"Samarra Minaret: Inspiration For Traditional Tower Of Babel?" Topic
7 Posts
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| Cacique Caribe | 04 Feb 2014 11:21 a.m. PST |
This is the medieval (848 AD) structure I mean:
Did illustrated bibles in medieval times pick up that spiral look as their model for how the Tower of Babel of ancient tradition looked? Thoughts? Dan |
nnascati  | 04 Feb 2014 1:01 p.m. PST |
No, more likely that structure took its inspiration from ancient Babylonian Ziggurats, which would probably be what the Tower od babel looked like. |
| Rrobbyrobot | 04 Feb 2014 2:30 p.m. PST |
That sure looks interesting. Thanks for posting it. |
| LORDGHEE | 04 Feb 2014 2:54 p.m. PST |
I think you are right Caribe. |
| Cacique Caribe | 04 Feb 2014 6:26 p.m. PST |
These spiraling Tower of Babel depictions look interestingly similar to the Samarra minaret:
Dan |
| LORDGHEE | 04 Feb 2014 9:48 p.m. PST |
and the what the real one probably looked like. link |
| Cacique Caribe | 05 Feb 2014 8:12 a.m. PST |
Nnascati, Lordghee, True. It had to have been a ziggurat, but that is not how Medieval and Renaissance illustrators chose to paint it. I'm not aware of any Medieval illustrators who knew about the actual historical ziggurat (square above square) shape:
And they did know of hollow straight-side towers, theirs and even Greek and Roman ones. Instead, they (among them Joachim Patinir, de Johnkheere, Pieter Breugel, Abel Grimmer, Athanasius Kircher and so many others) chose to depict the Tower of Babel as an usually solid conical cylinder (I'm emphasizing the ROUND footprint aspect), with a spiral staircase on the outside:
Ever wondered why? Dan |
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