Ashurbanipal's Library: He Was Both a Tyrant and the Earliest Book Collector
Ashurbanipal locked defeated kings in dog kennels and forced people to make bricks from their ancestors' bones — and he also built humanity's earliest systematic library, keeping the Epic of Gilgamesh alive to this day.
The video won't play here. Listen to the audio instead:
The argument · tap a timestamp to hear it
The same man, two completely opposite first impressions
At the British Museum, Tracy read the exhibit panels on Ashurbanipal's library and thought, "this guy's library is astonishing"; in the same gallery Patrick read the other panels about him as king of Assyria, and came back with "this guy was really cruel". The same body of material can support two entirely opposite impressions at once, and the rest of the episode pulls that contradiction apart: he did put a conquered Elamite king on his chariot and lock a rival in a dog kennel, and he did order texts from across the empire copied and sent to the capital.
— Tracy V. WilsonYou simply cannot lay out a Mesopotamian timeline
Tracy wanted to open the episode with a basic timeline and found she couldn't. Mesopotamia spans more than three thousand years from the first cities, with civilizations, kingdoms and empires overlapping and influencing each other, so a linear timeline is itself a distortion. Assyrian history is divided into Early Assyrian (from about 2600 BCE), Old Assyrian (from about 2025 BCE), Middle Assyrian (from about 1363 BCE) and Neo-Assyrian (911 to 609 BCE), followed by a post-empire period. Assyrian people still exist today: roughly three to five million people in Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey identify as Assyrian.
— Tracy V. WilsonThe father split the empire in two to prevent civil war
Esarhaddon's father Sennacherib had Babylon utterly destroyed and even diverted canals to flood the ruins, and was later assassinated by his own sons — read as divine punishment for destroying Babylon. Esarhaddon rebuilt Babylon and positioned himself as its "governor" rather than its king. In 672 BCE he divided responsibilities between two of his sons: Shamashumukin took Babylon, and Ashurbanipal was made crown prince of Assyria. The arrangement was meant to prevent a repeat of the civil war that had attended his own accession. The episode says explicitly that this will come back later — because the brothers eventually turned on each other.
— Tracy V. WilsonHe got an education a king was not supposed to get
Ashurbanipal's education had already begun when he was made crown prince. He learned horsemanship, chariot driving, archery, military tactics and court etiquette — the standard royal package. But he also studied literature and history, knew multiple Sumerian and Akkadian dialects, and could read and write cuneiform. The episode stresses that kings of this era were not usually educated this academically, and often were not literate at all — literacy was the business of scholars and scribes. The likely reason he could be is that early in life he was not being groomed entirely as the heir.
— Tracy V. WilsonIn the reliefs, he wears a writing tool on his belt
Ashurbanipal was a patron of the arts, building temples and palaces and commissioning vast numbers of reliefs. Many depict him fighting, lion hunting, and going about daily life amid wealth and luxury; some show the severed heads of enemies. The episode singles out one detail: in many depictions he wears a riding stylus tucked into his belt, including in scenes where he is killing lions with a sword — Holly jokes that he may have wanted to write a diary entry after killing a lion. The reliefs from his reign are considered the peak of Assyrian art, and the lion-hunt reliefs are now in the British Museum.
— Tracy V. WilsonCruelty was not his invention — he took it to an extreme
The episode draws a clear distinction: practices like displaying enemies' severed heads were normal among rulers of ancient Mesopotamia; but in the depictions he commissioned and in records others left, Ashurbanipal is seen as having pushed this to an extreme. Specific examples include: salting the land after putting down a revolt, forcing people to grind up their ancestors' bones to make bricks for a palace, making the defeated Elamite king pull his chariot in a triumphal procession, and forcing one rival to live in a dog kennel. About that rival, some accounts say he was forced to wear a dog collar, others that a chain was run through his jaw.
— Tracy V. WilsonThis was the earliest "systematic collection" library
The library was built in the capital, Nineveh, and tablets have been found in the Southwest Palace, the North Palace, and around the temples of Ishtar and Nabu. The episode stresses two things: first, it is unclear whether these were the library's original storage locations or the result of tablets scattering after the city's destruction; second, this is one of the earliest known libraries to be systematically acquired and organized — a deliberately collected, curated repository of knowledge, and the largest collection of Assyrian texts in the world. Excavations yielded more than twenty thousand tablets and fragments, many bearing standardized colophons, indicating a systematic method of labelling and cataloguing. The total number of complete tablets is actually unknown.
— Tracy V. WilsonHe ordered the whole empire to hand over books, and knew who to ask
Ashurbanipal ordered temples and palaces across the empire to send texts to Nineveh, usually by having a copy made, with him receiving the copy or the original. Surviving documents show he actually wanted the originals, and that subordinates may have "creatively misinterpreted" the instructions in order to keep originals in their own temples or collections. Surviving correspondence also shows he knew exactly where to look for texts he wanted, and who might hold works he did not know about but that were worth acquiring. Holly describes him as having a network of scholarly acquisition librarians. Some texts in the library were written by him, and many tablets carry colophons in his hand.
— Tracy V. WilsonThe city burned, which fired the tablets hard and preserved them
Nineveh was sacked in 612 BCE, an event that both preserved and destroyed the library. As the city burned, the tablets hardened in the heat and were then protected by collapsing debris; but wooden or ivory writing boards covered in wax were essentially destroyed. The tablets broke and scattered during the city's destruction, so on excavation it is often unclear where in the capital they were originally stored. Nineteenth-century excavation worsened the scattering: Austin Henry Layard and Hormuzd Rassam began excavating Nineveh in 1849, Rassam found another large batch of tablets in 1852, and huge amounts of material were sent to the British Museum; there was also a French archaeological project, so some material is now in the Louvre.
— Tracy V. WilsonThe fragments cannot be reassembled because nobody recorded findspots
Many tablets are marked "Palace of Ashurbanipal, King of the World, King of Assyria", so tablets found at different locations can be confirmed as belonging to the same collection. But during excavation, archaeologists and workers did not fully record the specific findspot of each fragment, making it very hard to tell which fragment joins which. The episode says the priority at the time was getting archaeological treasures back to Britain as fast as possible, not thoroughly documenting each object's find context. The result is that reconstruction is extremely laborious: only a small portion of the tablets have been rejoined, and many remain incomplete. Since the mid-nineteenth century, an average of 35 texts a year have been reconstructed and transcribed, and a great deal of work remains.
— Tracy V. WilsonThe library itself was the key sample bank for deciphering cuneiform
Researchers first deciphered cuneiform in 1857, only a few years after the library's first tablets were found. One key was the Bisitun inscription: carved on a rock face in Iran's Zagros mountains, today a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and like the Rosetta Stone it is trilingual — Babylonian, Old Persian and Elamite — recording the account of the Achaemenid king Darius I. Henry Rawlinson published his study of the Old Persian portion in 1849, which made the other two languages translatable. The library supplied a large number of additional cuneiform samples and was part of the decipherment process.
— Tracy V. WilsonBefore the library was excavated, Assyrian history was almost only the enemy's account
Before this, the overwhelming majority of information about ancient Mesopotamia and the Assyrian empire came from the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament derived from it, plus Greek and Roman writers. The biblical texts focus mainly on matters relating to the Levant and Egypt, and the Greek and Roman accounts were often written centuries later; neither is a complete, detailed, layered history of the Assyrian empire. Once the library's tablets were read, they became a source of a great deal of new historical information. The episode gives one specific example: Greek literature turned Ashurbanipal into a semi-mythical figure, Sardanapalus, blending elements of him and his brother Shamashumukin, and saying he was the last king of Assyria, who burned himself to death in his palace along with all his wealth and concubines.
— Tracy V. WilsonIn their own words · checked verbatim
Because I was sort of thinking, wow, this guy's library sounds so amazing. And Patrick, having read other signs, was like, wow, that guy seems really ruthless.
Tracy V. Wilson0:01
Yeah, what I wanted to put in this part of the episode was a basic timeline to situate when we are talking about, and I found that task to be impossible.
Tracy V. Wilson4:04
It was not typical for kings of this era to get a really scholarly education or really even to be literate. That was the work of scholars and scribes.
Tracy V. Wilson9:10
Some of this, like displaying their severed heads, was typical of leaders in ancient Mesopotamia. But in depictions he commissioned and in surviving accounts produced by other people, Ashurbanipal is seen as taking it to an extreme
Tracy V. Wilson15:19
Obviously, plenty of monarchs and temples and wealthy people had collections of documents and texts long before this, but this is one of the oldest known systematically acquired and organized libraries in the world. It was intentionally collected and curated as a repository of knowledge.
Tracy V. Wilson21:39
The sacking of Nineveh in 612 BCE both preserved and destroyed Ashurbanipal's library. As the city burned, the clay tablets hardened in the heat, and then they were protected by the fallen rubble of the city around them.
Tracy V. Wilson25:47
Yeah, the focus was much more on sending these archaeological treasures to England than on thoroughly documenting the context where each piece was found.
Tracy V. Wilson27:48
Prior to this, the vast majority of information about ancient Mesopotamia and the Assyrian Empire had been in the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament derived from it, and from Greek and Roman writers.
Tracy V. Wilson29:51
Figures
| Estimated surviving Assyrian population | 3 million to 5 million, across Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey | 4:04 |
| Span of the Neo-Assyrian period | 911 to 609 BCE | 4:04 |
| Year Esarhaddon divided his sons' responsibilities | 672 BCE | 6:08 |
| Year Nineveh was captured | 612 BCE | 20:30 |
| Ashurbanipal's reign | 668 to 627 BCE | 19:28 |
| Tablets and fragments excavated from the library | More than 20,000 | 22:39 |
| Estimated share of the library devoted to divination-related works | About half | 24:44 |
| Number of texts reconstructed and transcribed per year | An average of 35, since the mid-nineteenth century | 27:48 |
| Year cuneiform was first deciphered | 1857 | 28:48 |
| Year the Ashurbanipal Library Project launched | 2002, in partnership with the British Museum and the University of Mosul | 30:53 |
Glossary
- cuneiform
- A writing system pressed into clay tablets with a reed stylus, the main medium for Assyrian and Babylonian texts.
- colophon
- Labelling information at the end of a tablet; many library tablets carry standardized colophons, indicating a cataloguing method.
- Neo-Assyrian
- 911 to 609 BCE, the height of the Assyrian empire; Ashurbanipal was one of its last kings.
- Sardanapalus
- The semi-mythical figure Greek literature made of Ashurbanipal, blending in elements of his brother and saying he died by self-immolation.
- Bisitun inscription
- A trilingual inscription on a rock face in Iran, similar to the Rosetta Stone, key to deciphering cuneiform.
How to listen
Listeners interested in ancient civilizations, library history, archaeology and textual decipherment; anyone curious about historical judgment problems like "how can the same person be both a tyrant and a patron".
The Mesopotamian geography and "cradle of civilization" setup at the start, 0:01-4:04, and the listener mail after 31:54 at the end.