Library of Ashurbanipal, Ancient royal library in Nineveh, Iraq
The Library of Ashurbanipal is an ancient Mesopotamian collection in Nineveh, present-day Iraq, comprising tens of thousands of inscribed clay tablets with cuneiform script. These tablets cover royal correspondence, religious texts, medical treatises, and astronomical records, offering insight into the knowledge of the time.
The Assyrian ruler Ashurbanipal built the collection during his reign in the 7th century BC as a central knowledge institution. The fall of Nineveh in 612 BC led to a fire that accidentally hardened the tablets, preserving them for future generations.
The tablets contain the Epic of Gilgamesh, legal codes, hymns, and scientific texts, reflecting the intellectual depth of Assyrian civilization.
The original tablets are now primarily housed at the British Museum in London, where they are kept in climate-controlled rooms. Visitors can view a selection of the cuneiform texts there and learn about the decipherment of the ancient script.
Scribes marked individual tablets with colored notes and brief content summaries to create an early organization system. This technique made it much easier to locate specific texts within the large collection.
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