Where was the Tower of Babel?

Earliest Written Record

Most archaeologists state that the first known “civilization” is to be found in Mesopotamia around 3000BC. Its pre-history going something like this: the Neolithic Period, meaning late stone age, sees a transition from foraging-hunting/gathering to dry farming. By 6000 BC village-based farming becomes established across the fertile crescent. Political authority remains local and dispersed; all houses are relatively the same size and value, meaning there are no elites. By 6100-5100 BC, known as the Late Neolithic Pottery Culture, various “cultures” are identified by their pottery. Hussanan pottery villages in the north; Samarin pottery in the south. Halafian pottery spreads throughout through trade. Stamps and seals appear in clay objects, as well as small stamped tokens that may have been used for inventory and exchange.

By the Ubaid Period, 5800-4000 BC, there is the first irrigation of fields. Villages have public architecture and a central temple. Special Elite housing appears. A city called Eridu has a population of five thousand.

4000-2900 BC, the Uruk Period, aka the Protoliterate period, sees the invention of the plow. Some communities are becoming walled for protection. By the Late Uruk phase, the Jemdet Nasr, public buildings and temples become more elaborate. Uruk has a population of 21,000. Bevel rimmed bowels of standardized size are being made, long distance trade networks are being formed. By 3300 clay inventory lists are made in a writing later dubbed proto-cuneiform.

2900-2350 BC, the Early Dynastic Period, sees city States, and a population of 50,000 in Uruk. There is a rise of rulers, elites, and royal tombs with hoards of wealth. Sumerian language, an isolated language later lost, is written in cuneiform script, the first written language.

The “Kings List”, written in cuneiform, begins with the “Antediluvian kings”, said to have been kings before the flood.

These impossibly long reigns could be an attempt to show that these kings were Gods, or perhaps a misunderstanding on our part of how long the cuneiform, usualy equated to 3600 years  “Sar” is.  Evidence of a flood  in the city of Shuruppag has been carbon dated at about 2900 BC.

Eridu

The earliest village settlement (c.5000 BC) grew into a substantial city of mudbrick and reed houses, by c.2900BC covering 8-10 ha (20-25 acres). Interestingly, this oldest city on the King’s list also contains the the earliest known religious building.

The Eridu Ziggurat shown here, a restoration of the unfinished Ziggurat of Amir-Sin (the King fell before it was completed), was built on eighteen superimposed mudbrick temples underneath, the practice of building religious sites on top of each other being common. The earliest levels were the temple of Enki. Level 6, dated about 3800 BC, is estimated to have been 22 x 9 meters. (72’).

Interesting: https://www.asorblog.org/2017/09/12/rebuilding-eden-land-eridu.html

Kish

After the flood, according to the Kings list, power moved to the first dynasty of Kish (biblical Cush). While Kish started as two hillside villages, for the next 500 years (real time, presumedly not shown here) Kings claimed the honoree traditional title "King of Kish".

According  to the Pentateuch Torah, Biblical Genesis, the sons of Ham (he was on the Ark) were: Cush, and Mizraim (Egypt), Phut, and Canaan. The Egyptian and Canaanite societies indeed forming concomitant to those in Mesopotamia.

Later, Genesis 10.8 states: Cush begat Nimrod: …  He was a mighty hunter before the LORD.  And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar.

URUK

Following Kish, according to the Kings list, came the first rulers of Uruk (Biblical Erech).

According to the book Lost Cities: “the remains at Uruk represent the world’s oldest city, the remains of an early state, where officials invented writing to keep track of government affairs.” 

According to Sumerian literature: Kish king En-me-barage-si "who made the land of Elam submit" (c. 2600 BC), was captured singlehandedly by King Dumuzi of Uruk. According to the famous Epic Of Gilgamesh, the earliest known written epic, Aga of Kish, son of King En-me-barage-si, was contemporary with King Gilgamesh of Uruk. Sometime in the early Dynastic Period (dated 2900-2300 BC), the center of power switch to Ur.

Accad

The Early Dynastic period is followed by the rise of the first Mesopotamian empire: the Akkadian Empire, c. 2334 – 2154. While its capital Accad has never been found, is existence is noted by many early societies.

From that land (Nimrod) went to Assyria, where he built Nineveh, Rehoboth Ir,[f Calah  and Resen, which is between Nineveh and Calah—which is the great city. Either Nimrod lived a very long time, or his name, meaning Rebel against God in Hebrew, represented a long running Dynasty or religion.

An Assyrian city once named Calneh/Calah was re-named Nimrud.

So where was Babel?

In a later expanded story, Nimrod began to build a tower, his goal, it has been said, was to be greater than God.

Genesis 11 New International Version (NIV)

The Tower of Babel

11 Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. As people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there.

They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.” …

5 But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. 6 The Lord said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”

8 So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. 9 That is why it was called Babel—because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth.

I would suggest, as do some others, that the tower of Babel was in Eridu, as it was the first Sumerian Kingship, the oldest Ziggurat, and the only relevant city not mentioned by name in the Genesis translation. That Ziggurat was actually just a pile of Rubble.

Some researchers believe that the cities identified were later copies of cities with the same names, and that the originals were further north, in Turkey.

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