athanasius kircher turris babel (1679)
TRANSCRIPT
Athanasius Kircher: Turris Babel
(1679)EN 1679, THE JESUIT SCHOLAR AND POLYGRAPH - "THE MAN WHO KNEW EVERYTHING" - ATHANASIUS KIRCHER (1602-1680), published in Amsterdam his study of the Tower of Babel. The work meets all the topics demanded an encyclopedic genius Kircher in Baroque: a strong and detailed descriptive character, ability to synthesize and harmonize authorities -the heart of the matter is San Augustine and some scientific tone in the analysis of languages and, above all, his theories about the native language or Adamic.
The task was not easy when you consider he had to combine their own theories about the Oriental languages, which had already charted both in China Illustrata ( China shown) , as in the Œdipus
Ægypciacus ( Egyptian Oedipus ), combine them with the authority of the sources of the Fathers of the Church of Hippo -Agustín at all-, and create a relatively original work -the originality as such is a modern- tomes problem before the likes ofPhaleg seu Dispersione gentium et terrarum facta in ædificatione turris Babel ( Phaleg or dispersion of peoples and countries occurred in the building of the Tower of Babel ) that Samuel Bochart was published in 1651 .
Anyway, we'll leave for another day the complex and tortuous path through the idea of the Tower of Babel, the confusion of languages and the identification of the original language during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in Europe. Today I wanted to go up to your enjoyment precious and detailed
engravings of the work of Kircher. Find the bottom of each image a description of it, in some I've entertained in Google Books looking for a brief description-not decimonónicos texts me wonder why, but I'm fascinated encyclopedias and studies XIX, plagued occasions fantasy, errors and so on. I hope you enjoy the images and links that I added below.
Cover of the work of Kircher.
Corografía of Mount Ararat.
Kircher demonstration of how out of gravity preclude the Tower of Babel came to the lunar sky. Note the Kircher own:
Divisimus altitudinem Lunam Turris ad usque in 5 parts; Quatrum unaquæque continet 50 semidiameters globi terreni, 2 iuxta semidiameters distantiam LUNAE a terre next 52 semidiametrum geocosmi center; unde luculententer concluditur globum terrestrem Turris weigh extracentrum motum fuisse both quantu spatio inter est intercapedo O. and N. Videbis pariter balloon terrae pondus Turris ML æquilibratum multum excessisse pondus globi terræ.
After the demonstration a rough picture of the Tower of Babel to "actual size".
The city of Nineveh, in the center the royal palace, to the right the royal tomb.
Description of the Tower of Babel to bring closer the text of Herodotus. According to the Greek historian, the tower was composed of seven towers:Many have believed that the tower was in Babylon Belo, whose description has given us Herodotus was the same as that of Babel, that tells us Moses.The Herodotus was composed of eight towers, one above the other, which from the first were decreasing in thickness up to the second season.The first tower had a stadium or one hundred twenty five paces long foursquare or width and length. Herodotus does not tell us the extent of the other towers. At the top of the latter was the temple of Belo. But we have no evidence that
this tower is that Noah's sons began, not ended.(Augustine Calmet, History of Old and New Testament and the Jews , Madrid: The press of administration Real Discretion, 1806, p 43.)
View of the tower, city and walls of Babylon.
The arts were practiced in Assyria and Babylonia since ancient times. Diodorus speaks of animal figures in relief …… ;and painted so that seemed alive. Amid he looked to the Queen who tamed a lion. Belo
statues of Nino and Semíramis were bronze.Joaquín Bastús, Historical Dictionary Encyclopedic , Barcelona: The press of Rock Street Libreteria, 1833, t. II, p. 353 col. B.
The Hanging Gardens of Babylon Queen Semiramis:
its foundation is attributed to Semiramis, Cyrus or
Nebuchadnezzar; and it is known that the latter king built for his wife with the spoils from the conquest of Judea. He has not missed who believed the existence of these fabulous gardens; but examining the texts of Quintus Curtius, Strabo or Diodorus, though these texts are not very clear, it follows that they were a colossal, ingeniously conceived work; but by no means impossible, or more company factory pyramids of Egypt.Roque Barcia, First general dictionary of the Spanish language , Madrid: typesetter Establishment of Hermanos Alvarez, 1851, t. 3., p. 234 sv "hanging gardens of Babylon."
The citadel of Semiramis:
Ephesus was the pentacle of the moon, which was the Temple of Diana Panthea, built in the likeness of the universe. There was a dome that crowned a cross, with a square gallery and a circular enclosure. In the middle of the square it rose a truncated pyramid, subre which had a carriage with four horses harnessed to form a cross. The Pyramids were the Hermes or Mercury Pentacle.The Olympic Jupiter was the pentacle of that god.The walls of Babylon and the citadel of Semiramis were Pentacles Mars. Finally, the Temple of Solomon-the universal and absolute pentacle intended to replace the others was, for the Gentile world, the terrible Pentacle of Saturn.
Eliphas Levi, History of Magic: with a clear and precise statement of its procedures, rites and mysteries , Editorial Kier, 1988, p. 107
Garden of Semiramis.
Egyptian funerary pyramid, in the background the Nile with the city of Memphis and Heliopolis.
Elephantine temple monolith:
The Egyptians were excellent diamond polishers, and this skill took great match for solidly lift these giant monuments that decorate the deserts of the ancient kingdom of the Pharaohs, and that seem to defy the
wrath of ages and destructive tendencies of man; and history remembers that King Amatis did draw near the elephantine city a monolith temple thirty feet long, twenty wide and twelve lift, which was carved in the granite rock red abundant in the low Egypt.Rafael Hernández Gutiérrez, Religion and Fine Arts , Caracas: Printing the future, 1867, 16.
Comparison of this the following of the huge superiority of the Egyptians about the Greeks in the construction of mazes and image.
The Colossus of Rhodes.
View of the ruins of the Tower of Babel.