IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| Cathay and the Way Thither : vol.2 |
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Citation Information
BY JOHN DE' _IMARIGNOLLI. 387
CONCERNING THE DIVISION• OF TONGUES.
Having related that history, and how the greatest part of the Tower was destroyed by lightning; he goes on :
And they attempted, it seems, to build similar towers elsewhere, but were not able. Insomuch that even when a certain soldan erected a great building upon the foundation of such a tower, it was struck down by lightning,
and on his several times renewing the attempt it was always struck down. So he took his departure into Egypt, and there built the city of Babylon, and is still called the Soldan
of Babylon.1
dered by Oppert : " The earthquake and the thunder had dispersed its sun-dried clay ; the bricks of the casing had been split, and the earth of the interior had been scattered in heaps... In a fortunate month, in an auspicious day, I undertook to build porticoes around the crude brick masses, and the casing of burnt bricks." (English Cyclop., article Babylon ; Rich's Memoir on Bab. and Persepolis, 1839 ; Smith's Dict. of the Bible quoted in Quarterly Review, Oct. 1864 ; Rawlinson's Herodotus, with a clear plan in vol. ii). It seems impossible, from his mention of the river and ramparts, etc., that Marignolli should here speak of the Birs Nimrud. (See also next note.) In later times Cæsar Federici, and again Tavernier, describe yet another ruin, that called Akkerkuf much nearer Baghdad, as the Tower of Babel.
1 This quaint statement of the supposed reason for the removal of the Caliphate to Egypt refers perhaps to the Birs Nimrud. Its lightning-rent aspect has struck all who have seen it, and is referred to even in the inscription quoted in the preceding note.
Babylon of Egypt is close to Old Cairo, and is still known as Babul. The name comes down from classic times, being mentioned by several writers from Ctesias to Ptolemy, and Babylon of Egypt was the headquarters of the Roman garrison in the time of Augustus. Cairo and Babylon existed together in the middle ages as two distinct cities ; the merchants and artificers chiefly residing at Babylon; the Sultan, his amirs and men-at-arms in Cairo and the Castrum, which was; I suppose, the present citadel. But the city of the Egyptian Soldan is very commonly called in those days simply Babylon. Edrisi mentions that the city of Misr (which now means Cairo) was called in Greek Bamblunah. Pegolotti uses the term Cairo di Bambillonia. Mandeville, after carefully distinguishing between the two Babylons, puts the Furnace of the Three Children at the Egyptian Babylon ; and yet he had served the Soldan in Egypt. (Smith's Dict. of Gr. and Rom. Geog. ; Marini Sanutii Torselli,
2!7) 2
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