Talk:Euphrates Tunnel

Date wrong
There is no reason to give this tunnel a date of "2180-2160 BCE".

1) That date is far too early for the city of Babylon. The Wiki page for Babylon has its earliest origins around 1900 BCE, and it was merely a small town at that time.

2) None of the literary sources make it that old. Philostratus refers to a queen, "Medea," which is not the name of any historical Babylonian queen. His reference thus gives us no grounds for any particular date. Diodorus explicitly attributes it to Semiramis, i.e. Shammuramat, who ruled around 810 BC. So, the only "purported" date is around 810 BCE.

3) The use of specific numbers, 2180 - 2160, gives an illusion of precision that suggests far more evidence than we have. Given that there is no physical evidence of this tunnel, and only two late and questionable sources for it, any date that is given should reflect the great uncertainties involved. If a "purported" date must be given, it should be of the form, e.g. "9th c BCE" or something equally vague.

4) Best of all would be to give no date at all, because there is in fact no solid evidence that this tunnel ever existed. The article does acknowledge that the "tunnel" is only a "legendary tunnel," and I applaud the use of "allegedly" and "supposedly" in the Construction section. But other aspects of the article (e.g. the dates and geo-coordinates) give a misleading appearance of scientific accuracy.

Please revise all references to the date. Whatever figure is used, "2180-2160" is certainly wrong -- too early and too precise.

24.134.112.93 (talk) 07:40, 11 January 2022 (UTC)tad.brennan@cornell.edu
 * I removed the dates. --Error (talk) 11:37, 29 May 2024 (UTC)