Abstract

In this paper, starting from information in Voltaire Philosophical Dictionary, we deal with the question of the height of the biblical Tower of Babel. Using the decryption approach developed by us and applicable to many ancient numbers, the Tower of Babel turns out to be 20 meters or equivalently 54 remen higher than the Great Pyramid of Giza. Some relations with measures of the Great Pyramid are also considered.

Foreword

In this paper we will assume as true by default the following facts, discussed by this author in other published or under publication papers, see a list of 112 papers in Spedicato (2023):

• The Noachian Flood was a real event, taking place in the year 3161 BC.
• Noah survived the Flood building an ark on lake Manasarovar, close to Mount Kailash, presently Tibet, having being warned 112 years before the Flood by Enoch of the forthcoming catastrophe.
• The Flood was due to an unusually close passage of Mars, then in elliptic orbit that took it close to Earth: 55 times every 56 years before the Flood, 44 times every 54 years after the Flood, for a total of 99 passages; end of close passages due to a rounding of its orbit after interaction with Venus, whose orbit rounded as well.
• Before such close passages, Mars was a satellite of Earth revolving at about one million km, thus cycling around Earth 3 times a year, the 3 months in Censorinus before the 12 months associated to Moon. It lost gravitational tie with Earth when hit by Jovian material following the impact into Jupiter of the body, called Nibiru by Sumerians, that took place at 6910 BC. Such a body entered the solar system from outside and revolved around the Sun with a period of 20 years (crypted as 3600 years).
• In ancient traditions numbers often appear referring to times, lengths, age of persons, so large to appear impossible to accept them at face value. They correspond to information to be kept secret in the true values, to be given in a crypted form by multiplication by 180, thus generating the large numbers. Among such numbers the duration of the Sumerian kingdoms before the Flood, the Yugas, the length of Rama’s bridge, the height of Babel tower. See Spedicato (2016).
• Third millennium BC is a time of megalithic constructions throughout the whole world. It is known, see Thom (1955), O’ Brien (1983) et al, that megalithic constructions used generally three measure units, related among them in a nice geometric way: take a square whose side is the unit called remen, then its diagonal has the value of the royal cubit; consider a rectangle formed by two such squares having one side in common, then the diagonal of the rectangle is the megalithic yard.
• From thousands of measurements of megalithic monument, the royal cubit is estimated with four digits as 52.36 cm; dividing by the square root of 2 we get the remen value as 37.02 cm; the yard as the remen by the square root of 5 is about 83 cm. It is possible that the fundamental unit was originally the remen, of exactly 37 cm, assuming additionally that the unit that is our meter was already known, as some authors have proposed. In such a case the royal cubit would be obtained multiplying 37 by square root of 2, giving with four digits, 52.33, thus an error of only about 3 thousandths in the value obtained from experimental measures. Notice that 137 = 100 + 37 is exactly the inverse of the constant of fine structure in quantum physics, while 100/37 = 2.7027 is the Napier constant 2.7183 with an error of about one unit in the third digit. One wonders if such relations with two of the most important constants in physics and mathematics are just a coincidence. Additionally one can note, see Fiorini (2023), that 137 appears in measures of Chefren pyramid: its side height is twice 137 in royal cubits, its side basis is three times 137 in royal cubits.

The analysis presented here is not based upon extensive search of the literature, immense and not easily accessible, that deals with the Tower of Babel, including sources (Masoretic, Greek and Samaritan Bibles, Talmud, Mishna…) and the commentaries by Hebrew, Christian and other scholars. It develops a single statement found in Voltaire, complemented by some extra information, that leads to a possibly acceptable solution, with interesting relations to the Great Pyramid.

1 Introduction

One of the most intriguing biblical stories appears in Genesis, set after the Flood and before Abram moved from Haran to the land of Canaan. It is the story of men trying to build a very high tower, reaching heaven, an enterprise that failed due to a strange phenomenon, affecting their previous ability of talking a same language. At which stage the construction was abandoned and what happened to what had already been built is not given in the Bible. Here we use an information casually found in Voltaire to propose the height of the Tower; in following papers we discuss where and when it and by whom the Tower was built.

About half a century ago I bought an edition of the Philosophical Dictionary of Voltaire, published in Italian by Oscar Mondadori, 1970. I started to read it only recently. At page 102 I found statements about the Babel Tower. Here the words of Voltaire, my translation:

The enterprise took place at the time of a certain Phaleg, whose great-great-great -grandfather was good Noah… S. Jerome claims the height of the Tower was 20.000 feet… in the ancient book Jacult, written by one of the most cultured Hebrews, the height is declared as 81.000 Hebraic feet… the Hebraic foot being close to the Greek foot…

There are many values of the foot, changing between countries and ages, values that anyway would give for the Tower a height beyond human construction possibilities, at those times and even now. A foot of 30 cm and the lower estimate of Jerome would give a height of over 6 km; the value in Jacult would give an even more impossible 24.3 km. Below we show that using of the two numbers the one in Jacult and decrypting the value by the division by 180, a fact often necessary when dealing with ancient numbers as observed in the Foreword, then we get a reasonable height, interestingly related to the Great Pyramid measures.

The author of the Jacult book is not given in Voltaire. Having failed to find it in a quick search using Google, I contacted Anna Bacchi, a scholar of ancient Egypt. She put the question to an expert, Francesco Pastore, and I received the following email, mine the translation into English. To these scholars many thanks for their important contribution.

 Greetings to everyone,

considering text “Jacult” cited by Voltaire I refer to the following notes in translations from his Philosophical Dictionary. The one by Bompiani states:
«Jakult hatora, work of Simeon Ha-Darsham, Babilonian cabalist of first half IX-th century.»

The other by Newton Compton states:

«Real name Yalkut (Compilation), midrashic anthology of uncertain author, probably living in XIII-th cewntury.»

I prefer the note in Newton Compton, not being aware of works by Simeon Ha-Darsham titled Jakult hatora, I cannot understand where the note author found the reference, possibly he read uncorrectly Yahadut HaTorah (יַהֲדוּת הַתּוֹרָה), say Hebraism of Torah. Possibly he intended to refer to al Yalkut Shimoni (ילקוט שמעוני), say  Compilation (Simeon/Simon)? Text available at link:
https://www.sefaria.org/Yalkut_Shimoni_on_Torah?tab=contents

Cordial greetings to Anna and Emilio.   Francesco

In the next section we use the above numbers, 81.000 Hebraic feet and 70 miles, to derive the height of the Tower and to evidence astronomic-type connections with the Great Pyramid.

2 The height of the Tower of Babel and relations with measures of the Great Pyramid

My first assumption was that the numbers in Voltaire were another case of numbers crypted by multiplication by 180.  Indeed, while the Jerome number 20.000 is not divisible for 180, 81.000 is divisible (between 180 and 81.000 there are 450 numbers that are divisible by 180…):

81.000 : 180 = 450

Since the Hebraic foot does not appear to be a well-defined unit, I thought reasonable to select one of the three fundamental units in megalithic constructions. I choose the remen that is not only the fundamental unit, from which cubit and yard are geometrically derived, butt is the one closer to a Hebraic foot. For estimate of such a foot (or Mosaic cubit) at 29.2 cm see Barbiero’s analysis of the tent-temple built by Moses in the desert to keep the Ark of Alliance, Barbiero (2020).  With such a choice the height of the Tower is obtained in meters as

450 x 0.37 = 166.5

The height of the Great Pyramid is known to have been originally of 280 royal cubits, say in meters, using the values in Foreword,

280 x 52.33 = 146.5

Hence, under the above assumptions, the Tower of Babel was 20 meters higher than the Great Pyramid, later called GP. Here we can additionally note that within the VAHS astronomic scenario developed by this author and others, see Spedicato (2023), number 20 has an astronomic meaning, being the period of planet Nibiru before disappearing in a crash into Jupiter in the year 6910 BC, see Foreword.

We can explain the height of 70 miles in Pirkei De Rabbi Eliezer as follows. He may have seen the estimate of 81.000 units and thought that it was in meters (the meter as a secret unit appears to be behind many measures in Giza complex). Then he changed it in Hebraic miles, using the value of one mile equal to 1152 meters, obtaining 81.000/1152 = 70,31, rounded to 70.

To be noted some numbers of astronomic meaning:

• 280 is the product of 56 by 5, 56 being the period between two passages of Mars before Flood, see Foreword, and 5 the increase of number of days in the year after the Flood
• 280 royal cubits are equivalent, multiplying by the square root of 2, to, within a quite small error, to 396 remen (to 395,9788 using 6 digits for the square root). Thus the Tower was 54 remen higher than the GP, and 54 is another number of astronomic value, say the period between two passages of Mars after the Flood, see Foreword.

Another interesting relation probably existed between the height of the Tower and the side of the GP, in the sense of being the same number, albeit referring to a different unit of measure.

The height of the Tower has been derived above to be 450 remen. The GP has a square basis; the original sides had to be of equal length, not known exactly now from measurements, due to the damaged state of the pyramid. It is especially important the fact that the GP was once covered by hard and shining Tura stone, existing now only in the upper part of the Khafra pyramid. When the Tura stone cover was complete, it added to the measures of the sides. Notice that when the two pyramids, Cheops and Khafra, of similar height, were fully covered with Tura stone, they were shining greatly under the Egyptian sun, being visible from a hundred km distance.  The Hebraic name for Egypt, say Mizraim, a dual word, might mean the two white shining suns, MZ appearing in several languages associated to the color white.

The measured values of the sides at the basis are now about 230 meters. The GP natural measure is the royal cubit. 230 meters correspond, taking the royal cubit as 52.3 cm, to 439.8 cubits. This suggests that the original value was 440 cubits, implying a basis perimeter of 1760 cubits.  A remarkable result follows from the measures of the perimeter, 1760, and the height of the pyramid, 280: dividing 1760 by 289 gives to 6 digits 6, 28571 that is a very good approximation to twice the number π, say, to 6 digits, 6, 28318…

The question is: is it possible that the length of the sides was 450 cubits, hence the same as the height of the Tower albeit in a different unit? 5 cubits are lacking at both ends of the sides, say about 2.5 meters. Was it possible that the Tura stones used at the basis were of such thickness, 5 cubits, 5 being also a number of astronomic value, as noticed above?

If the Tower was built keeping in mind the GP, then the possibility may be considered that they had the same volume.  We evaluate this possibility assuming for the GP a perfect pyramidal shape, elevation 280 cubits, side 450.

The volume of the GP is calculated multiplying the height by the basis surface and dividing by three, say in cubits as VC:

VC = 280 x 450 x 450 / 3 = 1000 x 28 x 45 x 15 = 18.900.000

Or in remen, multiplying by the cube of the ratio cubit to remen, say the square root of 2, about 1.4142, whose cube is 2,828, as VR:

VR = 53.456.000

As a curiosity notice that the sum of the digits of VC is 18, which can be seen as the duration of the god wars in Tamil epics (it is 40 years in Vedic epics), or (here we conjecture, not having done the computation) the duration of the Metonic cycle before the Flood, when lunar months were 13, see Brunod (1997).  Notice also that VR is almost associated to another 54…

From the computed volume of the GP, assuming that it is equal to that of the Tower, and that the Tower had a cylindrical shape, height 450 remen, we derive the area A of the circular basis of the Tower as

A = 53.456.000 / 450 = 118,800 squared remen

Since A is the square of the radius r by  the radius Rr in remen is the square root of A divided by 3.141592, say of 37.815, giving Rr = 194, 46, or in meters Rm = 71.95.

The value Rm is very close to 72, another number with astronomic connections (number of years for the precession to advance one degree).

The Tower with an elevation of 166 meters and a diameter of 140 would look very massive, like the Hadrian mausoleum (height 48, diameter 64). Cylindrical shape for tower is common, it also characterizes monuments built in possible reference to visits by Solomon, say the Takht-e-Suleiman (in Iran, Pakistan, Central Asia…).

The hypothesis of a cylindrical shape giving a diameter of about 144 meters however cannot be accepted if, as seen in a next section, the circle appearing in Google Earth picture of Nazirabad corresponds to the Tower foundation, of diameter 180 cubits, say about 94 meters.

Conclusions

In this paper, starting from a statement in the book Jacult, we derive the height of the Tower of Babel as 20 meters more than the height of the Great Pyramid. We notice that numbers associated to such buildings, in units as remen, royal cubit, meter, have astronomic meaning, within the VAHS scenario of this author.

Acknowledgements

The author thanks Anna Bacchi, Francesco Pastore and Marco Fiorini for information and comments.

Bibliography

Barbiero F., Mishkan, il tempio-tenda di Mosè, Pontecorboli Editore, 2020

O’Brien C., The megalithic Odyssey, Wellingborough, 1983

Brunod G., Massi incise in Val Camonica, Quaderni di Natura Nostra, 1997

Fiorini M. V., Alcune curiosità sulla piramide di Chefren, preprint, 2023

Spedicato E., On the Decryption of Large Numbers in Asian Chronologies and Lengths, in Orienti, Maria Grazia Chiappori editor, Aracne, 2016

Spedicato E., The VAHS scenario (Velikovsky, Ackerman, Harris, Spedicato) on evolution of solar system in the last three myriads, Spedicato Official Website, 2023

Thom A., The megalithic unit of length, Journal of the Royal Society, A, 125, 1955

Autore: Emilio Spedicato – Formerly University of Bergamo emiliospedicato@gmail.com – www.emiliospedicato.it