We live in an era in which access to information is possible with just a snap of the fingers. You want to know the size of the Pacific Ocean – you check the Internet and that’s it. There we find the most diverse information, but this is so because we were lucky enough to be born in the 21st century.
But before the Internet became so accessible, until 1990 everyone, in order to obtain information, went to the library. And the library is a 4600-year-old invention. One of the largest and oldest libraries is the Library of Ashurbanipal, located in the birthplace of civilization – Mesopotamia. Thanks to the fact that writing was not recorded on easily destructible paper, but on clay tablets, we know everything about it. There were discovered some of the earliest texts, as well as the first epic poem.
In the 19th century, much of the strongly Christian West funded a project to find evidence for the Bible, since theoretically it is quite possible that the Bible recounts real events, cities, and people who no longer exist today. But if such evidence were discovered, it could prove that it is historically accurate. Everyone was surprised when, in the middle of the 19th century, in Kuyunjik (present-day Iraq), archaeologists discovered something great – Austen Henry Layard discovered the palace and the library of the last Assyrian king, Ashurbanipal. In one of the inscriptions he says:
“I, Ashurbanipal, king of the universe, whom the gods endowed with wisdom, who acquired profound insight, because none of my predecessors has placed such things, I placed these tablets for the future library – for my life and my soul.”
During the excavations, 22,000 clay tablets with fine texts were found, and after continuing the excavations, another 33,000 tablets and fragments were discovered. Although the word “library” is debatable, because it was more of a royal collection of texts, he ordered them to be seized from everywhere – from neighboring kingdoms. Some were written, others were looted from his enemies or conquered peoples.
Ashurbanipal had a grim reputation in historical records – he was cruel, stubborn, and merciless to his enemies, but especially ruthless toward deserters and traitors. He was an experienced military leader and a relentless one – even without appearing on the front lines, he managed to bring many powerful kingdoms to their knees, including Babylon, Elam, and Thebes. But his obsession with collecting and creating all kinds of texts came from his childhood, when he was being trained as a royal scribe and bishop, since he was the younger brother in the family. However, after the brothers of his father Esarhaddon killed each other in a mania for greatness, all participants in the usurpation of the throne were executed, including their families. (In certain periods of history, it was customary that in case of treason, entire families up to the third generation were executed, so that no avengers remained.)
Esarhaddon decided to give Babylon to his elder son and Assyria to Ashurbanipal. This division was out of fear that his sons would not meet the fate of his brothers. But war was inevitable anyway. Nevertheless, in his 38 years of rule, Ashurbanipal collected and created texts and tablets made of clay, leather, wax, wood, ivory. The largest collection of tablets he took from Babylon, after defeating his brother, literally slaughtering everything alive in his path, leveling many cities to the ground and covering the land with salt, which turned it into a wasteland. But shortly after his death, the empire collapsed.
Despite this, he accomplished one great deed – he gathered in one place 100,000 written artifacts: texts of every kind – botany, astrology, royal correspondence, decrees, absolutely every genre that existed at the time. After the fall of the empire, naturally everything was set on fire, but stone does not burn. Which makes us wonder – what will remain of our century if we are burned down? Our information is on chips or paper, which burn and have no durability.
“I, Ashurbanipal, in the palace, understood the wisdom of Nabu, the god of knowledge. All kinds of knowledge – I read the clever tablets of the Sumerians and the dark Akkadian language, with pleasure I read stones inscribed before the great flood. The best of literary art – such visions none of the kings before me had learned. Medicines – from the top of the head to the nails of the feet, mechanical selections – everything I wrote on tablets, I checked, I compared, and I arranged in my library.”
The writings collected by the great king give us information about existing cities we had only assumed. Also about the Elamite kingdom, since Ashurbanipal destroyed it, burned it down, and slaughtered the population as punishment for having sided with his brother in the conflict.
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