Surprisingly, only in San Francisco (USA) a statue of Ashurbanipal, the king of Assyria, who ruled from 669 to 633 BC, was installed in front of the city library. Nowhere else in the world is it noted that Ashurbanipal, being the only Assyrian emperor who owned cuneiform and could read the Sumerian and Akkadian languages, collected the first library in the history of mankind.
The Ashurbanipal Library is the largest surviving library of the ancient world and the oldest known library. It was compiled for 25 years and also served as a state archive.
In the library, books were kept in strict order. At the bottom of each tablet 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 wrote down the name, number of lines, branch of knowledge - the department to which the book belonged. It was not difficult to find the right book: a small clay tag with the name of the department was attached to each shelf - as is done in modern libraries. The library also kept stamps, with one press of which they reproduced an entire "page" - one side of a clay tablet - for making a large number of copies from some circular or decree. Stamps were also used not only for "printing" books,but also to obtain impressions on glazed facing bricks, cylinder-seals with complex patterns.
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On special tablets, sealed by the Assyrian royal seal, it was written: "Whoever dares to take these tables, let Ashur and Belit punish with their anger, and let the name of him and his heirs forever be consigned to oblivion in this country."
After the death of the king, the funds were scattered across different palaces. The part of the library discovered by archaeologists consists of 25,000 clay tablets with cuneiform texts. The opening of the library in the middle of the 19th century was of great importance for understanding the cultures of Mesopotamia and for deciphering cuneiform writing.
Author: Marina Sarycheva