Ideology > Tower of Babel
Tower of Babel
Background
The Tower of Babel is a biblical account that describes a massive tower that was being constructed.
Plausibility
The biblical account of the Tower of Babel describes it as having a dizzying effect. This could have very well been an actuality. Based on modern day scientific analysis of the types of bricks used to construct buildings in ancient Babylon researchers believe they have come up with some groundbreaking new theories.
There were two major types of clay bricks used in ancient Mesopotamia, sun-dried and fire baked. The bricks were a mixture of clay, straw and other possible materials that lent to its amazing structure. Based on modern scientific analysis of stress thresholds, a sun-dried brick like the ancient people from Mesopotamia used can sustain a weight limit of 4000 pounds per brick before they start to break. Each of the bricks weighs one pound so at a height of 1.25 inches per brick there can be 4000 bricks stacked to a height of 500 feet. This is the comparative height of the Washington Monument today.
By comparison, a fire baked brick which requires significantly more energy to produce can withstand 30,000 pounds of pressure before they break. Fire-baked bricks are made by heating a brick at 1,500 degrees for 24 hours so you can see how hard these would have been to make in mass. 30,000 clay bricks at 1.25 inches per brick is 10,500 feet or around two miles into the air. This is higher than the tallest building constructed today. So did the Tower of Babel really exist?
Well the science suggests its possible that the people from ancient Mesopotamia could have constructed a massive ziggurat that went two miles in the air as if this was the case you would most certainly experience lightheadedness and decreased quality of oxygen. The clouds would even form around a structure like this giving it the appearance that it was as high as the heavens themselves. This phenomena occurs all the time with structures and back then if something went higher then the clouds it was probably quite a sight.
The completion of such a structure could have been complicated by the death of the creator or internal conflict which would have certainly caused the confusion of languages as described. Baking the clay bricks would have been an effort in and of itself and the simple massive length of construction time may have simply led it to be abandoned after a while.
So now the problem is, who could have constructed a massive two mile high ziggurat during the biblical times?
