The Library of Ashurbanipal was a collection of cuneiform clay tablets assembled at Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian Empire, by King Ashurbanipal, who unusually for a king could read and write. Scribes copied and collected texts from Babylonian and Assyrian cities, and the library came to hold tens of thousands of tablets and fragments on subjects such as omens, medicine, astronomy, religion, and literature. Among them is the most complete surviving version of the Epic of Gilgamesh, and the Babylonian creation epic Enuma Elish. The library was buried when Nineveh was sacked, and was rediscovered in the nineteenth century by Austen Henry Layard and Hormuzd Rassam. Most of the tablets are now in the British Museum.
Before and after
- from 727 BCE to 715 BCETwenty-fourth Dynasty of Egypt
- from 722 BCE to 223 BCEChu
- from 706 BCE to 605 BCEOrigins of Dur-Sharrukin
- c. 700s BCEConstruction of Great Wall of China
- 8th century BCELibrary of Ashurbanipal
- from 700 BCE to 309 BCEArgead dynasty
- from 664 BCE to 332 BCELate Period of ancient Egypt
- from 664 BCE to 525 BCETwenty-sixth Dynasty of Egypt
- c. 660 BCEImperial House of Japan (traditional date)
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The era
This moment belongs to the Ancient civilizations (3,200 BCE to 500 CE), writing, cities and empires.