The Most Ancient Library In The World.
In the late 1840s, an English archaeologist Austin Henry Layard was searching the Nineva, the capital of the ancient Assyrian Empire. He found it in the present-day Mosul, Iraq. There he excavated a palace and found a library buried under it. The library was built by King Ashurbanipal, who ruled this region around 669–631 BC.
It had more than 30000 clay tablets. Sir Layard left Iraq, but his Iraqi assistant Horuzd Rassam kept searching the site. There he found another palace and second library filled with clay tablets.
Many were fragmented, while only a few were intact. Upon these clay tablets were the inscriptions, which is an ancient writing system, Cuneiform. Cuneiform is the writing system of Mesopotamia, where the signs representing the spoken words used to inscribe on the soft clay by wedge-shaped reed, Pen.
Who was Ashurabanipal?
Ashurbanipal was the last strong king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire (912–612 BC). It was an iron age empire of Mesopotamia, the land between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers. The empire peaked during the reign of Ashurbanipal and was the largest in the world till that period. He had led many military campaigns against his old enemy kingdoms and quelled the revolts that arose in his empire.
There were many power struggles in this region, and Ashurbanipal and his ancestors had overpowered them. These powers were Babylonians, Persians, Medes, Elam, Egypt etc.
Ashurbanipal defeated the Elam kingdom, which was his ancient enemy. After killing its people and razing the city to the ground, he brought the loot to his empire.
Apart from maintaining his empire intact from these warring communities, the most important work he had done was his library. He sent the men to the various part of the Assyrian empire and his conquered region to collect or copy any texts and written work. During that time, the temples were the main places where the texts were stored.
Ashurbanipal was a strong ruler, but his subjects hated him so much that, after his death, the empire descended into civil wars. The revolt started, and the region started breaking away. In 612 BC, rivals kingdoms took advantage of Assyria’s weakness and attacked it. They destroyed Ninevah and burnt his palace. They razed the city so thoroughly that it remained deserted for centuries. And the library of Ashurbanipal kept buried under the debris of the fallen palace for thousands of years.
What the library contained?
When the researchers studied the tablets, they classified the content of the library into two forms. The first is legal texts, and the other is literary. Legal texts contained the contracts, orders, administration of the kingdom and history. And literary texts include religious texts, rituals, hymns, epic stories.
The epic stories found in the library-
1. Great flood: It was the earliest form of the Great Flood, which is also mentioned in the Hebrew bible. Many other religions have a similar story in different versions. It was because perhaps the flood was common in many civilizations. But this text from the library of Ashurbanipal was more ancient.
2. The Epic of Gilgamesh: This is the oldest story in the world. It is as old as 2100 BC, but it was completed in 1200 BC. Hebrew Bible has also mentioned his story. In this story, Gilgamesh, the hero, defeated a monster Humbaba. The face of Humbaba was of a lion, the body was full of scales, and he had a tail. Defeating this monster, which was symbolized as chaos, Gilgamesh civilized the world.
3. Enuma Elis: This story was as old as 1900–1600 BC and was about how this universe and Gods were born. It also includes the battle between Marduk, the hero, and chaos dragon Tiamat, where Marduk won and became the king of god.
4. The myth of Adapa: This story was written around the 14th century BC. The god of sky Anu offered Adapa, the first man, bread and water. It was a way to become immortal. But Ea god of water had cautioned him beforehand not to touch it. So, Adapa and humanity remained mortal forever.
5. The story of a poor man: It was written around 1500 BC and was a story of a poor man Gimil who had a single possession, a goat. The mayor cheated on him and took his goat. Angered by this treatment, Gimil pledged to cheat the mayor three times to avenge himself.
The Discovery of this library was the most important. The library contained the texts regarding administration, contracts, literature and history and was used to compile the history of Mesopotamia.
