Talk:Etemenanki

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I have to say that I am somewhat disturbed by this entry. It seems to be entirely based upon an article on a website written by someone named Jona Lendering, who appears to teach ancient & Mediterranean history at Vrije Universiteit of Amsterdam. The article in question is not footnoted, and contains passages that are at best perplexing and at worst clearly absurd.

My interest was initially piqued by the suggestion that this particular temple provided the basis for the biblical 'Tower of Babel.' I have read a decent amount about both the history of Sumeria as well as the history of Genesis, and it had pretty much seemed clear to me that no one could really say with any degree of certainty exactly what (if any) historical events led to the creation of the myth of this tower.

I have seen it suggested that this myth has its origins in the 'Lament of Ur' - the late second century BC text describing the destruction of Ur by the Elamites. However, since there were four other so-called 'city laments,' each of which described great and horrible destruction visted upon Mesopotamians and their ziggaurats, it seems just as likely that the Babel myth sprang from one of these other 'end of a civilization' laments.

So when I saw an entry in Wikipedia stating without qualification that the famous Temple was this Etemenanki temple, I thought to myself, 'wow, how could I have missed this?', and proceeded to go to the website in the 'external links' section.

It turns out that the Wikipedia entry is taken almost word-for-word from this site. It also is clear that the person who created this site either is a rather poor historian or simply has a very poor grasp of the English language. Let me present two rather key paragraphs:

The Etemenanki is mentioned for the first time in the Annals of the Assyrian king Sennacherib, who claims that he destroyed the temple tower of his Babylonian enemies in 689 BCE. Although he certainly sacked Babylon, it is impossible that his looting soldiers destroyed the Etemenanki. The wholesale destruction of large-scale structures is the prerogative of the modern age; ancient armies were incapable of destroying a large building.

The fact that Sennacherib could send an army against the Etemenanki, proves that it was older, and it would be remarkable if it was not so by at least 1000 years. During the reign of king Hammurabi (1792-1750), Babylonia was the leading power of Mesopotamia. In his age, there were ziggurats in lesser towns like Qatara, Aššur, Sippar, Kish, Borsippa, Nippur, Uruk, Larsa, Ur, and Eridu. It would be very strange if the capital of the world would be the only city without a ziggurat. It may be noted that the creation epic Enûma êliš with its reference to the building of the Esagila (and the implication of the existence of the Etemenanki), had already been written.

Where to begin? I will start with the most important material - that relating to the dating of this temple. In the first paragraph, Lendering states that the earliest historical attestation of the existence of this temple is from Sennacherib's reign in the late seventh century BC. OK.

Then comes, 'The fact that Sennacherib could send an army against the Etemenanki, proves that it was older, and it would be remarkable if it was not so by at least 1000 years.' I'm sorry, what? This is how you demonstrate the age of the temple? I certainly agree with the first part of the sentence - one cannot destroy a temple that has not yet been built. But if the priests of Etemenanki completed it in 690 BC, and then the next year Sennacherib brought an army to the area to conqer it and destroy the temple, would that really be remarkable? The Knights Hospitaller destroyed the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, took the stones to build their own castle, and then only a couple years later the Turks came, defeated them in battle, and destroyed it. What would be remarkable at all about the temple only being 5, 10, even 100 years old when Sennacherib and his armies razed it?

And then the last sentence, about the Enuma Elish describing the building of the Esagila, and therefore 'impl[ying]...the existence of the Etemenanki'? I am uncompelled by this.

Now, since before one can suggest that Babel is based upon Etemenanki, one certainly needs to show that it was actually around before the legend began.

And far more importantly, there is simply no direct statement anywhere in Lendering's website that gives any sort of firm reason for thinking that this temple has anything at all to do with the mythical Babel. He just says it a couple of times and leaves it at that.

Now, my impulse is to take this entry and completely change it to more accurately reflect the extremely speculative nature of this material. However, before I did this, I wanted to post this message announcing my intentions. If anyone out there thinks that I am missing something, please let me know. Cal

yes, please improve the article! It is under-referenced and is in need of attention! dab (ᛏ) 08:23, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm not an expert on this at all but I did find mention that this tower is considered to be the Biblical Tower of Babel in the Oxford Companion to Archaeology, which is usually reliable: "Esagila, the temple of Marduk, and Etemenanki, the city's ziggurat, known from Herodotus and the Bible as the Tower of Babel, faced each other across the southern end of the Processional Way. These, the two most important religious edifices of the city, are still not completely understood." James A. Armstrong "Babylon" The Oxford Companion to Archaeology. Brian M. Fagan, ed., Oxford University Press 1996. Oxford Reference Online.

-There is an error on this page, but I do not have references a hand. The description links the biblical story if the Tower of Babel with this ziguurat, however the story of Babel was written hundreds of years before the Isrealite captivity in 600 BC. I'll post references and the edit later.