The Web3 Era

4Tower of Babel 2.0

About 90 kilometers south of Baghdad, under the scorching heat of the Iraqi sun, more than 200 workers toiled daily, year‐round for 15 years from 1899 to 1914, to excavate the ruins of ancient Babylon.

Led by German archeologist Robert Koldewey, the site that had been identified a century earlier by British assyriologist Claudius James Rich bore fruitful discoveries right from the start of the expedition. In the first year alone, remnants of Babylon's central Processional Street were unearthed, giving the modern world its first look at the “City of Cities” which vanished off the face of the earth, either swallowed by the desert or destroyed in repeated invasions.

Subsequent discoveries marveled the world further with the Hanging Gardens of Babylon and palaces of King Nebuchadnezzar uncovered, fueling a resurgence in the interest of biblical scholarship as well as the studies of various religions that have historical reference to the city of Babylon and its rulers.

The discovery by Robert Koldewey that linked all variations of folklore, religions, and documented accounts of Babylon, however, was Etemenanki. With the remains of its foundation, and outer and inner walls visible from aerial view, the sprawling building was a temple ziggurat dedicated to the Babylonian god Marduk.

Although many Christians in the world today believe Etemenanki to be the biblical Tower of Babel, Koldeway's findings not only gave plausibility to this theory but also opened more ...