Tower of Babylon

Ted Chiang

1 idea

  1. Miner breaks through heaven's vault, lands home

    Hillalum, a miner from Elam, climbs the Tower of Babylon for months to dig through the solid vault of heaven, fearing the reservoirs of water above it. After a flood nearly drowns him, he crawls upward through a tunnel and emerges in a desert near Babylon. He concludes that the cosmos is shaped like a cylinder seal rolled on clay, a closed surface on which travelling past the top returns you to the bottom.

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