Ashurbanipal, the most powerful king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire in the mid-seventh century B.C., was known for his ruthless military prowess, his incredible lion-hunting skills—and for being a librarian.This is a long, informative article on Ashurbanipal's library. It focuses on its discovery and excavation, but gives some attention to its contents; notably the first-discovered fragments of the Epic of Gilgamesh.“Palace of Ashurbanipal, King of the Universe, King of Assyria” reads an inscription denoting his ownership on one of over 30,000 clay tablets and fragments from the magnificent library he maintained at his capital, Nineveh, today in northern Iraq.
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I was wondering if it would interact with Irving Finkelman's proposal, covered in a recent interview with Lex Fridman, that the 30,000 recovered tablets are just duplicates and discarded broken pieces, while the Babylonians and their allies carried off the bulk of the library.
The article does not mention Dr. Finkel's idea, but it does make an intriguing comment that could be relevant:
Recent analysis of the corpus of Nineveh tablets by a German-British team is producing interesting insights. For example, it was initially thought that reconstructing the tablets would be just a matter of time and effort. Now, even with all the pieces digitally cataloged, it has only been possible to reconstruct about 200 tablets, and even these are missing large sections. It has also been established that many tablets were marked with colophons (notes placed at the end of text) of different types. These identified the kind of text they contained or the period in which they were made. Some were even signed by individual scribes. The conclusion is that the rest of the fragments have been lost or have yet to be found in Nineveh.Are these indeed just the broken pieces left by the Babylonians when they looted the library?
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