Scientists have discovered the secret of the "towers of skulls" that the Aztecs built. Tower of Babel: Stunning Archaeological Finds Mysterious African Ruins

The ruins of giant stone structures in the area of the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers are still a mystery to scientists. Information about them came back in the 16th century from Portuguese traders who visited the coastal regions of Africa in search of gold, slaves and ivory. Many believed then that it was about the biblical land of Ophir, where at one time the gold mines of King Solomon were located.

MYSTERIOUS AFRICAN RUINS

Portuguese traders heard about the huge stone "houses" from Africans coming to the coast to exchange goods from the interior of the continent. But only in the 19th century did Europeans finally see the mysterious buildings. According to some sources, the traveler and elephant hunter Adam Rendere was the first to discover the mysterious ruins, but more often their discovery is attributed to the German geologist Karl Mauch.

This scientist repeatedly heard from the Africans about the giant stone structures in the unexplored areas north of the Limpopo River. No one knew when and by whom they were built, and the German scientist decided to go on a risky journey to the mysterious ruins.

In 1867, Mauch found an ancient country and saw a complex of buildings, later called Great Zimbabwe (in the language of the local Shona tribe, the word "zimbabwe" meant "stone house"). The scientist was shocked by what he saw. The structure that appeared before his eyes struck the researcher with its size and unusual layout.

An impressive stone wall no less than 250 meters long, about 10 meters high and up to 5 meters wide at the base surrounded the settlement, where, apparently, the residence of the ruler of this ancient country was once located.

Now this structure is called the Temple, or the Elliptical Building. It was possible to enter the walled area through three narrow passages. All buildings were erected using the dry masonry method, when the stones were stacked on top of each other without a bonding solution. 800 meters north of the walled settlement, on top of a granite hill, were the ruins of another building, called the Stone Fortress, or Acropolis.

Although Mauh found among the ruins some household items characteristic of the local culture, it did not even occur to him that Africans could have built the architectural complex of Zimbabwe. Traditionally, local tribes built their houses and other structures using clay, wood and dried grass, so the use of stone as a building material looked clearly anomalous.

ON THE LAND OF GOLD MINES

So, Mauch decided that Great Zimbabwe was built not by Africans, but by whites who visited these parts in ancient times. According to him, the legendary King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba could have been involved in the construction of the complex of stone buildings, and this place itself was the biblical Ophir, the land of gold mines.

The scientist finally believed in his assumption when he discovered that the beam of one of the doorways was made of cedar. It could only be brought from Lebanon, and it was King Solomon who widely used cedar in the construction of his palaces.

Ultimately, Karl Mauch came to the conclusion that it was the Queen of Sheba who was the mistress of Zimbabwe. Such a sensational conclusion of the scientist led to rather deplorable consequences. Numerous adventurers began to flock to the ancient ruins, who dreamed of finding the treasury of the Queen of Sheba, because an ancient gold mine once existed near the complex. It is not known whether anyone managed to discover the treasures, but the damage to the ancient structures was colossal, and this further greatly hampered the research of archaeologists.

Mauch's conclusions were challenged in 1905 by the British archaeologist David Randall-McIver. He conducted independent excavations in Great Zimbabwe and stated that the buildings were not so ancient and were built in the period from the 11th to the 15th century.

It turned out that the Great Zimbabwe could well have been built by indigenous Africans. Getting to the ancient ruins was quite difficult, so the next expedition appeared in these parts only in 1929. It was led by the British feminist archaeologist Gertrude Cato-Thompson and was an all-female group.

By that time, treasure hunters had already inflicted such damage on the complex that Cato-Thompson was forced to start work by searching for intact buildings. The brave explorer decided to use an airplane for her search. She managed to agree on a winged car, she personally took off with the pilot into the air and found another stone structure far from the settlement.

After excavations, Cato-Thompson fully confirmed Randall-Maciver's conclusions about the time of construction of Great Zimbabwe. In addition, she firmly stated that the complex of buildings, without a doubt, was erected by black Africans.

AFRICAN STONEHENGE?

Scientists have been studying Great Zimbabwe for almost a century and a half, however, despite such a long period, Great Zimbabwe has managed to keep a lot of secrets. It is still unknown from whom its builders defended themselves with the help of such powerful defensive structures. Not everything is clear with the time of the beginning of their construction.

For example, under the wall of the Elliptical Building, fragments of drainage wood have been found that date back to between 591 (plus or minus 120 years) and 702 AD. e. (plus or minus 92 years). It is possible that the wall was built on a much older foundation.

During excavations, scientists discovered several figurines of birds made of steatite (soapstone), it was suggested that the ancient inhabitants of Great Zimbabwe worshiped bird-like gods. It is possible that the most mysterious structure of Great Zimbabwe is somehow connected with this cult - the conical tower against the wall of the Elliptical Building. Its height reaches 10 meters, and the circumference of the base is 17 meters.

It was built using dry masonry and is similar in shape to the granaries of local peasants, but the tower has no entrance, no windows, no stairs. Until now, the purpose of this structure is an unsolvable mystery for archaeologists.

However, there is a very curious hypothesis of Richard Wade from the Nkwe Ridge observatory, according to which the Temple (Elliptical building) was once used similarly to the famous Stonehenge. Stone walls, a mysterious tower, various monoliths - all this was used to observe the Sun, Moon, planets and stars. Is it so? Only further research can provide the answer.

THE CAPITAL OF A POWERFUL EMPIRE

At the moment, few scientists doubt that Great Zimbabwe was built by Africans. According to archaeologists, in the 14th century this African kingdom experienced its heyday and could be compared with London in terms of area.

Its population was about 18 thousand people. Greater Zimbabwe was the capital of a vast empire that stretched for thousands of kilometers and united dozens, perhaps hundreds of tribes.

Although mines operated on the territory of the kingdom and gold was mined, the main wealth of the inhabitants was cattle. The mined gold and ivory were delivered from Zimbabwe to the east coast of Africa, where ports existed at that time, with their help trade with Arabia, India and the Far East was supported. The fact that Zimbabwe had connections with the outside world is evidenced by archaeological finds of Arab and Persian origin.

It is believed that Great Zimbabwe was the center of mining: at different distances from the complex of stone buildings, numerous mine workings were discovered. According to a number of scholars, the African empire existed until 1750, and then fell into decline.

It is worth noting that for Africans Great Zimbabwe is a real shrine. In honor of this archaeological site, Southern Rhodesia, on whose territory it is located, was renamed Zimbabwe in 1980.

Andrey SIDORENKO

Scientists are increasingly turning to the Bible as a reliable historical source, and this is bearing fruit in the form of sensational discoveries. So, one of the legends of the Old Testament about the construction of the Tower of Babel gained the glory of a genuine event.

In the second chapter "Noah" of the book of Genesis, it is told that after the Flood, mankind found itself in the places of the lower reaches of the Tigris and Euphrates, in the land of Shinar. People spoke the same language and were one people. Here they came up with a bold idea to build a tower that would touch the heavens. God was furious with human insolence and endowed the builders with different languages so that they would no longer understand each other and not finish building the tower.

In 1899, the German archaeologist Robert Koldewey arrived in the vicinity of Baghdad, where the area abounded with strange hills. Their tops were flat, and the slopes abruptly ended, as if they had been slashed by a giant sword. No one before Kolvedey was interested in these hills, and the local Bedouins used them as convenient places for halts.

From the very first days of excavations, Koldevey discovered dozens, hundreds of evidence of the existence of an ancient great civilization here. Hour after hour, workers raised from the ground statues of winged lions, magnificent bas-reliefs, cuneiform tablets, fragments of glazed bricks. Soon copper-studded city gates were found. But what kind of city opened up to the eyes of people? Each find did not say, but shouted that it was ... the legendary Babylon!

Kolvedey was completely convinced of his guesses when the workers freed the mud brick walls from the ground. Two 12-meter walls were separated from each other at a distance of 12 meters, and behind them was a third wall 8 meters high. The scientist found that initially the space between the first two walls was filled with soil, which turned them into an impregnable rampart, and the third, inner wall had observation towers every 50 meters. Only 360 towers! The walls were 18 kilometers long. Everything is as it was told about Babylon in traditions and legends.

In a word, it was the largest fortified city of all the walled cities ever built. Even medieval policies were much smaller, and yet Babylon existed over 4 thousand years ago! However, the main sensation was still waiting in the wings. It was the foundation, which was 90 meters wide. Foundation of the Tower of Babel.

Fifteen years Robert Kolvedey gave to the study of Babylon and the Tower of Babel. In parallel with the excavations, he got acquainted with all possible written sources testifying to the tower, and each time the next find exactly coincided with the descriptions left by the ancient storytellers.

In addition, a lot of valuable information was given directly by the Babylonian tablets. Some of them contained literally architectural calculations and images of the tower. In the end, the scientist was able to describe the legendary structure as if he had seen it with his own eyes.

So, the Tower of Babel rose to a height of 90 meters and consisted of seven terraces, installed on a rectangular 33-meter base. The terraces were twisted in a spiral, and the topmost of them was a 15-meter temple of the god Morduk. From the ground to this temple there was a monumental staircase. In total, the construction of the tower took 85 million bricks!

Separately, it is worth mentioning the upper terrace. The outside was covered in blue glazed brick and gold inlay. In sunny weather, the walls began to shine with mystical fire, visible for many kilometers around. Inside the temple stood a golden table and a bed. The god Morduk himself was supposed to rest here. Every evening, the most beautiful girl in Babylon would rise here to please the great god until morning.

The first floor of the tower was also distinguished by splendor. Among other decorations, there was a statue of the god Morduk, cast from pure gold. She weighed 24 tons. The so-called procession road led to the entrance. It was built from powerful square slabs, which in turn rested on a layer of asphalt and brick flooring. The edges of the plates were covered with precious inlay. By the way, Kolvedey dug up this road in almost all its glory.

True, the story of the Tower of Babel established by Kolvedey and his followers differs somewhat from the legend from the Old Testament. It turns out that the tower was destroyed and rebuilt several times. For example, to one of the destructions in 689 BC. the hand of the Assyrian king Sennacherib. It was restored by Novokhudonosor II. The Jews he resettled in Babylon saw exactly this process.

The glory of the destroyer was also won by the Persian king Xerxes. His people, although they could not bring down the tower to the ground, but they monstrously disfigured it. Alexander the Great, who then arrived in Babylon, was in awe of the colossal ruins. He interrupted his march to India and ordered his soldiers to clear the tower of debris. The soldiers worked for two whole months.

It is not known when the Tower of Babel was first erected and when it finally fell. The origin of the civilization of the Babylonians, who could afford such great achievements in architecture, also remains a mystery. Indeed, in addition to the tower, Babylon also owned the Gardens of Babylon, one of the seven wonders of the world.

Another mystery of history, to which modern scientists still cannot find an answer, is connected with the death of the biblical Babylon and the famous Tower of Babel in Borsippa. This tower, half burned down and melted to a glassy state by a monstrous temperature, has survived to this day as a symbol of God's wrath.

It is a clear confirmation of the veracity of the biblical texts about the terrible fury of heavenly fire that hit the Earth in the middle of the second millennium BC.

According to biblical legend, Babylon was built by Nimrod, who is usually identified with the giant hunter Orion. This is a very important circumstance in the astral legend, determining one of the five places of the previous appearances of the "revenge comet" in the night sky, which will be told in the appropriate place.

Nimrod was the son of Cush and a descendant of Ham, one of the three sons of Noah: “Cush also begat Nimrod: this one began to be strong on earth. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord; therefore it is said, A mighty hunter like Nimrod before the Lord. His kingdom at first consisted of: Babylon, Erech, Akkad and Halne, in the land of Senaar. / Gen. 10:8-10/

The biblical myth tells that after Noah's flood, people attempted to build the city of Babylon (from the Sumerians. Bab-ily - "the gates of God") and the Tower of Babel "as high as the heavens."

And here it is appropriate to say that in mythological texts the names “gates of God”, “gates of heaven”, as well as “gates of hell” are used to designate places of cosmic explosions, in the epicenter of which all living things died from heavenly fire.

Enraged by unheard of human insolence, G-d “confounded their tongues” and scattered the builders of the Tower of Babel throughout the earth, as a result of which people ceased to understand each other: “And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower that the sons of men were building. And the Lord said, Behold, there is one people, and all have one language; and this is what they began to do, and they will not lag behind what they have planned to do. Let us go down and confuse their language there, so that one does not understand the speech of the other. And the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth; and they stopped building the city. Therefore a name was given to her: Babylon; For there the Lord confounded the language of all the earth, and from there the Lord scattered them over all the earth” (Gen. 11:5-9/.

Therefore, another meaning of the word Babylon is reproduced from the Hebrew word balal - “mixing”.

Turris babel Athanasius Kircher, 1679
This deliberate biblical distortion of the name of the city, based on the similarity of the sound of words, actually reflects the historical reality. The results of archaeological excavations indicate that the time of the death of Babylon is the time of the great migration of tribes and peoples, the mixing of their languages and customs, the development and seizure of new territories.

Not far from the city of Babylon are the ruins of Borsippa with the preserved ruins of a burnt ancient temple and a huge temple tower, which is considered to be the legendary Tower of Babel mentioned in the Bible.

True, some archaeologists dispute this name, on the grounds that within the city of Babylon there was a temple tower of no less respectable size.

As archaeologists have determined, the tower from Borsippa previously consisted of seven tiers of steps, standing on a massive square base.

Previously, they were painted in seven colors: black, white, purplish red, blue, bright red, silver and gold. Even now, the remains of the tower are impressive. Its melted skeleton, standing on a hill, rises 46 meters above the base of the tower.

The walls of the tower, built of baked bricks, as well as the huge cult premises inside, were badly damaged by fire.

From the heat of an unthinkable temperature, the upper, most of the tower literally evaporated, and the remaining, smaller part of the tower melted into a single glassy mass, both from the inside and from the outside.

Here is how Erich Zehren writes about it: “It is impossible to find an explanation for where such heat came from, which not only heated, but also melted hundreds of burnt bricks, singeing the entire skeleton of the tower, all its clay walls.”

It is also curious to cite the testimony of Wilhelm Koenig, who tried to comprehend the cause of the unthinkable heat that literally melted the stepped ziggurat tower in Borsippa: “Ordinary building bricks can only melt in a very strong fire.

ROMANESQUE PAINTER, French The Building of the Tower of Babel Fresco - Abbey Church, Saint-Savin-sur-Gartempe

And here is how Mark Twain, traveling through Mesopotamia in 1867, described the tower from Borsippa:
“... it had eight tiers, two of which stand to this day - a giant brickwork, scattered in the middle from an earthquake, scorched and half melted by the lightning of an angry G-d.”

It must be said that so far no researcher has been able to satisfactorily explain this monstrous melting, under the influence of an unthinkable temperature, due to which the upper part of the masonry turned into steam, and the remains of the melted tower seemed to split from top to bottom.

Attempts to explain this melting by a lightning strike of high power cannot be considered convincing, which is clearly seen from the information on linear lightning given below.

According to modern concepts, linear lightning is a giant spark that occurs between clouds, or between a cloud and the surface of the earth. Their average size is several kilometers, but sometimes there are lightnings up to fifty and even one hundred and fifty kilometers. The average discharge current is from 20 to 100 kiloamperes, but sometimes reaches 500 kiloamperes.

The average temperature of the lightning channel is 25000-30000 degrees Kelvin.

It is quite obvious that not a single, even super-powerful lightning could fuse the Tower of Babel into a single monolith. And even more so to destroy the temple adjacent to it, as well as the city of Babylon, located a dozen and a half kilometers from it, the circumference of which, according to the data specified by archaeologists, was 18 kilometers, and the thickness of the walls is estimated at 25 meters.

Pieter Brugel - THE TOWER OF BABYLON 1563
According to Herodotus, the city of Babylon was an almost regular quadrangle, and was located on both sides of the Euphrates River. Each side of this quadrangle was approximately 22 kilometers, and the thickness of the walls was 50 cubits (a cubit is about 52 cm), and six chariots in a row could simultaneously pass through them.

And the height of the walls, and it is almost impossible to believe, reached 100 meters. The walls of the city had 100 copper gates, and 250 towers rose on the walls themselves. The whole city was surrounded by a wide and deep moat.

In the middle of the second millennium BC, Babylon was the cultural, spiritual and political center of Chaldea, and one of the richest and most powerful cities in the entire Ancient World. It was the time of prosperity and greatness of Babylon. The city had the largest reserve of gold in the world, and nothing seemed to shake its power.

Contemporaries called it "beauty of Chaldea", "granary of Chaldea", "pride of Chaldea", "glory of kingdoms", "golden city". Biblical texts report that "Babylon was a golden cup in the hand of the Lord."

So what destroyed Babylon and melted the Tower of Babel to a glassy state?

There is no doubt that this monstrous temperature, which is comparable only to the heat of a nuclear explosion, arose as a result of a giant electric discharge explosion of a falling celestial body, the fiery column of which covered the temple tower, and the released energy of the discharge, in the form of a colossal power of the blast wave, fell on the city of Babylon, in a few minutes turning it into piles of ruins.

The death of the city was so terrible that the compilers of biblical texts find it difficult to select epithets to denote its terrible destruction.

Babylon, which was "a golden cup in the hand of the Lord," suddenly, in one day, "became a terror among the nations," "a deserted wilderness," a "heap of ruins," a "house of desolation," and a "dwelling of jackals."

This is what the biblical prophecies look like about the destruction of Babylon, which came true: “Behold, a fierce day comes, with anger and flaming fury, to make the earth a desert and destroy her sinners from it. The stars of heaven and the luminaries do not give light from themselves; the sun is darkened at its rising, and the moon does not shine with its light. I will punish the world for evil, and the wicked for their iniquities, and I will put an end to the arrogance of the proud, and I will humble the arrogance of the oppressors; ... For this I will shake the sky, and the earth will move from its place from the wrath of the Lord of Hosts, on the day of His burning wrath .... And Babylon, the beauty of kingdoms, the pride of the Chaldeans, will be overthrown by God, like Sodom and Gomorrah. It will never be inhabited, and in the generations of generations there will be no inhabitants in it. /Is. 13:9-11,13,19-20/

It must be said that the power of an electric discharge explosion of a large meteorite can amount to hundreds of thousands of megatons of TNT, which significantly exceeds the power of modern thermonuclear charges, so the death of Babylon surrounded by Cyclopean walls, with its giant ziggurats, as biblical texts testify, lasted less than one hour.

The city was literally swept off the face of the earth by a colossal blast wave, turning into huge mountains of charred rubble and debris.

The ruins of ancient Babylon are located on the banks of the Euphrates, about a hundred kilometers from the modern capital of Iraq, Baghdad, and after the explosion they were giant mountains of garbage and are located near the Arab settlement of Gillah that arose later.

The Arabs called these hills of rubble Amran ibn Ali, Babil, Jumjuma and Qasr.

The location of ancient Babylon was initially known to archaeologists, and some of them, including the successful Layard and Oppert, even made test excavations on its ruins, but realizing the huge amount of earthwork and the amount of money needed for this, did not dare to organize serious archaeological research.

And only at the very end of the nineteenth century, in the spring of 1899, the German archaeologist Robert Koldewey, having received a fabulous sum of half a million gold marks for the production of work, ventured to start excavations, of course not assuming that it would take him eighteen years to get to the ruins of the capital ancient Chaldea.

In order to carry out a volume of excavation work that had never been done before, he had to order a field railway from Germany and lay a railway track to the excavation site. It must be said that the railway was the first, and, it seems, the only time, used in archaeological work of this magnitude.

The thickness of the layer of earth, mixed with desert sand, ash and ash, over the ruins of Babylon exceeded ten meters, but hard work in the hellish conditions of the desert was rewarded with discoveries that brought Robert Koldewey well-deserved world fame.

Based on the excavations of the expedition of Robert Koldewey, it became possible to reproduce the reconstruction of Ancient Babylon, in the ruins of which, during the excavation of the gates of the goddess Ishtar, images of the syncretic animal “Sirrush” were found, consisting of parts of four syncretic animals: a fantastic quadrupedal animal, which could not be identified, an eagle, a snake and a scorpion, which allows us to consider it a prototype of the Great Sphinx.

Biblical texts call Babylon a city of sin and debauchery, but in fact it was a real city of the gods. Archaeologists have unearthed dozens of temples of the supreme god Marduk and hundreds of sanctuaries of other deities on its territory. For example, according to cuneiform texts, the city had "53 temples, 55 sanctuaries of the supreme god Marduk, 300 sanctuaries of earthly and 600 heavenly deities, 180 altars of Ishtar, 180 altars of Nergal and Adadi and 12 other altars."
But this did not save him from the fury of cosmic fire and flood.

Remains of the original Tower of Babel excavated by Robert Koldewey
It must be said that none of the researchers and archaeologists wants to pay attention to the fact that the ruins of Babylon, destroyed by an electric discharge explosion, were also flooded by the waters of Noah's flood.

Babylon, which was excavated by the workers of Koldevey, was a city built on the ruins of numerous, even more ancient buildings, but many years of attempts to get to these cultural layers were unsuccessful, groundwater constantly flooded the mines.

The catastrophe that destroyed Babylon undermined all the foundations of the Babylonian kingdom and caused its decline.

Historical documents absolutely accurately recorded the date that is considered the beginning of the Neo-Babylonian kingdom - 1596 BC. in modern chronology.
And this once again indicates that the death of the Old Babylonian kingdom was the result of a cosmic catastrophe in 1596 BC, which modern historians are not yet aware of.

Tower of Babel bible illustration by Gustave Dore

Subscribe to us

When the Spaniards conquered Central America, they were shocked by the "brutal" traditions of the locals. Most of all, the invaders were horrified, awe and disgusted by the numerous human sacrifices that the Aztecs made. For a long time, Spanish sailors talked about the nightmarish "towers of skulls" that the Native Americans built, replenishing the ossuaries after each ritual performed.

For a long time, the stories of the Spanish conquistadors about the "towers of skulls" were perceived by modern historians with a great deal of skepticism. The researchers believed that this was another "soldier's tale" and another convenient excuse for the invaders. However, recent archaeological excavations have confirmed that these towers really existed. Further research shed light on the terrible mystery.

An amazing (from the point of view of historiography) discovery was made in Mexico City. Thanks to her, it was possible to confirm the existence of one of the most cruel customs of the Aztecs. Excavations in the complex of religious buildings Templo Mayor began in 2015. It was there that scientists discovered hundreds of human skulls and continue to find them. Under the ground, two of the same “towers of skulls” were also found at once, which the pioneer conquerors told about.

Each tower is a cylindrical structure with a diameter of 5 meters and a height of at least 1.7 meters. Between them are tzompantli, a special structure on which the skulls were laid out before they were placed in the tower. Tzompantli is 35 meters long, 12-14 meters wide and 4-5 meters high. Most likely, the structures found were erected between 1486 and 1502.

The Aztecs believed that skulls were the seeds of life that ensured the continued existence of all mankind. In their society, skulls were treated approximately as modern people treat spring flowers, scientists are convinced. Representatives of the local cultures believed that the gods feed on sacrifices. Without them, the underworld would collapse. Therefore, to be on the sacrificial table (according to the Aztec beliefs) is a great honor, since the sacrificed person in the afterlife occupied a place of honor.

So far, 180 whole skulls have been found, as well as fragments from more than 2,000 human skulls. The vast majority - 75% belong to men aged 20 to 35 years. Scientists hope that the collected data will allow them to study the genetic diversity of Mexico during this period of history.