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The story of the Tower of Babel is told in the first book of the Old Testament of the Bible. After a great flood, some of Noah's descendants decided to build a city on the plains of southern Mesopotamiaarea between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, most of present-day Iraq with a tall tower reaching up into the heavens. Their plan was to gain recognition for themselves as a people and to be able to stay together. When God saw what they were doing, however, he concluded that they were trying to gain more power. To make planning difficult for them, he made them speak many different languages. Unable to communicate with each other at the building site, the people gave up the project and scattered to different lands. The remains of the city became known as Babel.

The story of the tower may have developed from the way that later visitors interpreted the ruins of the old...