Nineveh and the Library of Ashurbanipal
Nínive y la biblioteca de Asurbanipal
- Date
- 1845-1851 · confidence high
- Place
- Kuyunjik, Mosul, Iraq
- Credited to
- Austen Henry Layard, Hormuzd Rassam; Paul-Émile Botta (Khorsabad, 1843)
- People
- 👤 Austen Henry Layard1817–1894👤 Hormuzd Rassam1826–1910👤 Paul-Émile Botta1802–1870
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
What was discovered
Layard and Rassam excavated the Assyrian palaces of Nineveh and found some 30,000 tablets from the Library of Ashurbanipal, the largest collection of texts from the ancient world, including the Epic of Gilgamesh.
Coordinates of the Kuyunjik mound. Rassam's contribution, as an Iraqi, was minimised. Part of the site was destroyed by the Islamic State in 2014-2016.
What it led to
- Rediscovery of Assyria, previously known only from the Bible
- Assyriology
- Collections of the British Museum and the Louvre
Built on
- Palace archive and libraryc. 2500 BCE
- Written epic literature (Gilgamesh)c. 2100 BCE
- Biblical and classical accounts of Nineveh
- European consulates in Mosul
Made possible
- Library of Alexandria and catalogue (Pinakes)c. 285 BCE
- Excavation of Mesopotamian tells