Ashurbanipal's great library at Nineveh held thousands of cuneiform tablets containing literature, medicine, and government records, including copies of the Epic of Gilgamesh. A famous British Museum relief shows him banqueting with his queen among palms and vines, with a human head hanging from a tree, traditionally identified as Elamite king Te-Umman, defeated in 653 BCE.
Ashurbanipal's library at Nineveh (Mesopotamia) preserved world's oldest literary works alongside his severed-head banquet relief
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Key facts
- Ashurbanipal assembled a great library at Nineveh (Mesopotamia) containing thousands of cuneiform tablets
- The library held literature, medicine, religious texts, scholarship, and government records
- Copies of the Epic of Gilgamesh survived in the library, helping modern scholars recover one of the world's oldest literary masterpieces
- A relief in the British Museum depicts Ashurbanipal reclining on a couch at a banquet with his queen on a throne, musicians playing among palms and vines
- A human head hangs from one of the trees in the garden in the banquet relief
- The traditional identification of the head is Te-Umman, king of Elam, whose army was defeated in 653 BCE
- An alternative identification is Nabu-belshumati, who died in a later campaign; part of the head in the relief has been restored, complicating facial identification
- Assyrian palace art functioned as propaganda designed to project royal power
Sources
cambridge.org
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Library of Ashurbanipalen.wikipedia.org
It is believed that during the burning of the palace, a great fire must have ravaged the library, causing the clay cuneiform tablets to become partially baked.
Ashurbanipal Library Projectoracc.museum.upenn.edu
More than 30,000 clay tablets bearing cuneiform inscriptions were excavated by the British Museum between the 1850's and 1930's at the site of the imperial ...
What was Ashurbanipal's Library?britishmuseum.org
Over 30,000 clay tablets covered in cuneiform writing were found in the ruins of Nineveh (Iraq), the capital of the Assyrian King Ashurbanipal's (668–631 BC) ...
A library fit for a kingbritishmuseum.org
The 'Library of Ashurbanipal' is the name given to a collection of over 30,000 clay tablets and fragments inscribed with cuneiform – a type of ...
How the World's Oldest Library Survived an Empire's Fallnews.artnet.com
Earlier this year, archaeologists working in Nineveh uncovered several cuneiform tablets bearing inscriptions from Ashurbanipal and other rulers ...
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