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Reconstruction of Etemenanki

Reconstruction of Etemenanki, based on Hansjörg Schmid, Der Tempelturm Etemenanki in Babylon (Mainz: von Zabern, 1995), plan 10.

The Greek historian Herodotus describes a huge structure of superimposed towers in the center of ancient Babylon. This structure, called E-temen-an-ki (“House: Foundation of heaven and earth”) or “ziggurat of (the god) Marduk” by the ancient Babylonians, was excavated in 1913 and reexamined in 1962 and 1967–68. European Renaissance humanists identified the Tower of Babel of Gen 11 with the structure Herodotus described.

 

Reconstruction of Etemenanki, based on Hansjörg Schmid, Der Tempelturm Etemenanki in Babylon (Mainz: von Zabern, 1995), plan 10.

Residents of the ancient Mesopotamian city of Babylon, also used to refer to the population of the larger geographical designation of lower Mesopotamia.

Dug up, often from an archaeological site.

A Babylonian deity who becomes the chief god of the Babylonian pantheon, as recounted in the Babylonian creation story Enuma Elish.

An ancient Mesopotamian temple, taking the form of a stepped pyriamid.

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