“Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves”

What is the true significance of the “Tower of Babel” story/myth..?   The Biblical timeline is unclear (to put it mildly) – so the events described could have taken place decades or even centuries after the great flood – whenever that was? – when a group of survivors decided to build a “city with a tower” so as to “make a name for ourselves”, both of which are very intriguing remarks.   Was their intention to “reach God” or was it to “become like Gods” themselves?    Their “city” was clearly not intended to be a normal low-rise walled city of those times, but rather an enormous structure, most likely a pyramid of some kind.  Were they trying to build an arcology?

Of the many imaginative renaissance-era representations of the fabled “Tower of Babel”, some are conical whilst others are pyramidal.  Biblical historians generally assume it to have been a ziggurat – the focal point of every Mesopotamian city-state – so a stepped pyramid does seem most likely.  Although those were built after the flood and were obviously completed – unlike the Tower of Babel, which one assumes must have been much more ambitious than a solid mud-brick ziggurat..!  

The biblical narrative focusses on the “confusing of the language” aspect (hence “Babel”) but nobody ever bothers to ask why, not long after the legendary Great Flood, the survivors would spontaneously decide to build an enormous building of that particular type..? 

Unless similar enormous buildings had existed before, but they were destroyed in the great flood..? 

Was the Tower of Babel an attempt to re-create the type of city which had existed pre-deluge..?  But could not be completed because the advanced building technology needed had been lost in the great flood..?