Illuminated manuscript done by the Bedford Master a French illuminator active in Paris during the fifteenth century. The Bedford Master is known to have been the head of a workshop. His chief assistant is known as the Chief Associate of the Bedford Master. According to Genesis the people of the Earth built a tower to scale heaven. God intervened and punished them for their presumption by destroying the tower and scattering the population. He confused their speech so that they no longer understood each other thus causing the world's multiplicity of languages. Shinar occurs eight times in the Hebrew Bible, in which it refers to Babylonia. Digging in the plains of Shinar, a biblical geographical locale of uncertain boundaries in Mesopotamia, archaeologists discovered the remains of certain great towers that early Babylonians had built. Some archaeologists have felt that they may even have found the foundation of this original tower of Babel. That is very hard to determine. But they did find that the Babylonians built great towers called ziggurats, which were built in a circular fashion with an ascending staircase that terminates in a shrine at the top, around which are written the signs of the zodiac. A book of hours is an illuminated, Christian devotional book that was popular among the Christians of Northern Europe during the Middle Ages.