- Sophia Hapgood: "Indy: suppose the Tower housed some deadly force no one else had ever heard of. Something as dangerous as nuclear fission..."
- Indiana Jones: "...and the Babylonians tore it down for reasons not discussed in the Good Book."
- ―Jones and Hapgood discussing the potential dangers of the tower[src]
The Tower of Babel was a Biblical location important to the religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. According to the Bible, the structure was built by humans in an effort to reach Heaven. However, God destroyed the tower and rendered the population unable to communicate in the same language to curtail coordinated efforts to rebuild another.
Some modern scholars have associated it with Etemenanki, a ziggurat dedicated to the Babylonian god Marduk.
History[]
It contains information cut from the final release of an Indiana Jones medium, or otherwise unpublished. Everything said in this section and not elsewhere did not happen in the "proper" Indiana Jones continuity.
By 1939, Magnus Völler, a Nazi archaeologist and rival of Indiana Jones, had claimed bricks from the tower.
Photo of Dr. Volodnikov holding a representation of the tower.
In 1947, Soviet physicist Doctor Gennadi Volodnikov and a team of archaeologists and Spetsnaz soldiers were sent to Babylon to excavate the tower. Around the same time, Sophia Hapgood of the CIA recruited Indiana Jones (who was on a dig in Utah at the time) to investigate what the Russias were doing in Iraq. She showed him a piece of machinery taken from the dig site that was dated to be 2600 years old. Indy was intrigued enough to accept the job and was taken to Babylon only to learn that Volodnikov was looking for a device created by King Nebuchadnezzar II to contact the Babylon god Marduk, who inhabited an alternate realm called the Aetherium. After the tower was toppled, four Disciples of Marduk had each fled with part of their Great Engine. Jones sought of the pieces in Kazakhstan, The Philippines, Mexico and Sudan before returning to Babylon.
Behind the scenes[]
It's kept ambiguous in Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine on whether or not the Tower of Babel and the titular MacGuffin are one and the same. The Infernal Machine is dated as being at least 2600 years old where as the Biblical Tower of Babel is from the book of Genesis, set during the creation of the Earth itself (reputedly around 6000 years ago). Not to mention that they are from different cultures and religions. The Tower is from Hebrew culture and is associated with the religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam while the Infernal Machine is associated mainly with ancient Babylonian culture and religion.
The Tower of Babel was later mentioned as part of Magnus Völler's backstory for author Rob MacGregor's cancelled adaptation of Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings.
Appearances[]
- Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings novel (Mentioned only) (Cancelled)
- Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine
