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The Library
Visitors to this Dwelling
I hope you will enjoy the jigsaw puzzles.
The Library of King Ashurbanipal of Assyria (ca. 668-627 BC) is of tremendous interest and importance in the study of ancient Mesopotamia. The king established a great library in the city of Nineveh; and while the more famous and much later Library at Alexandria has burned and gone, much of Ashurbanipal's library survives. Nineveh was destroyed in 612 BC by a coalition of Babylonians, Sythians and Medes, an ancient Iranian people. 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, and hence preserved.
The king was a great scholar and stocked his library with many ancient texts. Some were copied from Babylonian sources. Others were brought from the furthest reaches of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, or were obtained as war booty or by extortive threats against neighboring states.
A collection of 20,000 to 30,000 tablets and fragments were excavated at the Assyrian capital Nineveh (modern Kuyunjik) by the British Museum during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. They are believed to form approximately 1,200 distinct texts. Most of it is now in the possession of the British Museum or the Iraq Department of Antiquities. The library was in fragments when discovered, and Assyriologists have spent the last 150 years looking for pieces that can be rejoined in the hope of retrieving complete compositions.
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