Editing Etemenanki (section)

==Modern hypotheses regarding height==
Modern scholars dispute the claim by the ancient Babylonian source (the "Esagila" tablet) that the Etemenanki was 91 meters tall. <blockquote>"[The modern] interpretation of Esagil's text raises a serious technical problem: the excessive height of the first two terraces of the ziggurat and the total height of the building defy the laws of [[statics]] and [[compressive strength]] of a material such as raw earth brick." (Translated from the Italian).<ref name="Fenollos et al" /> </blockquote>Even allowing variation in the design of a six-level terraced structure, at that height, the compression stress on the structure would be somewhere around two to three times as much as comparable structures of the same time period. Fenollós et al. propose that, assuming the structure did indeed use a six-level terrace design as depicted in the Tower of Babel stele, the ziggurat was probably closer to 54 meters tall. The temple at the top contributed another 12 meters in height, for a total height of 66 meters.<ref name="Fenollos et al" />