Library of Ashurbanipal – World Historical past Encyclopedia

The Library of Ashurbanipal (seventh century BCE) is the oldest identified systematically organized library on the planet, established in Nineveh by the Neo-Assyrian king Ashurbanipal (r. 668-627 BCE) to protect the historical past and culture of Mesopotamia. Over 30,000 texts have been found at Nineveh within the mid-Nineteenth century, however the authentic assortment is believed to have been a lot bigger.

Opposite to often-repeated claims, the Library of Ashurbanipal was not the primary library on the planet. Libraries existed in Sumer, connected to scribal homes, temples, and palaces by the Early Dynastic Interval (2900-2334 BCE). Akkadians and Babylonians additionally had libraries and so did earlier Assyrian kings. Scribes in ancient Mesopotamia additionally stored personal libraries apart from these they might have referenced on the palace, faculty, or temple. The Library of Ashurbanipal is simply the oldest one systematically organized to protect a complete assortment of data (not restricted to at least one topic or sort of labor) and, owing to the significance of the tablets discovered there, essentially the most important. Scholar Paul Kriwaczek writes:

[The Library of Ashurbanipal] was removed from the primary or solely giant assortment of paperwork ever established in historic Mesopotamia, but it surely does appear to have been an archive based particularly for the sake of preserving the heritage of the previous. The king’s concern to preserve the literary riches of his cuneiform tradition, that they could be learn by students of the far future, is evidenced by the colophon related to lots of the tablets saved: ‘For the Sake of Distant Days’. (250)

It’s unclear when Ashurbanipal established the library however, in response to Kriwaczek and different students, it was in all probability towards the tip of his reign, someday after the second Elam marketing campaign of 647 BCE, though it’s clear texts have been being acquired earlier. In that case, the library solely stood for roughly 30 years. It was burned within the sack of Nineveh in 612 BCE by a coalition of Babylonians, Medes, and Persians because the Neo-Assyrian Empire fell.

The enemies of the Assyrians sought to wipe all reminiscence of them from historical past, however, satirically, when the library fell, the ruined partitions buried the clay cuneiform tablets that have been the books, and the fires baked and preserved them. These tablets have been found over 2,000 years later by archaeologists Sir Austen Henry Layard and Hormuzd Rassam in a discover that has been characterised by many students since as among the many most essential of the fashionable period.

Literacy & Rise to Energy

Ashurbanipal was the center son of the Neo-Assyrian king Esarhaddon (r. 681-669 BCE) who had chosen his eldest son, Sin-iddina-apla, to succeed him. Ashurbanipal was despatched to the edubba (“Home of Tablets”), the scribal faculty, and acquired the usual schooling essential to change into a scribe. His youthful brother, Shamash-shum-ukin, was probably additionally educated as it’s identified that their sister, Serua-eterat (l. c. 652 BCE), was literate as evidenced by an extant letter by which she reprimands her sister-in-law (Ashurbanipal’s spouse) for laziness in her research habits.

Serua-eterat notes how her sister-in-law’s carelessness concerning schooling might convey disgrace on the household, suggesting her siblings have been additionally literate. Additionally it is unlikely, regardless of how progressive Esarhaddon could have been in educating his daughters, that he would have uncared for the identical for his sons, though it’s unclear whether or not Sin-iddina-apla acquired the identical degree of schooling as Ashurbanipal or Serua-eterat.

Sin-iddina-apla died in 672 BCE, and Esarhaddon selected Ashurbanipal as his successor. To be able to stop the identical issues he needed to deal with when he got here to energy, having to battle his brothers for the throne of their father Sennacherib (r. 705-681 BCE), he pressured his vassal states to swear their loyalty to Ashurbanipal prematurely. Esarhaddon’s mom, Zakutu (l. c. 728 to c. 668 BCE), a strong girl at court docket, supported her son and grandson in issuing the Treaty of Zakutu, compelling all territories underneath Assyrian rule, in addition to the members of the court docket, to just accept Ashurbanipal as Esarhaddon’s undisputed successor. When he got here to the throne after Esarhaddon’s dying in 669 BCE, Ashurbanipal confronted no resistance and will do as he happy.

Esarhaddon had already designated Shamash-shum-ukin as the future king of Babylon, however Ashurbanipal, in response to his personal inscriptions, gave his youthful brother much more accountability and higher items than he was obliged to. After securing the southern areas of his empire, he completed what his father had begun and conquered Egypt c. 667-666 BCE. He then put down rebellions in Tyre, subdued Urartu, and reconquered Anatolia between 665-657 BCE.

Though Ashurbanipal clearly felt he handled his youthful brother effectively, Shamash-shum-ukin secretly resented him and needed to be king of the Assyrian Empire. In 653 BCE, he entered into negotiations with Elam promising his help if they might invade and overthrow his brother. When information reached Ashurbanipal that the Elamites have been mobilizing their armies, he attacked, defeated them, and sacked their cities. He minimize off the pinnacle of the Elamite king Teumann and the opposite nobles and introduced them again to Nineveh the place he hung them from timber in his backyard as trophies.

He was unaware that his brother had instigated the Elamite aggression, however this turned clear the next 12 months when, in 652 BCE, Shamash-shum-ukin declared Babylonian independence and brazenly took Assyrian territories. Ashurbanipal marched on the city, positioned it underneath siege for 4 years, and, when it fell, slaughtered the inhabitants. Shamash-shum-ukin set himself on fireplace to flee seize.

In 648/647 BCE, the Elamites were engaged in civil war, and Ashurbanipal seized the chance to assault whereas they have been divided. He burned the cities to the bottom, together with Susa, slaughtered or deported giant populations, and, in response to his personal inscriptions, sowed the land with salt after desecrating the tombs of their kings. Elam was became a wasteland, and Ashurbanipal returned to Nineveh triumphant and, probably, safe within the data that he had preserved his empire for his sons and their sons.

Assyrian Libraries & Divination

It appears it was right now, c. 647/646 BCE, that he first conceived of a common library that may home the collective data of the previous. Mesopotamian literature was first composed c. 2600 BCE in Sumer, and Sumerian texts have been then preserved in Akkadian script after 2334 BCE with the Akkadians, Hittites, Babylonians, Kassites, and Assyrians persevering with this custom as much as his time.

Ashurbanipal determined to broaden upon his personal library, which would come with works of each variety from in all places in his empire.

As a educated scribe, Ashurbanipal would have been conscious of this, and maybe having not too long ago destroyed Babylon and Elam, thought of that what had occurred to them might additionally occur to him, his sons, and their sons. A library, containing all of the data of the previous 2,000 years, would protect his tradition, nonetheless, in addition to his personal private historical past. Additional, establishing a useful resource that would come with a complete assortment of divination texts might assist him anticipate and reply any threats to his empire.

Assyrian libraries already existed right now – as had Sumerian libraries, Akkadian libraries, and Babylonian libraries – however these held, largely, administrative and divination texts, copies of royal decrees and treaties, land and tax information, and trade agreements. Of the paperwork housed in royal Assyrian libraries, divination texts have been crucial, as scholar Stephen Bertman explains:

Divination was based mostly on the concept that affiliation is tantamount to causality: that’s, if two uncommon occasions happen in proximity, one is answerable for the opposite. Thus, if a king died after an eclipse, the conclusion was reached that the eclipse foreshadowed his dying. Likewise, if a taking pictures star was sighted the night time earlier than a navy victory, a later sighting foretold one more navy success.

For many of Mesopotamian historical past, divination was used to information the political affairs. Few rulers would make or act upon an essential determination with out first consulting their royal fortunetellers. To foretell the longer term, Mesopotamian seers studied celestial and meteorological phenomena and examined the organs and entrails of sacrificial animals … In impact, the traditional seer was like the fashionable weatherman who makes use of his skilled experience to forecast what the longer term holds for us. (169)

The conclusions of those seers have been written down in divination texts in order that they may very well be consulted by others. Ashurbanipal’s father had a library of divination texts and so had his grandfather, Sennacherib, and his great-grandfather, Sargon II (r. 722-705 BCE), and so forth into the previous. Ashurbanipal determined to broaden upon his personal library, which might preserve the important divination texts and the others however embody works of each variety from in all places in his empire, all of which, as soon as safely tucked onto the cabinets, can be preserved without end, surrounded by the safe partitions of the nice metropolis of Nineveh.

The Library

Like his father earlier than him, Ashurbanipal had an particularly eager curiosity in divination and was keen to amass any texts on the topic he didn’t have already got. His correspondence with scribes and seers after c. 647 BCE reveals an growing concern for the longer term and his personal private well being and well-being. He despatched events, which in fact included scribes, all through the empire to safe these and every other texts, which might then be copied and housed in his library. In a letter to the scribe Shadunu, Ashurbanipal (or a consultant of the king) writes:

You shall seek for and ship to me … rituals, prayers, stone inscriptions, and no matter is beneficial to royalty akin to expiation texts for cities, to chase away the evil eye at a time of panic, and no matter else is required within the palace, all that’s obtainable, and likewise uncommon tablets of which no copies exist. I’ve written to the temple overseer and to the chief Justice of the Peace that you’re to position the tablets in your storage home and that nobody shall withhold any pill from you. And in case you need to see some pill or ritual textual content which I’ve not talked about, and which is appropriate for the palace, study it, take possession of it, and ship it to me. (Kriwaczek, 251-252)

The acquisition of divination texts drove your complete enterprise. Ashurbanipal needed all the pieces that had ever been written however particularly these works that might information him in making the correct selections regarding his future. Scholar Marc Van De Mieroop feedback on the scribal strategy of the acquisitions:

The manuscripts weren’t merely collected however have been copied out in response to a normal format for the library. The cuneiform script and pill structure have been uniform, and on the finish of every pill an identification was offered stating that it belonged to Ashurbanipal’s library. These subscripts or colophons may very well be easy stamps with the textual content “palace of Ashurbanipal, king of the universe, king of Assyria“, however typically indicated at size that the previous texts have been copied fastidiously from an authentic pill, and that the copy was reviewed and checked. Certainly, the scribes have been cautious of their work. They indicated of their copies after they discovered a break within the authentic pill and after they restored a lacuna. They corrected errors and, very hardly ever, indicated the variants they discovered in several authentic manuscripts.

The aim of the library is indicated by the colophons, that’s, a press release on the finish that provides data on the character and place of preservation of the pill. The texts have been stored so as to present approved variations that diviners and exorcists might use. Lots of the manuscripts contained omens, and it was essential {that a} right model was on document. Additionally, literary and scholarly texts have been stored, as specialists whose obligation it was to guard the king and the state generally wanted to cite them of their stories, and the accuracy of those quotes was essential. (261-262)

The apprentice scribes would signal their work after it had been checked for accuracy by a superior. They’d additionally generally add warnings towards taking a pill away from the library and never returning it. A fraction of the Babylonian poem The Poor Man of Nippur, discovered within the ruins of Ashurbanipal’s library, concludes with such a warning within the strains, “Whoever takes away this pill, could [the gods] take him away! Might he don’t have any descendants, no offspring…Don’t take away the tablets! Don’t disperse the library!”

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Each tablet, once copied and checked, was placed on a shelf or in a nook along the walls of the library. Texts were not only copied onto clay tablets but also onto writing boards – panels of ivory or wooden lined in wax into which cuneiform script may very well be inscribed. Many of those texts – each tablets and writing boards – have been taken from Babylon after it fell to Ashurbanipal in 649/648 BCE. In response to Van De Mieroop, a document of those texts signifies 2000 tablets and 300 writing boards “confiscated largely from the personal libraries of Babylonian monks or exorcists” acquired for the library within the 12 months 648 BCE (261).

Because the library’s assortment grew, it was the accountability of the pinnacle librarian (keeper of the library) to take care of it and substitute worn or damaged tablets. The gathering was housed within the constructing designated because the royal library in addition to within the North Palace and included works on administrative issues, astronomy, astrology, botany, private and royal correspondence, international correspondence, royal decrees, divination texts, spiritual texts and hymns, historic inscriptions, literature, and medical texts. Among the many most well-known works within the assortment have been the Myth of Adapa, the Myth of Etana, the Enuma Elish, and The Epic of Gilgamesh, all authentic tales regarding the creation of the world, the Fall of Man, and the Nice Flood which, till the invention of the library within the Nineteenth century, have been considered authentic to the Bible.

Destruction of the Library

Ashurbanipal was pleased with his schooling and equally happy together with his library. In his inscriptions, he writes:

I, Ashurbanipal, inside the palace, understood the knowledge of Nabu [the god of learning]. All of the artwork of writing … of each variety, I made myself the grasp of all of them…I learn the crafty tablets of Sumer, and the darkish Akkadian language which is tough rightly to make use of; I took my pleasure in studying stones inscribed earlier than the [Great] flood … The most effective of the scribal artwork, such works as not one of the kings who went earlier than me had ever learnt, treatments from the highest of the pinnacle to the toenails, non-canonical picks, intelligent teachings, no matter pertains to the medical mastery of [the gods] Ninurta and Gula, I wrote on tablets, checked and collated, and deposited inside my palace for perusing and studying.

(Kriwaczek, 250-251)

Sadly, though he’s remembered as essentially the most extremely educated and literate of the Neo-Assyrian kings, Ashurbanipal can be famous as essentially the most brutal. The Assyrian kings, particularly these of the Neo-Assyrian Interval (912-612 BCE), have the popularity for harsh insurance policies in coping with their enemies however, even amongst these, Ashurbanipal stands out as excessively merciless. His ruthless insurance policies, nonetheless, would ultimately contribute to the autumn of the Assyrian Empire.

Although his inscriptions and reliefs make clear he was proud of his destruction of Elam, in doing so, he removed a buffer state between his empire and the land of the Medes and Persians who, with Elam gone, moved in and established communities. Ashurbanipal died of natural causes in 627 BCE, but, unlike his father, he had not provided equitably for his sons regarding succession. His son Ashur-etel-ilani succeeded him however quickly after taking the throne was challenged by his twin brother, Sin-shar-ishkun, dividing the Assyrian Empire in civil struggle.

Whereas the 2 brothers fought, the enemies of the Assyrians – together with the Babylonians, Cimmerians, Medes, Persians, and Scythians – acknowledged their alternative simply as Ashurbanipal had years earlier than in launching his marketing campaign towards Elam. A coalition led by the Medes and Babylonians descended upon the Assyrian cities in 612 BCE, sacking and destroying them. The good library at Nineveh fell as the town burned, and in time, its ruins have been claimed by the earth, and it lay buried for the subsequent 2000 years.

Conclusion

Within the Nineteenth century, archaeological expeditions have been funded by Western establishments for the aim of discovering bodily proof to corroborate biblical narratives. On the time, the Bible was understood as a completely authentic work and the oldest e-book on the planet. Nobody knew the Sumerian civilization even existed and virtually all that was identified of the Babylonians and Assyrians got here from the Bible. What the archaeologists discovered as a substitute was the various civilizations of Mesopotamia whose historical past was unlocked when cuneiform script was deciphered.