There are numerous references to towers in the Book of Mormon, and these structures appear to be have been built almost everywhere. A tower can refer to a “building lofty in proportion to the size of its base, either isolated, or forming part of a castle, church, or other edifice, or of the walls of a town.” The older English definition of a tower is “a structure used as a stronghold, fortress, or prison, or built primarily for purposes of defense.” A tower in this sense can sometimes be extended to include the whole fortress or defensive stronghold of which there may be a lofty tower. Thus the word tower does not necessarily refer to “tall” buildings, but to “defense” buildings that help protect from attack.

The oldest tower in the Book of Mormon is the “great tower” of Babel which was built before the time Jared and his brother journeyed “into that quarter where there never had man been” (Mosiah 28:17; Ether 1:3, 33; Ether 2:5). We have no scriptural information in the Bible or the Book of Mormon on the size of the “great tower” or the material it was made of, so we are left to visualize its construction based on artists’ depictions. But we should stress that the details in such pictures are merely guesses, and drawings of ancient structures seldom seem to be constrained by the lack of supporting evidence. (See Preparing for the Journey in our topic article, Jared, his Brother and their Friends—A Geographical Analysis of the Book of Ether)

• King Benjamin’s tower
• Zeniff’s towers
• Captain Moroni’s towers
• Nephi’s tower

All of these accounts of Book of Mormon towers do not describe large and lavish structures made of stone as are so often portrayed in artist’s drawings of ancient Book of Mormon structures. Rather they suggest simpler and smaller defense towers made of wood. But the most telling evidence is the absence of any mention of stone construction in the Book of Mormon account when describing the building of towers. For additional references of towers in the Book of Mormon, see Alma 48:1 and Moroni 9:7.