In Ether 1:42-43 we find that the Lord promised the brother of Jared that,
I will go before thee into a land which is choice above all the lands of the earth. And there will I bless thee and thy seed, and raise up unto me of thy seed, and of the seed of thy brother, and they who shall go with thee, a great nation. And there shall be none greater than the nation which I will raise up unto me of thy seed, upon all the face of the earth.
While a "great nation" implies a righteous nation, it also implies a prosperous nation. According to John Heinerman, the people who followed Jared and his brother truly had access to that cultural knowledge to make themselves into such a "great nation."
Heinerman notes that Arthur C. Custance was correct when he declared in his book Genesis and Early Man that the technology of the ancient Sumerians "had achieved a level of technical proficiency greater than that to be found in many parts of Europe just prior to the Industrial Revolution." Hans E. Wulff mentioned in Technology and Culture Science that stone and metal tumbler locks are "of great antiquity . . . dating back to about 2000 B.C.," being found even "in the ruins of ancient Nineveh."
One need look no further than the Sumerian culture itself to find not only an advanced technology but also an equally high social order in place at the time that the Great Tower was under construction. In his book, The Sumerians historian Samuel Noah Kramer discussed the some 360,000 inhabitants of Ur (the capital of Sumer) enjoying "the potter's wheel, the wheeled vehicle, the sailboat," highly developed metallurgy, amazing "architectural techniques" that included 'stone foundations and platforms, niched cells, painted walls, mosaic-covered columns, and impressive facades," not to mention a decimal system of mathematics and a flourishing literary output to rival that of the Greeks at least 1,500 years later. Furthermore, illiteracy was virtually non-existent, as even the most common citizens had easy and ready access to free education from the many libraries, academies and vocational schools that dominated the intellectual and industrial landscapes then.
The archaeological evidence from Sumer also suggests superb metalworks of gold, silver, copper, and bronze, some iron machinery and tools.
In an early work by Kramer, History Begins At Sumer are listed "39 firsts in recorded history" accomplished by these people. Kramer described these very gifted, highly talented, and definitely practical people as being the "first true geniuses" upon whose works all later Old World civilizations were built. [John Heinerman, Hidden Treasures of Ancient American Cultures, pp. 102-103, 110]