to the number of thirty-one. Numerous other similar and more extensive
lists, enumerating every shrine and temple in the country, also exist,
though in a very imperfect state, and in addition to these, many holy
places are referred to in the bilingual, historical, and other
inscriptions. All the great cities of Babylonia, moreover, were sacred
places, the chief in renown and importance in later days being the
great city of Babylon, where E-sagila, "the temple of the high head,"
in which was apparently the shrine called "the temple of the
foundation of heaven and earth," held the first place. This building
is called by Nebuchadnezzar "the temple-tower of Babylon," and may
better be regarded as the site of the Biblical "Tower of Babel" than
the traditional foundation, E-zida, "the everlasting temple," in
Borsippa (the Birs Nimroud)--notwithstanding that Borsippa was called
the "second Babylon," and its temple-tower "the supreme house of
life."


The Tower of Babel.

Though quite close to Babylon, there is no doubt that Borsippa was a
most important religious centre, and this leads to the possibility,
that its great temple may have disputed with "the house of the high
head," E-sagila in Babylon, the honour of being the site of the
confusion of tongues and the dispersion of mankind. There is no doubt,
however, that E-sagila has the prior claim, it being the temple of the
supreme god of the later Babylonian pantheon, the counterpart of the
God of the Hebrews who commanded the changing of the speech of the
people assembled there. Supposing the confusion of tongues to have
been a Babylonian legend as well as a Hebrew one (as is possible) it
would be by command of Merodach rather than that of Nebo that such a