The Ashurbanipal library is the largest surviving library of the ancient world and the oldest of all known libraries [1] . It was compiled over 25 years in the Assyrian capital of Nineveh on the orders of King Ashurbanipal (VII century BC). It also served as a state archive . After the death of the king, the funds were scattered in various palaces. The part of the library discovered by archaeologists consists of 25,000 clay tablets with cuneiform texts. The opening of the library in the mid-19th century was of great importance for understanding the cultures of Mesopotamia and for deciphering cuneiform writing .
Content
Funds
Ashurbanipal intended to create a library, which was supposed to exhaust all the knowledge accumulated by mankind. He was especially interested in the information necessary for governing the state - on how to maintain constant communication with the deities, on predicting the future by the movement of the stars and the insides of sacrificial animals. Therefore, a significant proportion of the funds were texts of conspiracies, prophecies, magic and religious rituals, mythological legends. Most of the information was extracted from the Sumerian and Babylonian texts by specially organized teams of scribes.
The library had a large collection of medical texts (with an emphasis on healing with the help of sorcery), but the rich mathematical heritage of Babylonia was ignored for unknown reasons [2] . There were numerous lists of literary and epic tales, in particular tablets with an epic about Gilgamesh and the mythological translation of Enum Elish , as well as tablets with prayers, songs, legal documents (for example, the laws of Hammurabi ), economic and administrative records, letters, astronomical and historical works , political records, lists of kings and poetic texts.
The texts were written in Assyrian, Babylonian, the dialect of Akkadian, as well as in the Sumerian languages. Many texts are presented in parallel in the Sumerian and Akkadian languages, including encyclopedic publications and dictionaries. As a rule, one text was stored in six copies, which today greatly facilitates the work of deciphering tablets. Today, the Ashurbanipal library is the largest collection of texts in Akkadian .
Creation History
The founding of the library took place on the orders of the Assyrian ruler Ashurbanipal, who was distinguished by a great interest in texts and knowledge in general. The predecessors of Ashurbanipal had small palace libraries, but not one of them had such a passion for collecting texts. Ashurbanipal sent numerous scribes to different regions of his country, so that they would make copies of all the texts that they would meet. In addition, Ashurbanipal ordered copies of texts from all major temple archives, which were then sent to him in Nineveh. Sometimes, during military campaigns, Ashurbanipal managed to capture entire cuneiform libraries, which he also delivered to his palace.
Library Organization
Ashurbanipal librarians did a great job of cataloging, copying, commenting and researching library texts, as evidenced by numerous glossaries, references, and comments. Ashurbanipal himself attached great importance to streamlining the library. On each plate was written his name (a kind of ex-libris ), in the colophon was the name of the original plate with which a copy was made. The library had hundreds of codes with waxed pages, which made it possible to correct or rewrite text written in wax . Unlike cuneiform tablets (which only harden during fires), wax tablets are short-lived. They were not preserved, as well as the scrolls available in the library - parchment and papyrus . Judging by ancient catalogs, not more than 10% of all funds collected by Ashurbanipal have survived to our days [1] .
Value
A huge array of cuneiform texts has survived to this day solely thanks to the passion of Ashurbanipal for the written word. In many cases, the ancient monuments of Mesopotamian writing are preserved only in copies made by order of this ruler. Some of the texts presented have a thousand-year history (although the tablets themselves are not very ancient, under normal conditions they were rarely kept for more than 200 years).
Ashurbanipal himself was proud that he was the only Assyrian ruler who could read and write. On one of the tablets his personal record was found:
| I studied what the wise Adapa brought to me, mastered all the secret art of writing on tablets, began to understand the predictions in heaven and on earth, participate in discussions among pundits, predict the future with experienced interpreters of the prediction of sacrificial animals on the liver. I can solve complex, difficult problems of division and multiplication, I constantly read masterfully written tablets in such a difficult language as Sumerian, or as difficult to interpret as Akkadian, I am familiar with antediluvian records on stone, which are already completely incomprehensible. |
The records of Ashurbanipal himself (probably compiled by the best scribes) are marked by high literary qualities.
Further History
A generation after Ashurbanipal, his capital fell under the blows of the Medes and Babylonians. The library was not looted, as is usually the case in such cases, but was buried under the ruins of the palaces where it was stored.
In 1849, most of the library (which was stored in the northwestern palace on the banks of the Euphrates) was found by British archaeologist Austin Henry Layard . Three years later, Layard’s assistant British diplomat and traveler Hormuz Rassam found the second part of the library in the opposite wing of the palace. Both parts were deposited at the British Museum . The opening of the library allowed scientists to get a first-hand view of Assyrian culture. Prior to this, Assyria was known only from the works of Herodotus and other historians of Hellas, and the Persians, in turn, served as their source. The greatest sensation in the scientific community was the discovery of an epic about Gilgamesh with a story about a global flood close to the biblical one.
When removing the plates from the debris, a careful account of the place of their detection was not carried out. In the British Museum, both parts were placed in a common repository, so now it is impossible to judge which tablets were found where. Scientists are still working on sorting individual fragments (“joints”), cataloging and decrypting texts. The British Museum, together with Iraqi scholars, is working on the creation of a museum-library in Iraq, where reproductions of original tablets should be presented.
| Clay tablets from the palace library | |||||||||
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See also
- Amarna Archive
- Bogazkoy archive
- Archive of the Kings Marie
Notes
- ↑ 1 2 BBC iPlayer - In Our Time: The Library at Nineveh
- ↑ Perhaps, when distributing the funds in the palaces, the texts on mathematics were taken to a store unknown to science so far, where the Babylonians took possession of them when they plundered Nineveh.
Literature
- Grayson, AK The Chronology of the Reign of Ashurbanipal ( Neopr .) // Zeitschrift für Assyriologie. - 1980 .-- T. 70 . - S. 227-245 .
- Luckenbill, Daniel David. Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia: From Sargon to the End. - Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1926. - Vol. 2.
- Oates, J. Assyrian Chronology, 631-612 BC (neopr.) // Iraq. - 1965 .-- T. 27 . - S. 135-159 .
- Olmstead, AT History of Assyria. - New York: Scribner, 1923.
- Russell, John Malcolm. Sennacherib's Palace without Rival at Nineveh. - Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991.
- Klaas R. Veenhof: Geschichte des Alten Orients bis zur Zeit Alexanders des Großen , Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-51685-1
- Elena Cassin, Jean Bottero, Jean Vercoutter (Hrsg.): Die Altorientalischen Reiche III. Das Ende des 2. Jahrtausends , Fischer, Frankfurt am Main (Fischer Weltgeschichte, Bd. 4) ISBN 3-89350-989-5
- Maximilian Streck: “Assurbanipal und die letzten assyrischen Könige bis zum Untergange Niniveh's”, Hinrichs, Leipzig 1916 [1]