The library of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh was absolutely incredible — 30,000+ cuneiform texts gathered by scribes from across southern Mesopotamia, including 100+ bilingual Akkadian-Sumerian works and copies stretching all the way back to the late Uruk period! Also fascinating: in 1887, ~380 Amarna letters (Akkadian as Bronze Age lingua franca) were found at Akhenaten's 14th-century BC capital.
Library of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh (Mesopotamia) held 30,000+ cuneiform texts
IraqGeneral
Key facts
- Amarna site (ancient Akhetaten) was constructed during the reign of Pharaoh Akhenaten in the 14th century BC
- In 1887, approximately 380 Amarna letters were discovered at Amarna, written in Akkadian as the Bronze Age lingua franca
- The library of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh (Mesopotamia) contained over 30,000 cuneiform texts collected by scribes from other regions of southern Mesopotamia
- The library contained over 100 bilingual Akkadian-Sumerian texts and copies of records dating back to the late Uruk period
- Neo-Assyrian population transfers moved an estimated 4.4-4.5 million people over three centuries, inadvertently spreading Aramaic and the alphabet
- Akkadian language began showing gradual Aramaic influences during the Neo-Assyrian period
Site mentioned
Sources
Amarna Letters - Under the Microscope - Obsidian Publishpublish.obsidian.md
The letters are written in Akkadian cuneiform—the diplomatic lingua franca of the Late Bronze Age. Think of Akkadian as the ancient equivalent of English today: ...
El-Amarna Tablets - West Semitic Research Project - USC Dornsifedornsife.usc.edu
Unexpectedly, when the tablets were discovered, they were written not in Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, but in a foreign language, Akkadian, the language of ...
The Amarna Letters - The Metropolitan Museum of Artmetmuseum.org
... Amarna Letters testify to the use of the Mesopotamian script and the Akkadian language across the eastern Mediterranean during this period.
13. Amarna Letters - Brillbrill.com
The language of the letters is Akkadian and written in syllabic cuneiform script on clay tablets; exceptions are two letters written in a Hittite dialect (EA 31 ...
The Amarna Letters: Proof of Israel's Invasion of Canaan?armstronginstitute.org
Over 300 tablets were found at el-Amarna in 1887; since then, more have been discovered, bringing the total number of letters to 382. Almost all the tablets ...
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