Just continued reading Magliabechiano by Martino Martini from the 1600s and stumbled upon mentions of Nestorian Christians living in China (or Tartaria). It’s full of interesting little aspects. All sourced by mostly Society of Jesus (aka Jesuit) members preaching in the area, though.
I was in the mood for this video about the dimensions of the Tower of Babel after finishing the chapter:
Turns out, this video is sourced by Turris Babel, written by another Jesuit named Athanasius Kircher who… also was among the first to write about Chinese culture around the same time.
Well, his calculations aren’t all that reliable and he thought that the Tower of Babel, as described by Nimrod, would be so big and heavy that it would’ve forced a tilt of the globe earth. He was also a proponent of germ theory and wearing masks during the plague.
The illustrations are incredible:
I suspect that the Tower of Babel never had any intentions of physically reaching “the heavens” - it was more likely built to open a portal there using fringe energy (probably in relation to ley line positioning and stuff like that).
