Vegetable storage
The fireproof library of King Ashurbanipal. The royal palace in ancient Nineveh the king of Assyria Ashurbanipal relief from the royal palace in Nineveh

The fireproof library of King Ashurbanipal. The royal palace in ancient Nineveh the king of Assyria Ashurbanipal relief from the royal palace in Nineveh

More than 2,500 years ago, the large city of Nineveh stood on the left bank of the Tigris River. Back in the 7th century BC e. Nineveh was the capital of the powerful slave state of Assyria.

But in 612 BC. e. Median (Media - an ancient state located in the north-west of the Iranian plateau) and Babylonian troops captured Assyria and set fire to Nineveh. For many days the fire raged in the city. The city was destroyed, the surviving inhabitants fled.

Years passed. Gradually, large hills formed over the ruins, and after 200 years, no one knew exactly where this city was located...

In 1849, the English traveler Layard, looking for ancient monuments, began to dig a hill near the small village of Kuyundzhik on the left bank of the Tigris River. Soon he discovered some ruins buried under a layer of earth. It turned out that this was the palace of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal (668 - 626 BC). This is how ancient Nineveh was found.

Gradually dug up the entire palace. It was built on a high and extensive artificial terrace. The entrance was guarded by two huge statues of bulls with human heads. The reliefs on the walls of the rooms and corridors depicted the Assyrian kings hunting for lions and scenes from military campaigns.

In the palace, Layard found about 30 thousand small clay tablets of various shapes, they formed a whole layer half a meter high. The tablets were written in very small wedge-shaped characters. Such cuneiform was used in ancient times by the peoples of Mesopotamia. Each icon of this letter consisted of wedges in different combinations and denoted a syllable or word. For better preservation, clay tiles were fired or dried in the sun.

Layard thought that these clay tablets were not of great value, he was more interested in beautiful things and reliefs on the walls of the palace, but he still sent the tablets to London. For twenty years they lay undisassembled in the British Museum: at that time, scientists were just taking the first steps in deciphering the Babylonian cuneiform. Finally, historians have learned to read Babylonian writings. They also read the tablets from the palace of Ashurbanipal. And only then it became clear what a great value the find is. It was a whole library, carefully selected with great skill.

Ashurbanipal knew well the writing and science of his time. At his command, scribes made copies of clay books kept in the libraries and archives of the temples of Babylon and other centers of the ancient culture of Mesopotamia. And these libraries have been compiled over many centuries.

So, several thousand clay books were collected in the palace of Ashurbanipal. They consisted of many "sheets" - tablets of the same size. On each plate, the title of the book and the number of the "sheet" were written at the bottom. The title of the book was the opening words of the first tablet.

In the library, books were placed in a certain order, according to branches of knowledge. The search for the right book was facilitated by catalogs - lists, which indicated the name of the book and the number of lines in each tablet. On all clay "sheets" there is a library stamp with the words: "The Palace of Ashurbanipal, King of the Universe, King of Assyria."

The content of clay books is very diverse. Among them are grammars, chronicles (records of events by year), telling about the most important historical events Babylonia and Assyria, treaties between various countries, laws, reports on the construction of royal palaces, reports of officials, reports of spies on the situation in neighboring countries, lists of peoples subject to Assyria with an indication of the amount of taxes received from them, essays on medicine, letters, lists of animals, plants and minerals, account books of royal households, various complaints, contracts, documents drawn up when buying a house or slaves. Clay tablets told scientists a lot about the history, culture, economy and religion of the peoples of ancient Mesopotamia.

This library, the largest of its time, contained books summarizing the scientific achievements of the Sumerians, Babylonians and Assyrians.

The Babylonian and Assyrian priests knew mathematics well. Already at the beginning of the II millennium BC. e. the Babylonians solved rather complex geometric problems of measuring areas, they knew how to draw up plans for cities, palaces and temples.

The library also contained works on astronomy. For the most part, these are copies of older books compiled more than a thousand years before Ashurbanipal. From these books one can trace the origin and development of astronomical science. In ancient Mesopotamia, temples were built multi-storey (usually seven-storey) towers - ziggurats. From the highest floor of the ziggurats, the priests from year to year monitored the movement of the heavenly bodies.

The Babylonians and Assyrians knew how to calculate the time of lunar and solar eclipses, they knew the movement of heavenly bodies visible to the naked eye. They also knew how to distinguish planets from stars. Tables with astronomical calculations of distances between stars have been preserved.

Based on observations of the movement of the Sun, Moon and stars, the priests compiled a calendar. This calendar indicated when the rivers would flood or the water would fall and, therefore, when agricultural work should begin.

Babylonian astronomers were widely known among other ancient peoples. However, Assyro-Babylonian astronomy was inextricably linked with astrology, which attempted to predict the future from the stars.

The Assyrians captured many neighboring states, even Egypt, and traded with more distant countries.

Therefore, the Assyrians were quite well aware of the nature and population of the countries of the ancient East.

Scientists have found geographical maps in the library of Ashurbanipal. Still very primitive, these maps nevertheless covered a large territory from Urartu to Egypt. Assyrian gazetteers with the names of countries, cities and rivers have also been preserved. However, the Babylonians and Assyrians had the most fantastic ideas about the structure of the Earth.

Medicine at that time was closely connected with magic. The Babylonians and Assyrians believed that all diseases were caused by evil spirits that entered the human body. To cure the disease, the doctor sought to expel the evil spirit from the body of the patient with prayers and spells. Sometimes doctors molded images of evil spirits from clay and destroyed them, believing that the patient could recover from this.

Surgery has achieved great success, as it was based on the study of the anatomy of the human body. It is curious that at that time the heart was considered an organ of the mind, and nothing was known about the role of the brain.

The Assyrian scribes knew not only their own Assyro-Babylonian, but also the ancient Sumerian language. The Sumerians invented cuneiform writing at the end of the 4th millennium BC. e. Later, the Babylonians and Assyrians adopted the Sumerian cuneiform script. Sumero-Babylonian dictionaries, collections of texts in Sumerian with explanations of places difficult to understand, tables of cuneiform signs, collections grammar examples and exercise. They were very helpful to European scientists in the 19th century. decipher Sumerian writing and learn the Sumerian language.

Thanks to the ancient library, we are well aware of the legends, myths and traditions of the Sumerians, Babylonians and Assyrians. Of particular interest are 12 clay tablets, which contain a remarkable work in verse - the epic about fairy tale hero Gilgamesh. The Epic of Gilgamesh originated in Sumer around 2400 BC and was later translated into Assyro-Babylonian. That's what this legend is about.

Gilgamesh, the son of the goddess Ninsun and a mortal man, reigned in the city of Uruk from time immemorial. He was a wise ruler and possessed heroic strength. Gilgamesh forced the entire population to build walls around the city. Dissatisfied with this duty, the inhabitants of Uruk turned to the gods with a request to create a creature that would overcome Gilgamesh. The gods created the half-animal, half-human Enkidu.

But when Gilgamesh and Enkidu entered into single combat, neither of them could defeat his opponent. Then they became friends and accomplished many feats together.

But soon Enkidu died. This drove Gilgamesh to despair. He became afraid of death and went to his distant ancestor Utnapishtim, who lived at the end of the world. The gods granted Utnapishtim immortality for his righteous way of life, and Gilgamesh wanted to learn from him how to become immortal. After overcoming many difficulties, Gilgamesh found Utnapishtim. He, after long hesitation, told Gilgamesh that he needed to eat the "grass of life" that grows at the bottom of the ocean. Gilgamesh got this herb from the bottom of the ocean. But he wanted immortality not only for himself and decided to bring grass to the inhabitants of his native city of Uruk, so that all the people would know the happiness of eternal youth. On the way back to Uruk, Gilgamesh decided to take a dip and left the "grass of life" on the seashore. The snake found this herb, ate it and became immortal. And Gilgamesh, sad, returned to his native Uruk.

The poem sings of the will to live, the courage of a hero who goes to his goal through all the trials that are sent to him by the insidious, evil and vengeful gods, personifying the formidable forces of nature.

In their epic, the ancient Babylonians expressed the desire of man to know the laws of nature, the secrets of life and death, to gain immortality.

A lot of other valuable information about the language, history, science, life, customs and laws of the ancient peoples of Mesopotamia has been preserved for us by the clay library of Ashurbanapal.

Literature:
Children's Encyclopedia, M. 1968.

In 1846, the failed English lawyer G. Layard fled from cold London to the East, where he was always attracted by hot countries and cities buried underground. He was neither a historian nor an archaeologist, but it was here that he was extremely lucky. G. Layard stumbled upon the capital of the Assyrian kingdom - city of Nineveh, which Europeans have long known from the Bible, and which has been waiting for its discovery for almost three thousand years.

Nineveh was the royal residence for almost ninety years and reached its peak under King Ashurbanipal who ruled in 669-633 BC. During the reign of Ashurbanipal, "the whole earth was a peaceful home", there were almost no wars, and Ashurbanipal devoted his free time to his library, which he collected from big love, systematically and with knowledge of the ancient "librarianship".

The one who dares to carry away these tables...
let them punish Ashur and Ballit with their anger,
and let his name and his heirs
Will be consigned to oblivion in this Country...

Such a formidable warning, according to the plan of King Ashurbanipal, was to plunge into fear and trembling anyone who only thinks about stealing books from the Nineveh library. None of the subjects of the king, of course, dared ...

But in 1854, Ormuzd entered the library of Ashurbanipal, breaking the laws of ancient Assyria in order to save it in the memory of mankind. And if the discoverer of Nineveh was G. Layard, who accidentally discovered several tablets from the Nineveh Library, then the library itself was unearthed by Ormuzd, one of the first archaeologists - representatives of the indigenous population of the country.

Among the ruins of the palace of Ashurbanipal, he discovered several rooms into which, it seemed, someone had deliberately dumped thousands of cuneiform tablets. Subsequently, scientists calculated that about 30,000 "clay books" were stored in the library. During the fire, when the city subsequently died under the blows of the Median and Babylonian warriors, in the fire that destroyed Nineveh, the “clay books” were fired, hardened and, thus, preserved. But, unfortunately, many crashed.

Ormuzd Rassam carefully packed the "clay books" in boxes and sent them to London, but it took another thirty years for scientists to study them and translate them into modern language.

The library of King Ashurbanipal kept on the clay pages of its books almost everything that the cultures of Sumer and Akkad were rich in. The Clay Books told the world that the wise mathematicians of Babylon did not limit themselves to four arithmetic operations. They easily calculated percentages, knew how to measure the area of various geometric shapes, they had a complex multiplication table, they knew squaring and extracting square root. Our seven-day week was also born in Mesopotamia, where the foundation was laid modern science about the structure and development of celestial bodies.

The Assyrians could rightfully claim to be the first printers, because how many royal decrees, state and economic documents had to be written and rewritten before they were sent to all parts of the Assyrian state! And in order to do this quickly, the Assyrians carved the necessary inscriptions on a wooden board, made prints from it on clay tablets. Why is such a board not a printing press?

In the Nineveh Library, the books were kept in strict order. At the bottom of each plate was the full title of the book, and next to it was the page number. In addition, in many tablets, each last line of the previous page was repeated at the beginning of the next.

There was also a catalog in the library, in which they recorded the title, the number of lines, the branch of knowledge - the department to which the book belonged. It was easy to find the right book: each shelf had a small clay tag with the name of the department attached to it, just like in modern libraries.

There were historical texts, scrolls of laws, medical reference books, travel descriptions, dictionaries with lists of Sumerian syllabic signs and grammatical forms, and even dictionaries of foreign words, since Assyria was connected with almost all the countries of Asia Minor.

All the books of the Nineveh Library were written on clay tablets (tablets) made from the highest quality clay. First, clay was kneaded for a long time, and then briquettes were made from it, 32 x 22 centimeters in size and 2.5 centimeters thick. When the tablet was ready, the scribe wrote on the raw tablet with a triangular iron stick.

Some of the books in the Nineveh library were brought from the countries defeated by Assyria, some were bought in the temples of other cities or from private individuals. Ever since books appeared, there have been book lovers. Ashurbanipal himself was a zealous collector, and this is no coincidence.

Ashurbanipal - a rare case among the kings of the Ancient East - was the most educated person for his time. His father Asargaddon intended to make his son a high priest, so the young Ashurbanipal studied all the sciences of that time. Ashurbanipal retained his love for books until the end of his life, which is why he assigned several rooms on the second floor of his palace to the library.

Complete the task:
The significance of LIBRARIES in the history of world culture is enormous. “Houses of Tablets”, “Shelters of the Mind”, “Pharmacy for the Soul”, “Houses of Wisdom”, “Book Preservation Chambers”, “Temples of Literature” - so they called in different times and in different countries libraries.

Which definition do you like best? Try suggesting your own.

Think.
Why are library books stamped?

Read the book:
Lipin B., Belov A. Clay books. - M. - L., 1952.
Make up a story about what scientists managed to find out about the life of the inhabitants of Assyria.
In one of the halls of the magnificent palace, the walls of which were decorated with sculptural scenes of the royal hunt for lions, a large part of the library was found. We can imagine how library visitors read these unusual books here.

Instead of the usual rustle of pages for us, a light clatter of clay tablets was heard in these walls.

Try to imagine and draw the premises of the library of King Ashurbanipal.

No wonder they say that information has the greatest value today. With the right information, a person can do anything. Our ancestors also knew about it. Clay books created millennia ago prove that they tried to record everything of even the slightest value on them.

By the way, what are clay books? If you do not know the answer to this question, we suggest you read this article. In it you will find answers to all your questions from this area.

History reference

To date, scientists believe that the most ancient human civilization, which reached an unprecedented flourishing for its time, was Mesopotamia. It originated about seven thousand years before the birth of Christ in a surprisingly well-chosen place, in the confluence of the great rivers - the Tigris and the Euphrates. It was this land that was inhabited by the amazing and mysterious Sumerians, who called themselves the "people of the blackheads."

Information breakthrough

The Sumerians are known as the oldest astronomers. It is astronomers, not astrologers, which allows us to consider them the most ancient scientists of our world. Their outstanding invention was the cuneiform. This is a writing system, the characters in which resembled ordinary dashes, wedges. Due to this, their alphabetical system got its unusual name.

In those centuries, the only material available for writing was clay. Of course, something could be written on the skin. But! Firstly, dressed leather is not cheap even by today's standards. Secondly, people were well aware that a leather scroll would not survive a fire, an invasion of rodents, or a rainy period. Tax collectors, usurers, doctors were especially worried about this... In a word, all those people whose work directly depended on the safety of the information they received. But what are clay books? Of course, there is much less data on their surface ...

Technical information

In fact, these are burnt clay tablets, on the surface of which scribes applied information even before they put the soft blank into the furnace. Modern bricks, on the surface of which there are marks of the manufacturer, in fact - the same "books".

The first "information carriers" of this type were created four thousand years before the beginning of our era. The shape and size of these "books" were very different. There were flat, convex, oval and square "books"... Some of them were the size of an ordinary notebook, but the diagonal of others was more than 45 centimeters! That's what clay books are.

How were these books created?

The technology was simple, even very simple: first, the scribe laid the prepared and formed blank on a hard and even surface, and then, armed with a pointed stick, he began to squeeze out the symbols of the cuneiform alphabet on the tablet. The ancient scribe held his "pen" in approximately the same way that we hold a pencil in our hand today. Look at the children who are playing, trying to write something in the sandbox: in fact, they are likened to the ancient masters.

To ensure the evenness and parallelism of the symbols applied to the clay, before starting work, the tablet was often marked with a tightly stretched thread. Often the scribe filled out not only both sides of the book, but even managed to put information on its ends. The ancient "office employees" burned the finished document in a kiln. However, often unimportant "papers" were simply dried in the sun. If for some reason the clerk did not have time to finish his work in one go, he wrapped the workpiece in a wet rag.

How did people navigate the multitude of tablets?

It was not a compact type of letter. Naturally, to create a more or less extensive collection of decrees, a list of goods, or something like that, dozens, if not hundreds, of clay tablets left. How was the “content” of such books organized? After all, there was no intuitive search then!?

The average Sumerian book actually consisted of dozens of burnt tablets. They got out of the situation simply - under the last character on the page they put a deep cross line, and under it they wrote the number of the book in which the continuation of this text is located. Names were often formed from their first words. Doesn't it remind you of the option to save the document by default in the same Microsoft Word?

So we learned what clay books are. And where was all this wealth of the Ancient World stored? As at the present time, libraries existed for these purposes. So the profession of a librarian is one of the most ancient and respected in the world.

ancient libraries

All this is extremely important… But where was the library of clay books? The one that was the first in human history?

Back in 1841, the capital of France was shocked by a telegraph message from Arabia: “I believe that I have discovered the most ancient structures. Perhaps they can rightly be attributed to the heyday of Nineveh. The person who sent the message was Paul-Emile Botta. He was commissioned by the Asiatic Society of France to open the biblical Nineveh. Oddly enough, but he was able to do this, and the first library of clay books again became available to mankind.

In just a few hours, all the major newspapers of that time were full of sensational headlines, reporting on the greatest And there was every reason for such a hype: after all, but until that day, official science did not have any data that at least somewhat departed from the times ancient Egyptian pyramids. Among the finds of Bott was a library of clay books. The city of Nineveh not only proved its reality, but also enriched humanity with the most valuable information contained on the “pages” of unique clay tablets.

Library of Assyria

In 1852, one of the greatest archaeologists of his time, Henry Austin Layard, also surprised the world with a unique discovery. He was able to dig out the palace of the last king of Assyria, Ashurbanipal, which contemporaries respectfully called the "House of Instructions and Advice." It was there that the greatest intellectual value of those times was located - the great library of clay books, which the kings of Assyria collected throughout their reign.

A historical paradox: for almost three decades, the most valuable written monuments of bygone centuries were lying side by side in the cellars of the British Museum. And only after the first steps were taken in deciphering the writing of the ancient peoples, historians finally realized how valuable (what is there, priceless!) Treasure aimlessly collects dust in the vaults ... Since then, a systematic deciphering of all the books found has begun.

Great Achievements of Ashurbanipal

More than three thousand years separate us from the moment when the last king of a warlike people dictated to his unknown scribe the words that have come down to our time from the very depths of centuries. He says that he ordered to engrave on the stone letters, works of verbal art that his predecessors did not study or read. The king noted how proud he was of his ability to read and his command to divide the library into sections.

By the way, what was the organization of the clay book library? In principle, it was not much different from the modern one. Of course, there was no subdivision by genre, but the books were sorted by authors, countries, etc. in the same way. All written sources were placed on huge shelves. The library was run by caretakers. This is where the library of clay books was located, which was the first to be discovered by modern civilization.

Needless to say, not much has survived from it. Most of the books by that time had been broken into separate shards, so the decoding is still going on.

Great Book Depository

It must be said that the name of Ashurbanipal has not in vain survived the millennia. The fact is that the tsar showed himself to be an extremely talented organizer, an intelligent politician and a person who was really interested in culture and science. It seems that at that difficult time for Assyria, another sovereign would hardly have found time for such an occupation.

He made truly titanic efforts to ensure that the best library of clay books at that time appeared in his state. The city of Nineveh became scientific and cultural center not only Assyria, but also all the countries that existed then. He issued a special decree, according to which hundreds of scribes began to travel around the country, looking for all the available examples of verbal art. Finding such, they copied them exactly and sent them to the capital for storage. This is how the clay book library in Nineveh got its priceless book collection.

This included exact copies of texts written in ancient times in Egypt and Assyria itself, in Babylon and Akkad. When the library was discovered by Botta, it had about 20,000 tiles left. Modern scientists who have analyzed the surviving data are deeply lamented: most likely, initially there were at least 100,000 texts in the vaults of this repository! Alas, but all of them are probably lost to our civilization forever. The famous library of clay books was powerless before the all-destroying force of time.

The most valuable specimens from the ancient vault

It soon became clear that the Assyrians and Babylonians knew mathematics very well. Already two millennia before the beginning of our era, their scientists were able to solve very complex geometric problems. In principle, it would be unrealistic to create famous people without such calculations, so scientists only confirmed their guesses.

Much more valuable were essays on astronomy. Many of them were written almost one and a half millennia before the time of Ashurbanipal. The value of these books is that they could easily trace the development of astronomical science since ancient times. It turned out that the ziggurats, which are praised by many science fiction writers of our time, were the first observatories in the world. From year to year, the priests used them to observe the movement of celestial bodies, accumulating invaluable knowledge. They were entered with great trepidation into clay books, photos of which are in the article.

ancient calendars

According to the information that scientists received from the inhabitants of Assyria and Babylon, they were able to predict lunar and solar eclipses, they knew perfectly the orbits of all celestial bodies that could be seen with the naked eye. In those distant times, they also already learned to distinguish planets from stars. Many tables with calculations of interstellar distances have been preserved. Surprisingly, many of them are quite accurate. Even the famous Kazakh writer Suleimenov wrote about this not so long ago. "The Clay Book", his last work, tells just about those ancient times.

On the basis of centuries-old observations of the Moon and the Sun, the priests compiled their own calendar. It was incredibly valuable for those times, as it made it possible to find out the start time of sowing and harvesting crops. It is no wonder that the astronomers of Assyria and Babylon enjoyed such respect and honor in the ancient world.

Geographic knowledge of the ancients

Historians were very interested in the ancient "geographical atlases", also found among the surviving books. Although the maps were very primitive, it was quite possible to recognize the outlines of the lands from Egypt to Urartu from them. The Assyrians had even the most real reference books on geography, which indicated the names of countries, their capitals, the names of rivers and large geographical areas. However, they knew very little about the structure of the world around them, mainly guided by fantastic theories.

So, the earthen ones in geography considered our world as the center of everything that exists. However, scientists of the Middle Ages had practically the same thoughts, so there is nothing to be surprised at.

Medical industry

This was even better seen in the surviving medical treatises. The Assyrian and Babylonian civilizations still believed that diseases were caused solely by evil spirits. Many spells were given in the books to banish the latter. Historians even found the opinion of an authoritative healer of those times, who reported on the need to mold from clay the image of the demon that torments the patient's body. After that, the doll was strongly advised to be destroyed.

Oddly enough, but in such conditions, surgery has reached amazing heights. So, medical books even very difficult (including by modern standards) abdominal operations are considered on clay tablets. However, the Assyrians did not reach such heights in everything: for example, in the works of physicians of that period, the heart was considered as a “repository of the soul”, and people did not suspect anything about the role of the brain.

a gigantic library for those times was created. Ashurbanipal was the only literate among all the Assyrian rulers. In addition, he turned out to be an avid bibliophile and collected the most expensive of the available pleasures - knowledge.

clay tablet N 11 with a fragment of the myth of Gilgamesh,which describes the history of the flood ; (Located in the collection of the British Museum.)

There was a small library in the palace, but Ashurbanipal did not like it. Like a decent maniac, Ashurbanipal obtained items for his collection by any means. He sentscribes in different parts of the country to make copies of any texts that come across. In addition, Ashurbanipal ordered copies of texts from all major temple archives, which they sent to him in Nineveh. Well, robbery for a collector is sacred!

During military campaigns, Ashurbanipal combined business with pleasure: he captured entire cuneiform libraries and dragged him to his palace. Maybe that's why he loved to fight so much. The tsar collected his library for almost 25 years.

He dearly loved his collection, and gave great importance its ordering. Each plate hadpeculiarbookplate- the name of the king.And the name of the original from which the copy was made was written.The librarians of Ashurbanipal did not eat their bread in vain. They did a great job of cataloging, copying, commenting and researching the texts of the library. Numerous glossaries, bibliography and commentaries were compiled.The bulk of the books were translations from Sumerian and Babylonian texts. They were written by translators.As a rule, each text was kept in six copies, and often in several languages.

synonym tables

Books were written on clay and wax tablets, parchments and papyri.
The king was justly proud of his education. He didn't just collect books. He read them.

"I learned what the wise man brought me Adapa, I mastered all the secret art of writing on tablets, began to understand predictions in heaven and on earth, participate in discussions of pundits, predict the future together with the most experienced interpreters of predictions from the liver of sacrificial animals. I can solve complex difficult tasks on division and multiplication, constantly reading masterfully written tablets in such a complex language as Sumerian, or as difficult to interpret as Akkadian, familiar with antediluvian inscriptions on stone that are already completely incomprehensible.

(Looking at these inscriptions, I understand why the king was proud. To voluntarily read SUCH, one must be a very strong-willed person!)

The library had books about everything: Booksconspiracies, prophecies, magical and religious rituals; Myths; medical texts; Books on healing by sorcery; Plates withthe epic of Gilgamesh and mythological translation enuma elish ; Books with prayers, songs, legal documents (eg.laws of Hammurabi ), economic and administrative records, letters, astronomical and historical works, records of a political nature, lists of kings and poetic texts. There were books about everything in the world except mathematics. Probably all the mathematical texts were kept separately and they were not found. Or they stole it when they robbed the palace. Or they died in fires ... Well, there are spots on the sun. Ashurbanipal created a library that covered all the knowledge accumulated by mankind.

Text about Ishtar

A generation after Ashurbanipal, his capital fell under the blows of the Medes and Babylonians. The library was not looted. Probably not all robbers liked to read. Most of the books that were written on wax tablets, papyrus and leather simply burned down. There were books on clay tablets that turned out to be buried under the ruins of the palaces where they were kept. Preserved25,000 clay tablets.Judging by the ancient catalogs, no more than 10% of all funds collected by Ashurbanipal have come down to us. The library was not small at all, even by our standards. And inVII century BC, it had no equal: 250 thousand books!!!

List of astrological signs for the Moon, and comments

Library of King Ashurbanipal

More than 2,500 years ago, the large city of Nineveh stood on the left bank of the Tigris River. Back in the 7th century BC e. Nineveh was the capital of the powerful slave state of Assyria.

Years passed. Gradually, large hills formed over the ruins, and after 200 years, no one knew exactly where this city was located...

The content of clay books is very diverse. Among them are grammars, chronicles (records of events by year) telling about the most important historical events of Babylonia and Assyria, treaties between various countries, laws, reports on the construction of royal palaces, reports from officials, reports from spies about the situation in neighboring countries, lists of peoples subject to Assyria from indicating the amount of taxes received from them, essays on medicine, letters, lists of animals, plants and minerals, account books of royal households, various complaints, contracts, documents drawn up when buying a house or slaves. Clay tablets told scientists a lot about the history, culture, economy and religion of the peoples of ancient Mesopotamia.

This library, the largest of its time, collected books summarizing scientific achievements Sumerians, Babylonians and Assyrians.

In ancient Mesopotamia, temples were built multi-storey (usually seven-storey) towers - ziggurats. From the highest floor of the ziggurats, the priests from year to year monitored the movement of the heavenly bodies. The library also contained works on astronomy. For the most part, these are copies of older books compiled more than a thousand years before Ashurbanipal. From these books one can trace the origin and development of astronomical science. In ancient Mesopotamia, temples were built multi-storey (usually seven-storey) towers - ziggurats. From the highest floor of the ziggurats, the priests from year to year monitored the movement of the heavenly bodies.

The Assyrians captured many neighboring states, even Egypt, and traded with more distant countries.

Therefore, the Assyrians were quite well aware of the nature and population of the countries of the ancient East.

Fragments of a clay tablet with a house plan. The Assyrian scribes knew not only their own Assyro-Babylonian, but also the ancient Sumerian language. The Sumerians invented cuneiform writing at the end of the 4th millennium BC. e. Later, the Babylonians and Assyrians adopted the Sumerian cuneiform script. Sumero-Babylonian dictionaries, collections of texts in the Sumerian language with explanations of places difficult to understand, tables of cuneiform signs, collections of grammatical examples and exercises were found in the library of Ashurbanipal. They were very helpful to European scientists in the 19th century. decipher the Sumerian script and learn the Sumerian language.

Thanks to the ancient library, we are well aware of the legends, myths and traditions of the Sumerians, Babylonians and Assyrians. Of particular interest are 12 clay tablets, which contain a remarkable work in verse - the epic about the fairy-tale hero Gilgamesh. The Epic of Gilgamesh originated in Sumer around 2400 BC and was later translated into Assyro-Babylonian. That's what this legend is about.

But when Gilgamesh and Enkidu entered into single combat, neither of them could defeat his opponent. Then they became friends and accomplished many feats together.

Fortress siege. Relief from the palace of Ashurbanipal. 9th century BC But soon Enkidu died. This drove Gilgamesh to despair. He became afraid of death and went to his distant ancestor Utnapishtim, who lived at the end of the world. The gods granted Utnapishtim immortality for his righteous way of life, and Gilgamesh wanted to learn from him how to become immortal. After overcoming many difficulties, Gilgamesh found Utnapishtim. He, after long hesitation, told Gilgamesh that he needed to eat the "grass of life" that grows at the bottom of the ocean. Gilgamesh got this herb from the bottom of the ocean. But he wanted immortality not only for himself and decided to bring grass to the inhabitants of his native city of Uruk, so that all the people would know the happiness of eternal youth. On the way back to Uruk, Gilgamesh decided to take a dip and left the "grass of life" on the seashore. The snake found this herb, ate it and became immortal. And Gilgamesh, sad, returned to his native Uruk.

In their epic, the ancient Babylonians expressed the desire of man to know the laws of nature, the secrets of life and death, to gain immortality.

A lot of other valuable information about the language, history, science, life, customs and laws of the ancient peoples of Mesopotamia has been preserved for us by the clay library of Ashurbanapal.

Bibliography

For the preparation of this work, materials from the site http://subscribe.ru/archive/history.alltheuniverse were used