzar wanted the tower to ‘compete with the heavens’. But it wasn't Yahweh's heaven. The Tower of Babel was made in honour of another god: Marduk, the Assyrian supreme god.

In an ancient text, King Nabopolassar stated that clearly: "At that time Marduk [the god] commanded me to build the Tower of Babel.”

The Greek historian Herodotos, who probably visited the tower in 460 BC, described what the tower looked like in his work ‘The Histories’.

Herodotos saw a huge constellation of eight separate towers, built on top of each other. The uppermost tower consisted of a temple, permanently inhabited by a priestess. All in all, the Tower of Babel must have been 90 meters (295 ft) tall: as big as the Statue of Liberty!

As for the rest of the story, the Bible is wrong.

First off, God didn’t stop the construction of the tower, as Genesis reads. In fact, the Tower of Babel was finished. It stood there for a little over three centuries.

However, the tower must have deteriorated during that time. It was build of, among other things, simple clay. It couldn't withstand rain!

Then, in 323 BC, the Tower of Babel was demolished by Alexander the Great, who wanted to erect an even bigger tower in its place. Unfortunately, Alexander the Great died before he could do that.

And how about the miracle with the languages? Non-biblical texts and inscriptions don’t give any reason to suspect that anything strange happened during the Tower's construction.

Still, the language thing may have been inspired by the mish-mash of different nationalities buzzing about the Tower. At the time, Babel was a very important, very multi-cultural city, much like New York or Paris are today.

Another possibility is that the construction itself gave rise to the myth. At the construction site, many nationalities were present, because the tower was built by labourers from all over the continent.

A third possibility is that the Tower of Babel passage is in fact an ancient jewish prank!

The story has certain similarities with the ancient Babylonian holy story ‘Enuma Elish’, some researchers have pointed out. That could indicate the Tower of Babel story was merely satire, meant to poke fun at the Babylonians.

That may seem strange to us now, but try to think of it as an ancient version of a stand-up comedian ridiculising the Pope by imitating him!

In 1913, German archaeologist Robert Koldewey stunned the world by claiming he had unearthed the foundations of the Tower of Babel. Historians still don’t know for sure if that’s true. Koldewey and his successors may have mistaken another ancient building for the tower.

The Tower of Bable passage was clearly pasted into the book of Genesis later on. And it was really squeezed in there!

That’s easy to see: just try reading Genesis leaving out the verses about the Tower of Babel. You’ll notice that Genesis 10:32 and Genesis 11:10 merge seamlessly: it’s a description of the descent of Noah’s son Shem.