Editing Tower of Babel (section)

==Comparable myths==
{{See also|Comparative mythology|Mythical origins of language}}

=== Greco-Roman parallel ===
[[File:Foster Bible Pictures 0005-1.jpg|thumb|Building of Babel]]
In [[Greek mythology]], much of which was adopted by the [[Roman mythology|Romans]], there is a myth referred to as the [[Giants (Greek mythology)#The Gigantomachy|Gigantomachy]], the battle fought between the Giants and the Olympian gods for supremacy of the cosmos. In [[Ovid]]'s telling of the myth, the Giants attempt to reach the gods in heaven by stacking mountains, but are repelled by [[Jupiter (mythology)|Jupiter]]'s thunderbolts. A.S. Kline translates Ovid's ''[[Metamorphoses]]'' 1.151–155 as:<ref>{{cite web |title=Metamorphoses (Kline) 1, the Ovid Collection, Univ. Of Virginia E-Text Center |url=https://ovid.lib.virginia.edu/trans/Metamorph.htm#488381096}}</ref>

{{Blockquote|text=Rendering the heights of heaven no safer than the earth, they say the giants attempted to take the Celestial kingdom, piling mountains up to the distant stars. Then the all-powerful father of the gods hurled his bolt of lightning, fractured Olympus and threw Mount Pelion down from Ossa below.}}

=== Mexico ===
Various traditions similar to that of the tower of Babel are found in Latin America. Some writers{{Who|date=October 2017}} connected the [[Great Pyramid of Cholula]] to the Tower of Babel. The [[Dominican friar]] [[Diego Durán]] (1537–1588) reported hearing an account about the pyramid from a hundred-year-old priest at Cholula, shortly after the [[conquest of the Aztec Empire]]. He wrote that he was told when the light of the Sun first appeared upon the land, giants appeared and set off in search of the Sun. Not finding it, they built a tower to reach the sky. An angered God of the Heavens called upon the inhabitants of the sky, who destroyed the tower and scattered its inhabitants. The story was not related to either a flood or the confusion of languages, although Frazer connects its construction and the scattering of the giants with the Tower of Babel.<ref name="Frazer, 1918 p. 5">{{cite book |last1=Frazer |first1=James George |author-link1=James George Frazer |url=https://archive.org/stream/folkloreinoldte00frazgoog#page/n380/mode/2up |title=Folk-lore in the Old Testament: Studies in Comparative Religion, Legend and Law |date=1919 |publisher=Macmillan |location=London |pages=362–387}}</ref>

Another story, attributed by the native historian [[Fernando de Alva Cortés Ixtlilxóchitl]] (c. 1565–1648) to the ancient [[Toltecs]], states that after men had multiplied following a great deluge, they erected a tall ''zacuali'' or tower, to preserve themselves in the event of a second deluge. However, their languages were confounded and they went to separate parts of the Earth.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxóchitl |url=http://letras-uruguay.espaciolatino.com/aaa/cervantes_javier/fernando_de_alva.htm#_ftnref4 |access-date=2018-10-24 |website=letras-uruguay.espaciolatino.com}}</ref>

===Arizona===
Still another story, attributed to the [[Tohono O'odham people]], holds that [[Montezuma (mythology)|Montezuma]] escaped a great flood, then became wicked and attempted to build a house reaching to heaven, but the Great Spirit destroyed it with thunderbolts.<ref>[[Hubert Howe Bancroft|Bancroft]], vol. 3, p.&nbsp;76.</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Farish |first=Thomas Edwin |url=http://southwest.library.arizona.edu/hav7/body.1_div.17.html |title=History of Arizona, Volume VII |date=1918 |location=Phoenix |pages=309–310 |access-date=5 March 2014}}</ref>

===Nepal===
Traces of a somewhat similar story have also been reported among the [[Tharu people|Tharu]] of [[Nepal]] and northern [[India]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Beverley |first1=H. |url=https://archive.org/stream/in.ernet.dli.2015.94529/2015.94529.Report-On-The-Census-Of-Bengal1872#page/n207/mode/2up |title=Report on the Census of Bengal |date=1872 |publisher=Bengal Secretariat Press |location=Calcutta |page=160}}</ref>{{explain|date=March 2020}}

===Botswana===
According to [[David Livingstone]], the people he met living near [[Lake Ngami]] in 1849 had such a tradition, but with the builders' heads getting "cracked by the fall of the scaffolding".<ref name="Livingstone1858">{{cite book |author=David Livingstone |url=https://archive.org/details/missionarytrave01livigoog |title=Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa |publisher=Harper & Brothers |year=1858 |page=[https://archive.org/details/missionarytrave01livigoog/page/n601 567]}}</ref>

===Other traditions===
In his 1918 book, ''[[Folklore in the Old Testament Studies in Comparative Religion Legend and Law|Folklore in the Old Testament]]'', Scottish social anthropologist Sir [[James George Frazer]] documented similarities between Old Testament stories, such as the Flood, and indigenous legends around the world. He identified Livingston's account with a tale found in [[Lozi mythology]], wherein the wicked men build a tower of masts to pursue the Creator-God, Nyambe, who has fled to Heaven on a spider-web, but the men perish when the masts collapse. He further relates similar tales of the [[Ashanti people|Ashanti]] that substitute a pile of porridge pestles for the masts. Frazer moreover cites such legends found among the [[Kongo people]], as well as in [[Tanzania]], where the men stack poles or trees in a failed attempt to reach the Moon.<ref name="Frazer, 1918 p. 5" /> He further cited the [[Karbi people|Karbi]] and [[Kuki people]] of [[Assam]] as having a similar story. The traditions of the [[Karen people]] of [[Myanmar]], which Frazer considered to show clear 'Abrahamic' influence, also relate that their ancestors migrated there following the abandonment of a great [[pagoda]] in the land of the [[Karenni people|Karenni]] 30 generations from Adam, when the languages were confused and the Karen separated from the Karenni. He notes yet another version current in the [[Admiralty Islands]], where mankind's languages are confused following a failed attempt to build houses reaching to heaven.