Tower of Babel – cut-out sheet
The story of the Tower of Babel is part of the Old Testament (Gen. 11:4-9) and tells what happened after the Great Flood. It explains the origin of different languages. While humanity is seen as originally being a united one, the story confronts the reader with the outcome of people speaking a variety of languages. Here the translation of the
King James version of the Bible:
4. And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.
5. And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.
6. And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.
7. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.
8. So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.
9. Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.
Scholars have associated the Tower of Babel with known historical structures, notably the Etemenanki, a ziggurat dedicated to the Mesopotamian god Marduk by Nabopolassar, king of Babylonia (c. 610 BC).
The Great Ziggurat of Babylon's base was square (not round), 91 metres (300 ft) in height, and demolished by Alexander the Great. A Sumerian story with some similar elements is told in Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta.
Our model is made according to archaeological designs that reflect the Ziggurat’s structure.
The cut-out sheet can be coloured before being assembled.
- Difficulty: easy to medium
Forum Traiani ® - registered trademark