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Rubiks cube, pyramide humaine, personnalité, langue étrangère, 31 illustrations et cliparts de tour de babel.

Parcourez 31 des illustrations et graphiques haute résolution libres de droits disponibles tour de babel , ou utilisez les mots-clés babylone ou traduction pour trouver plus d’images et d’illustrations d’exception.

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The Tower of Babel in Art and Literature (6 Examples)

Explaining the existence and diversity of languages spoken around the globe, the Tower of Babel is an origin story that resounds throughout history, art, and literature.

The story of the Tower of Babel is told in the Book of Genesis 11:1-9, offering a parabolic, aetiological explanation as to why so many diverse languages are spoken around the world – and why, as a result, speakers of different languages struggle to communicate with each other. Originally, the world was monolingual. As the people migrate eastward, they come to the land of Shinar (southern Mesopotamia), where they resolve to build a city and tower that will reach up to the heavens. Yahweh, however, foils their plans by scattering them across the earth and confounding their language so that they can no longer understand each other and thus cannot continue building the tower. In doing so, a polyglottal humanity is born. It is a powerful origin story that has resonated with writers and artists throughout the ages. Here, we look at six examples of works of art and literature inspired by the Tower of Babel.

1. Folio 17v, The Bedford Hours (c. 1410-30)

Within the Roman Catholic faith, books of prayer for certain canonical times of day are known as books of hours. Manuscript examples from the Middle Ages are often lavishly illuminated , and few more so than The Bedford Hours , which boasts more than 1,200 historiated roundels.

The Bedford Hours was originally created to mark the wedding of Anne of Burgundy and John, Duke of Bedford (which, of course, is where the manuscript’s name is derived) on May 13th, 1423. On Christmas Eve 1430, however, Anne of Burgundy gifted the precious manuscript to the nine-year-old King Henry VI, her nephew.

Within a series of miniatures depicting scenes from the Book of Genesis, on Folio 17v of the Bedford Hours, the concurrent construction and divine demolition of the Tower of Babel is depicted in a full-page miniature. Laborers continue working on the construction of the tower, and Nimrod and his retinue come to survey their work (a scene taken from Flavius Josephus’ Antiquities of the Jews , perhaps, rather than the Book of Genesis, in which Nimrod is not mentioned). All the while, however, divine forces are working against them. Thus, the image underlines the warning against greed and megalomania, as stated in the Book of Genesis.

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Please check your inbox to activate your subscription, 2. james joyce, finnegans wake (1939).

Published in 1939, Finnegans Wake is a monumental work within literary modernism. Deeply experimental and, according to some at least, near impenetrable in its linguistic idiosyncrasies, it is also a self-conscious inheritor of the legacy of the fall of the Tower of Babel: namely, the confusion of tongues. “The word ‘Babel’ is,” according to Jesse Schotter, “referred to at least twenty-one times in the Wake.” James’ preoccupation with the infamous tower is signaled from the very beginning of the novel, as “Finnegan’s fall” echoes “the fall of the Tower of Babel,” or, as Joyce refers to it, the “baubletop” (see Further Reading, Schotter, 89; Joyce, 5).

The confusion of tongues was a concern shared by many others besides Joyce in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It was, after all, during this time that so-called “universal languages” were being invented, including Basic English, Novial, Volapuk, Istotype, and, most famously perhaps, Esperanto .

Like these “universal languages,” Joyce incorporates elements of tens of languages into Finnegans Wake – and, in earlier drafts of the novel, he even incorporated some Esperanto . If, however, these “universal languages” were attempts to overcome the confusion of tongues that resulted from the fall of the Tower of Babel, Joyce resists such attempts in his novel, reveling instead in the rich, polyglot cacophony that resulted from the fall of the “turrace of Babbel” (see Further Reading, Joyce, 199).

Joyce was skeptical of attempts to recover or return to a supposedly “pure” language that predated not only the fall of the Tower of Babel but the fall of man, too. In Finnegans Wake , as Schotter observes: “Joyce provides in his own version of a universal language not the solution to the problem of Babel but Babel itself” (see Further Reading, Schotter, 100).

3. Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The (Great) Tower of Babel and The (Little) Tower of Babel

That the Tower of Babel exercises a fascination over the cultural imagination is especially true of Pieter Bruegel the Elder . Such was his obsession with the Tower of Babel that he painted it not once, not twice, but three times. The (Great) Tower of Babel and The (Little) Tower of Babel , however, are the only two pieces to survive, as the earliest piece of the three (a miniature painted on ivory) is lost. It has been suggested that Bruegel’s fascination was linked to the Reformation and the resultant rift between the Catholic Church (in which services were in Latin) and Protestantism.

Though The (Little) Tower of Babel is roughly half the size of The (Great) Tower of Babel , at first glance, the two paintings seem compositionally very similar, both depicting the construction of the Tower of Babel, the structure that dominates both paintings.

In addition, the two towers are architecturally very similar, evoking (according to John Malam) the Roman Colosseum. Just as the Colosseum had once seemed to depict the might of the Roman Empire, it now stands as a reminder of the ultimate transience of even once-powerful empires, and so the likeness Bruegel draws between the Colosseum and the Tower of Babel is apt. Both towers are also tilted and therefore unstable: in both paintings, the foundations are shown to be weak and the tower itself crumbling in places.

However, where The (Great) Tower of Babel is set on the edge of a cityscape, The (Little) Tower of Babel is surrounded on three sides by open countryside. Moreover, in The (Great) Tower of Babel, Nimrod and his entourage make an appearance (just as they do in Folio 17v of The Bedford Hours ), while The (Little) Tower of Babel is eerily devoid of human figures.

4. Jorge Luis Borges, “The Library of Babel” (1941)

“La Biblioteca de Babel” (The Library of Babel) is a 1941 short story by the acclaimed Argentinian writer and librarian Jorge Luis Borges. The story is set, as Borges’ narrator explains, in a universe that consists of an enormous library “composed of an indefinite and perhaps infinite number of hexagonal galleries” (see Further Reading, Borges, 78).

Though the vast majority of the books in each room are compositionally formless and incoherent, among the shelves are also all the coherent books ever written. These books, however, are few and far between, and “for every sensible line of straightforward statement, there are leagues of senseless cacophonies, verbal jumbles and incoherences” (see Further Reading, Borges, 80). As for the books that are seemingly incoherent, the narrator suggests that some may only seem incoherent because a language in which they would become legible has yet to be devised.

As things stand, however, this means that the books are useless, much to the despair of the librarians in this universe. While some librarians are driven to destroy incoherent books (though the library is so vast that “any reduction […] is infinitesimal”), one “blasphemous sect” suggests “that all men should juggle letters and symbols until,” by chance, they re-produce the much longed for coherent, canonical books – thus exacerbating the original problem (see Further Reading, Borges, 83). Other librarians, however, seek a book that might provide an index or compendium for the library’s collection, devised by a quasi-messianic librarian (the Man of the Book) who has gone through the library archives.

The story can be read in light of Borges’ 1939 essay “La Biblioteca Total” (The Total Library). Here, Borges makes an explicit reference to Borel’s infinite monkey theorem, to which he only obliquely alludes in “The Library of Babel.”

5. Lucas van Valckenborch, La Tour de Babel, 1594

Lucas van Valckenborch the Elder was a contemporary of Pieter Bruegel the Elder and, like Bruegel, he painted the Tower of Babel more than once. Before his 1594 painting, he also produced a painting of the Tower of Babel in 1568 and then went on to produce another in 1595. All three seem to be influenced by Bruegel’s works, though this is especially true of the 1568 and 1594 paintings. Also, like Bruegel, van Valckenborch drew inspiration from the Roman Colosseum in constructing his own Tower of Babel.

It is perhaps little wonder, however, that van Valckenborch was drawn to painting the Tower of Babel just as Bruegel was. As a contemporary of Bruegel, he was responding to many of the same historical events, including the fallout of the Reformation. Against this backdrop of religious strife within Western Christianity, the Catholic Church was also embarking on a series of major construction projects, including St. Peter’s Basilica.

If van Valckenborch sought to draw a parallel between the Catholic Church’s construction projects and the Tower of Babel in his paintings, the parallel would imply an indictment of the Catholic Church. And, as van Valckenborch and his brother and fellow artist Marten fled Antwerp (just as the figures in the foreground of his 1594 painting appear to be fleeing Babylon before the fire spreads) in the wake of the Beeldenstorm of 1566 before eventually taking refuge in Germany, it is thought that he was in all likelihood a Protestant .

6. A.S. Byatt, Babel Tower (1996)

Published in 1996, A.S. Byatt’s Babel Tower is her third novel focusing on the life of Frederica Potter. When Nigel, Frederica’s affluent and sadistic husband, attacks her with an axe, she flees their marital home with their young son, Leo, and moves to London. She finds employment as a teacher in an art school and mixes with poets, painters, and Jude Mason, a novelist whose latest work is being put on trial. When Nigel files for divorce, the two legal battles play out in tandem.

At the heart of Babel Tower is the question of language and the ways in which it can both facilitate and frustrate communication. During her divorce proceedings, Frederica’s literary tastes are weaponized against her, as her husband’s lawyers seek to convince the jury that a reading woman cannot a good mother make. Nor does the jury believe that Nigel attacked her with an axe. In this way, Byatt flags up the wiliness of the language of the law court.

Meanwhile, Jude’s novel, Babbletower, is on trial for obscenity. The suffering of the heroine of Babbletower , Lady Roseace, mirrors that of Frederica. Yet where the Jury seem inclined to view Frederica’s trauma as fiction, they view Jude’s fiction as pornography .

As the above examples attest, the story of the Tower of Babel has had a lasting hold on our collective cultural imagination. On a broader scale, it speaks to our sense of global fragmentation, and, within our private lives and personal relationships, it reminds us of the treachery of language, which is at once our primary means of communication and yet fraught with the latent danger of miscommunication. As such, it seems more than likely that the Tower of Babel will maintain its firm grip on the cultural imagination for many years to come.

Further Reading:

Borges, Jorge Luis, “The Library of Babel,” trans. by James E. Irby, Labyrinths: Selected Stories and Other Writings , ed. by Donald A. Yates and James E. Irby (London: Penguin, 2000), pp. 78-86.

Byatt, A.S., Babel Tower (London: Vintage, 1997).

Joyce, James, Finnegans Wake (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).

Malam, John, Pieter Bruegel (Minneapolis, MN: Carolrhoda Books, 1999).

Schotter, Jesse, “Verbivocovisuals: James Joyce and the Problem of Babel,” James Joyce Quarterly , 48, 1 (2010), 89-109.

6 Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts That Will Amaze You

By Catherine Dent MA 20th and 21st Century Literary Studies, BA English Literature Catherine holds a first-class BA from Durham University and an MA with distinction, also from Durham, where she specialized in the representation of glass objects in the work of Virginia Woolf. In her spare time, she enjoys writing fiction, reading, and spending time with her rescue dog, Finn.

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The Tower of Babel

Pieter bruegel the elder's dizzying details.

By Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen

Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen

The Tower of Babel (circa 1568) by Pieter Bruegel the Elder Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen

This painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (c. 1526/30-1569) depicts the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9). Noah's descendants constructed this tower to get as close as possible to the heavens and God. However, God saw this work as a sign of vanity. To punish them, he made the builders speak different languages, so that they could no longer communicate. In this painting, Bruegel does not focus so much on the biblical tale as on the construction of the tower. He clearly shows thousands of people toiling away.

Beside the tower, Bruegel depicts a bustling port where boats have just finished unloading their cargo of building materials. This must have been a very familiar scene for Bruegel who lived for many years in Antwerp and watched it develop in the 16th century into one of the most important port cities in Western Europe.

A crane with a large wheel is being used to lift goods out of the boats. The wheel works like a hamster wheel turned by the force of the workers walking inside it which, in turn, turns the crane. Similar cranes were used in the port of Antwerp in the 16th century.

Not all the building materials are transported by boat. We can clearly see how the stone is being cut in the surrounding landscape. A nearby river provides the clay to make bricks.

The building materials are lifted using the cranes.

The dust from the red bricks and the white lime has left two red and white marks on the tower. The falling dust has covered the workers and lifting equipment the same colour.

Construction at the top of the tower is in full swing, the tower has already broken through the clouds. The new bricks are still bright red. Due to the lengthy construction process, the bricks of the lower levels already have a grey tinge. We can make out a system of corridors up high, but no more lodgings seem to be under construction suggesting that this system is only being used to build higher.

The biblical tower was probably inspired by the by the great Babylon "ziggurat". At the top of the enormous complex, with a square base thought to measure 91 meters and a total height of 91 meters, was a temple reached by steps and a ramp running the length of the façade. This construction had long disappeared by the 16th century, but descriptions had been kept from which Bruegel got his architectural inspiration.

The Colosseum in Rome must have made a great impression on Bruegel. Little after 1550, he went on a study voyage through Italy and France. Bruegel is thought to have painted a smaller version of The Tower of Babel on ivory whilst in the Eternal City which, sadly, no longer exists.

The round shape of Bruegel's tower, which contrasts with the square shaped ziggurat design, was not the only element inspired by the Colosseum, Bruegel also copied the Roman monument's arches.

The flat landscape in which Bruegel has set his tower is typical of the Netherlands. He has even put a crow-stepped gable on one of the watchtowers. A keen-eyed viewer will note that Bruegel always adds such little details to his works.

On the third level, for example, a procession is underway. Under the red canopy, a cleric is walking holding a monstrance, a vessel for communion wafers made of precious metal.

Bruegel painted several versions of The Tower of Babel. This version puts particular emphasis on the construction process. The tower takes up nearly the whole scene, with virtually no reference being made to the biblical tale. Bruegel worked in great detail; this painting depicts more than 1,000 characters.

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La tour de Babel : ce que l’archéologie révèle du mythe

Notre imaginaire s’est nourri du récit de la genèse, qui popularisa cette construction aussi démesurée que l’orgueil des hommes qui l’édifièrent. et si cette tour ne relevait pas que du mythe .

Au cœur de la ville de Babylone, entre le début du 6e et le début du 5e siècle av. J.-C., se dressa dans toute sa majesté l’un des monuments les plus célèbres de l’Antiquité : la tour à étages, ou ziggourat, dédiée au dieu principal de la ville, Bêl-Marduk, et acco­lée au temple où résidait sa statue de culte, l’Esagil.

La ziggourat elle-même portait un nom distinct en langue sumérienne : Etemenanki, c’est-à-dire le « temple fondement du ciel et de la terre ». Elle illustrait la force symbolique de sa situation, au milieu de la ville qui était elle-même centre de l’univers, comme un pivot reliant la terre et ses tréfonds au ciel, résidence des dieux du panthéon mésopotamien. La date de l’édification initiale de l’Etemenanki reste matière à conjectures. Il faut attendre en fait une date assez tardive, à la fin du 2e millénaire, pour en trouver une mention écrite.

On situe vers le 12e siècle av. J.-C. la mise en forme d’une liste lexicale en écriture cunéiforme, appelée Tintir (l’un des noms sumériens de Babylone), qui enregistre les éléments marquants de la topo­graphie de la ville et cite, dans sa quatrième tablette, la ziggourat en seconde position, juste après l’Esagil. Et ce n’est que dans une inscription du roi assy­rien Sennachérib (704-681) que l’on voit l’Etemenanki cité dans un contexte historique précis, celui de la destruction que le roi ordonne des monuments de Babylone en 689 av. J.-C., pour la punir de s’être rebellée contre lui.

UN MILLE-FEUILLE ARCHITECTURAL 

Selon les résultats des fouilles archéologiques alle­mandes menées au début du 20e siècle à Baby­lone, l’Etemenanki a compté trois strates successives de construction : une première structure, sur une base carrée de 65 mètres de côté, recouverte par une deuxième, établie sur un carré de 73 mètres de côté, qui fut porté à 91 mètres pour la troisième. Les spécialistes discutent encore sur l’attribution de ces différents niveaux de construction, un consensus se dégageant pour faire de la dernière structure l’œuvre des rois assyriens Assarhaddon (680-669) et Assurbanipal (668-630), achevée par les rois babyloniens Nabopolassar (626-605) et Nabuchodonosor II (604-562). C’est donc le deuxième état qui aurait été détruit en 689 av. J.-C. par Sennachérib, avant de faire l’objet d’une magnifique restauration.

La question de la hauteur et de l’organisation architecturale de la ziggourat fait encore débat, puisque rien n’a été retrouvé à Babylone de l’Etemenanki, si ce n’est sa plate-forme de fondation, établie effectivement sur une base d’à peu près 90 mètres de ­côté. Il existe deux thèses. La première s’appuie sur les données métrologiques fournies par une tablette cunéiforme, appelée « tablette de ­l’Esagil ». Rédi­gée en 229 av. J.-C., elle donne les dimensions de plusieurs bâtiments du sanctuaire de Marduk à Babylone, dont l’Etemenanki : la base de la ziggourat s’inscrit dans un carré de 90 mètres de côté et compte 6 étages, couronnés par un temple haut appelé ­šahuru.

Le premier étage est haut de 33 mètres, le ­deuxième, de 18 mètres, et chaque étage suivant s’élève à 6 mètres. Le šahuru mesure quant à lui 15 mètres de haut. La hauteur de l’ensemble s’établit donc à 90 mètres, et la tour à étages se présente comme une pyramide parfaite, s’inscrivant dans un cube aux arêtes de 90 mètres.

L’iconographie d’une stèle de pierre provenant vraisemblablement de Babylone conforte ces données : elle repré­sente une ziggourat de 6 étages avec un temple au sommet. La seconde thèse reprend certains éléments de la tablette de l’Esagil, mais elle prend en compte les contraintes matérielles ­qu’entraîne une construction faite, pour l’essentiel, de briques d’argile séchées au soleil, dont les différents lits sont renforcés par des nattes de roseaux et par du bitume. Seul le pare­ment extérieur de l’Etemenanki semble avoir été fait de briques cuites, certaines vernissées en bleu. Il existe, de ce fait, de réelles difficultés pour édifier, avec ce type de structure architecturale, un bâtiment aussi élevé par rapport à une base de 90 mètres de côté.

La tablette de ­l’Esagil mentionnerait donc des éléments réels et d’autres relevant d’une numération ésotérique ; la véri­table hauteur de la tour aurait été, pour des raisons de stabilité, dans une proportion de deux tiers par rapport au côté du carré de base, c’est-à-dire environ 60 mètres.

La fonction de l’Etemenanki, comme celle de toutes les ziggourats de Mésopotamie, était de fournir, par son sanctuaire sommital, un complément au temple du bas, l’Esagil, où résidait le dieu Marduk. Les indications de la tablette de l’Esagil sont, de ce point de vue, très précises : le temple du sommet comprenait une entrée et une cage d’escalier menant probablement à une terrasse, une cour centrale de 65 mètres carrés et 7 pièces qui servaient de chapelle aux divinités : celle du dieu Marduk, probablement partagée avec Zarpanitu (ou Beltiya), son épouse divine, était la plus grande, avec 48 mètres carrés.

Le dieu disposait aussi d’une chambre à coucher de 37,5 mètres carrés, pourvue d’un lit majestueux de 4,5 mètres de long sur 2 mètres de large. Son père, le dieu Ea, occupait une chapelle à laquelle était associée une autre pièce pour son vizir, le dieu Nusku. Les anciens chefs du panthéon suméro-akkadien, les dieux Anu et Enlil, auxquels Marduk avait succédé comme roi des dieux, avaient droit à une chapelle commune, tandis que le fils de Marduk, le dieu Nabu, et son épouse, la déesse Tašmetu, occupaient chacun une chapelle de 18 mètres carrés. C’est donc l’élite du panthéon mésopotamien, depuis le 3e millénaire sumérien jusqu’à l’état du 1er millénaire, qui était logée au sommet de la ziggourat et qui y recevait un culte lié aux aspects célestes de ces divinités.

Les rituels qui s’y déroulaient n’ont pas été conservés, mais devaient certainement inclure des invocations aux étoiles, dans lesquelles s’incarnaient ces dieux. Ainsi, la fonction de la ziggourat et de son temple était avant tout religieuse, et ces deux édifices constituaient un espace sacré accessible seulement aux erib biti, les prêtres consacrés du temple. Les activités astronomiques et astrologiques, auxquelles se livraient les lettrés et les savants de Babylone, ne se déroulaient donc pas au sommet de l’Etemenanki, même si le sanctuaire de Marduk patronnait leurs activités et en conservait les écrits dans sa bibliothèque.

VICTIME D'UNE LENTE DÉCHÉANCE 

Quelle que soit sa hauteur, la ziggourat de ­Babylone était sans doute le monument le plus spectaculaire de la ville, visible à des dizaines de kilomètres de distance dans la vaste plaine de Mésopotamie centrale. Elle témoignait de la présence de Marduk dans sa cité et de la protection qu’il étendait sur elle. Elle indiquait aussi l’endroit symbolique où se trouvait le centre de l’univers, selon la vision mésopotamienne du monde. Il n’est donc pas étonnant que les gens du pays de Juda, qui furent déportés en Babylonie à partir, surtout, de 587 av. J.-C., aient été impressionnés par cet édifice d’un style totalement inconnu à Jérusalem.

La Bible, qui connut à ce moment sa première véritable mise en forme, intégra donc la « tour de Babel » dans le récit de la Genèse, à la suite de l’épisode du Déluge. Elle en fit une marque de l’impossibilité pour l’humanité d’atteindre les cieux, malgré ses efforts pour bâtir un monument d’une élévation inédite. Et la situation contemporaine de Babylone, capitale cosmopolite d’un empire qui couvrait alors tout le Proche-Orient, illustrait bien la diversité des langues qui fut la conséquence de l’échec de l’entreprise.

Au-delà de ce mythe de la tour de Babel, la ziggourat de Babylone connut des vicissitudes que n’avait pas prévues Nabuchodonosor II lorsqu’il en paracheva le dernier état. La conquête de l’empire de Babylone par les Perses en 539 av. J.-C. entraîna l’abandon progressif des bâti­ments religieux. La fragilité des constructions en briques crues fit que la tour se dégrada très vite. Les révoltes de Babylone contre le roi perse Xerxès en 484 av. J.-C. accélérèrent le désintérêt pour les monuments de la métropole méso­potamienne.

Lorsqu’Alexandre le Grand pénétra dans Babylone en octobre 331, l’Esagil et l’Etemenanki étaient en triste état, et le Conquérant décida de les restaurer. Mais son absence puis sa mort en 323 av. J.-C firent que les travaux n’avancèrent que très lentement. En fait, après l’enlèvement des déblais qui s’accumulaient sur la ziggourat, la restauration prévue ne fut jamais achevée. Le monument fut peu à peu désacralisé pour deve­nir, au fil des siècles, une carrière de briques ; celles-ci servirent à bâtir les maisons des villages qui s’implantèrent à l’emplacement de Babylone, quand la ville disparut dans les premiers siècles de l’ère chrétienne ; d’autres furent utilisées pour enrichir la terre des champs avoisinants.

Au bout du processus, il ne demeura plus que l’empreinte de l’Etemenanki, un carré marécageux de 90 mètres de côté, pourtant encore bien visi­ble sur les photos satellite. 

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