Ashurbanipal
Encyclopedia
Assyrian people
The Assyrian people are a distinct ethnic group whose origins lie in ancient Mesopotamia...
king, the son of Esarhaddon
Esarhaddon
Esarhaddon , was a king of Assyria who reigned 681 – 669 BC. He was the youngest son of Sennacherib and the Aramean queen Naqi'a , Sennacherib's second wife....
and the last great king
Monarch
A monarch is the person who heads a monarchy. This is a form of government in which a state or polity is ruled or controlled by an individual who typically inherits the throne by birth and occasionally rules for life or until abdication...
of the Neo-Assyrian Empire (668 BC – c. 627 BC). He established the first systematically organized library in the ancient Middle East, the Library of Ashurbanipal
Library of Ashurbanipal
-External links:. In our time discussion programme. 45 minutes....
, which survives in part today at Nineveh
Nineveh
Nineveh was an ancient Assyrian city on the eastern bank of the Tigris River, and capital of the Neo Assyrian Empire. Its ruins are across the river from the modern-day major city of Mosul, in the Ninawa Governorate of Iraq....
.
In the Bible he is called Asenappar . Roman historian Justinus identified him as Sardanapalus
Sardanapalus
Sardanapalus was, according to the Greek writer Ctesias of Cnidus, the last king of Assyria. Ctesias' Persica is lost, but we know of its contents by later compilations and from the work of Diodorus...
.
Early life
Ashurbanipal was born toward the end of a fifteen-hundred-year period of Assyrian ascendancy.His father, Esarhaddon
Esarhaddon
Esarhaddon , was a king of Assyria who reigned 681 – 669 BC. He was the youngest son of Sennacherib and the Aramean queen Naqi'a , Sennacherib's second wife....
, youngest son of Sennacherib
Sennacherib
Sennacherib |Sîn]] has replaced brothers for me"; Aramaic: ) was the son of Sargon II, whom he succeeded on the throne of Assyria .-Rise to power:...
, had become heir when the crown prince, Ashur-nadin-shumi
Ashur-nadin-shumi
Ashur-nadin-shumi was an ancient King of Babylon. The son of the Assyrian king Sennacherib, Ashur-nadin-shumi was installed by his father as King of Babylon in 700 BC. He reigned for six years, until he was murdered by the Elamites following their capture of the city in 694 BC....
, was deposed by rebels from his position as vassal for Babylon
Babylon
Babylon was an Akkadian city-state of ancient Mesopotamia, the remains of which are found in present-day Al Hillah, Babil Province, Iraq, about 85 kilometers south of Baghdad...
. Esarhaddon was not the son of Sennacherib's queen, Tashmetum-sharrat, but of the West Semitic
Semitic
In linguistics and ethnology, Semitic was first used to refer to a language family of largely Middle Eastern origin, now called the Semitic languages...
/Aramean
Aramaeans
The Aramaeans, also Arameans , were a Northwest Semitic semi-nomadic and pastoralist people who originated in what is now modern Syria during the Late Bronze Age and the Iron Age...
"palace woman" Zakutu, known by her native name, Naqi'a. The only queen known for Esarhaddon was Ashur-hamat, who died in 672 BC.
Ashurbanipal grew up in the small palace called bit reduti (house of succession), built by his grandfather Sennacherib when he was crown prince in the northern quadrant of Nineveh
Nineveh
Nineveh was an ancient Assyrian city on the eastern bank of the Tigris River, and capital of the Neo Assyrian Empire. Its ruins are across the river from the modern-day major city of Mosul, in the Ninawa Governorate of Iraq....
. In 694 BC, Sennacherib had completed the "Palace Without Rival" at the southwest corner of the acropolis
Acropolis
Acropolis means "high city" in Greek, literally city on the extremity and is usually translated into English as Citadel . For purposes of defense, early people naturally chose elevated ground to build a new settlement, frequently a hill with precipitous sides...
, obliterating most of the older structures. The "House of Succession" had become the palace of Esarhaddon, the crown prince. In this house, Ashurbanipal's grandfather was assassinated by uncles identified only from the biblical account as Adrammelek and Sharezer. From this conspiracy, Esarhaddon emerged as king
Monarch
A monarch is the person who heads a monarchy. This is a form of government in which a state or polity is ruled or controlled by an individual who typically inherits the throne by birth and occasionally rules for life or until abdication...
in 680 BC He proceeded to rebuild as his residence the bit masharti (weapons house, or arsenal
Arsenal
An arsenal is a place where arms and ammunition are made, maintained and repaired, stored, issued to authorized users, or any combination of those...
). The "House of Succession" was left to his mother and the younger children, including Ashurbanipal.
The names of five brothers and one sister are known. Sin-iddin-apli, the intended crown prince, died prior to 672 BC Not having been expected to become heir to the throne, Ashurbanipal was trained in scholarly pursuits as well as the usual horsemanship, hunting
Hunting
Hunting is the practice of pursuing any living thing, usually wildlife, for food, recreation, or trade. In present-day use, the term refers to lawful hunting, as distinguished from poaching, which is the killing, trapping or capture of the hunted species contrary to applicable law...
, chariot
Chariot
The chariot is a type of horse carriage used in both peace and war as the chief vehicle of many ancient peoples. Ox carts, proto-chariots, were built by the Proto-Indo-Europeans and also built in Mesopotamia as early as 3000 BC. The original horse chariot was a fast, light, open, two wheeled...
ry, soldierliness, craftsmanship, and royal decorum. In a unique autobiographical statement, Ashurbanipal specified his youthful scholarly pursuits as having included oil divination, mathematics
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
, and reading and writing. According to legend, Ashurbanipal was the only Assyrian king who learned how to read and write.
Royal succession
In 672, upon the death of his queen, Esarhaddon reorganized the line of succession at the instigation of his mother. He used the submission of MedianMedes
The MedesThe Medes...
chieftains to draft the "Vassal Treaty". The chieftains swore that if Esarhaddon died while his sons were still minors, they and their children would guarantee the succession of Ashurbanipal as king of Assyria and Shamash-shum-ukin
Shamash-shum-ukin
Shamash-shum-ukin was the Assyrian king of Babylon from 668-648 BC.He was the second son of the Assyrian King Esarhaddon. His elder brother, crown prince Sin-iddina-apla had died in 672, and in his stead the third son Ashurbanipal was invested as crown prince and later king of Assyria, while...
as king of Babylon even though Ashurbanipal was the younger of the two. Before this, his elder brother Sin-iddin-apli was Esarhaddon's heir but he died in the same year. A monumental stela set up two years later in a northwestern province portrays Esarhaddon in high relief upon its face and each of the sons on a side. These portraits, the earliest dated for Ashurbanipal and his brother, show both with a facial beard which implies maturity.
The princes pursued diverse educations thereafter. Extant letters from Shamash-shum-ukin offer his father reports of the situation in Babylon; Ashurbanipal at home received letters as crown prince. The situation came to an immediate crisis in 669, when Esarhaddon, while travelling to re invade Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
, died suddenly. Ashurbanipal did not accede to the kingship of Assyria until late in the year. His grandmother Zakutu required all to support his sole claim to the throne and to report acts of treason from now on to him and herself. This shows how influential the old lady was at the beginning of Ashurbanipal's reign. The official ceremonies of coronation came in the second month of the new year, and within the same year (668 BC), Ashurbanipal installed his brother as King of Babylon. The transition took place smoothly, and the dual monarchy of the youthful brothers began. Texts describe their relationship as if they were twins. It was clear, however, that Ashurbanipal, as king of Assyria, like his fathers before him, was also called "king of the universe."
Military accomplishments
Despite being a popular king among his subjects, he was also known by for his exceedingly cruel actions towards his enemies. Some pictures depict him putting a dog chain through the jaw of a defeated king and then making him live in a dog kennel. Many paintings of the period seem to exhibit pride in his malice and brutality.Ashurbanipal inherited from Esarhaddon not only the throne but also the ongoing war with Egypt
Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...
and Kush
Kingdom of Kush
The native name of the Kingdom was likely kaš, recorded in Egyptian as .The name Kash is probably connected to Cush in the Hebrew Bible , son of Ham ....
/Nubia
Nubia
Nubia is a region along the Nile river, which is located in northern Sudan and southern Egypt.There were a number of small Nubian kingdoms throughout the Middle Ages, the last of which collapsed in 1504, when Nubia became divided between Egypt and the Sennar sultanate resulting in the Arabization...
. Esarhaddon sent an army against them in 667 that defeated the Nubian king of Egypt Taharqa
Taharqa
Taharqa was a pharaoh of the Ancient Egyptian 25th dynasty and king of the Kingdom of Kush, which was located in Northern Sudan.Taharqa was the son of Piye, the Nubian king of Napata who had first conquered Egypt. Taharqa was also the cousin and successor of Shebitku. The successful campaigns of...
, near Memphis
Memphis, Egypt
Memphis was the ancient capital of Aneb-Hetch, the first nome of Lower Egypt. Its ruins are located near the town of Helwan, south of Cairo.According to legend related by Manetho, the city was founded by the pharaoh Menes around 3000 BC. Capital of Egypt during the Old Kingdom, it remained an...
, while Ashurbanipal stayed at his capital in Nineveh. At the same time the Egyptian vassals rebelled and were also defeated. All of the vanquished leaders save one were sent to Nineveh, only Necho I
Necho I
Necho I was the prince or governor of the Egyptian city of Sais. He was the first attested local Saite king of the twenty-sixth dynasty of Egypt who reigned for 8 years, according to Manetho's Epitome. Egypt was reunified by his son, Psamtik I...
the native Egyptian Prince of Sais
SAIS
SAIS can refer to:* Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, part of The Johns Hopkins University.* Sharjah American International School* Southern Association of Independent Schools...
, convinced the Assyrians of his loyalty and was sent back to become the Assyrian puppet Pharaoh
Pharaoh
Pharaoh is a title used in many modern discussions of the ancient Egyptian rulers of all periods. The title originates in the term "pr-aa" which means "great house" and describes the royal palace...
of Egypt. After the death of Taharqa in 664 BC his nephew and successor Tantamani
Tantamani
Tantamani or Tanwetamani or Tementhes was a Pharaoh of Egypt and the Kingdom of Kush located in Northern Sudan and a member of the Nubian or Twenty-fifth dynasty of Egypt...
invaded Upper Egypt and made Thebes
Thebes, Egypt
Thebes is the Greek name for a city in Ancient Egypt located about 800 km south of the Mediterranean, on the east bank of the river Nile within the modern city of Luxor. The Theban Necropolis is situated nearby on the west bank of the Nile.-History:...
his capital. In Memphis he defeated the other Egyptian princes and Necho may have died in the battle. Another army was sent by Ashurbanipal and again it succeeded in defeating the Kushites/Nubians. Tantamani was driven back to his homeland in Nubia and stayed there. The Assyrians plundered Thebes and took much booty home with them. How the Assyrian interference in Egypt ended is not certain but Necho's son Psammetichus I
Psammetichus I
Psamtik I , was the first of three kings of that name of the Saite, or Twenty-sixth dynasty of Egypt. His prenomen, Wah-Ib-Re, means "Constant [is the] Heart [of] Re." The story in Herodotus of the Dodecarchy and the rise of Psamtik is fanciful...
gained independence while keeping his relations with Assyria friendly. An interesting Assyrian royal inscription tells us of how the Lydia
Lydia
Lydia was an Iron Age kingdom of western Asia Minor located generally east of ancient Ionia in the modern Turkish provinces of Manisa and inland İzmir. Its population spoke an Anatolian language known as Lydian....
n king Gyges
Gyges of Lydia
Gyges was the founder of the third or Mermnad dynasty of Lydian kings and reigned from 716 BC to 678 BC . He was succeeded by his son Ardys II.-Allegorical accounts of Gyges' rise to power:...
received dreams from the Assyrian god Ashur
Ashur
Ashur |Shin]]) in the Masoretic text, which doubles the 'ש'), was the second son of Shem, the son of Noah. Ashur's brothers were Elam, Arphaxad, Lud, and Aram....
. The dreams told him that when he submitted to Ashurbanipal he would conquer his foes. After he sent his ambassadors to do so he was indeed able to defeat his Cimmerian enemies. But when he supported the rebellion of one of the Egyptian rebels his country was overrun by the Cilicia
Cilicia
In antiquity, Cilicia was the south coastal region of Asia Minor, south of the central Anatolian plateau. It existed as a political entity from Hittite times into the Byzantine empire...
ns.
All now seemed secure. Assyria retained control and subjugation of Media
Medes
The MedesThe Medes...
, Persia, Aramea, Phoenicia
Phoenicia
Phoenicia , was an ancient civilization in Canaan which covered most of the western, coastal part of the Fertile Crescent. Several major Phoenician cities were built on the coastline of the Mediterranean. It was an enterprising maritime trading culture that spread across the Mediterranean from 1550...
, Israel, Judah
Kingdom of Judah
The Kingdom of Judah was a Jewish state established in the Southern Levant during the Iron Age. It is often referred to as the "Southern Kingdom" to distinguish it from the northern Kingdom of Israel....
, Asia Minor
Asia Minor
Asia Minor is a geographical location at the westernmost protrusion of Asia, also called Anatolia, and corresponds to the western two thirds of the Asian part of Turkey...
, northern Arabia, the neo Hittites
Hittites
The Hittites were a Bronze Age people of Anatolia.They established a kingdom centered at Hattusa in north-central Anatolia c. the 18th century BC. The Hittite empire reached its height c...
and Cyprus
Cyprus
Cyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country, member of the European Union, in the Eastern Mediterranean, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria and north of Egypt. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.The earliest known human activity on the...
with few problems during Ashurbanipal's reign. Urartu
Urartu
Urartu , corresponding to Ararat or Kingdom of Van was an Iron Age kingdom centered around Lake Van in the Armenian Highland....
was defeated and contained, and the Nubians had been expelled from Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
and a native puppet regime installed. For the time being the dual monarchy in Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia is a toponym for the area of the Tigris–Euphrates river system, largely corresponding to modern-day Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey and southwestern Iran.Widely considered to be the cradle of civilization, Bronze Age Mesopotamia included Sumer and the...
went well, with no problems from the junior partner Babylon
Babylon
Babylon was an Akkadian city-state of ancient Mesopotamia, the remains of which are found in present-day Al Hillah, Babil Province, Iraq, about 85 kilometers south of Baghdad...
, and its Assyrian king.
For his assignment of his brother, Ashurbanipal sent a statue of the divinity Marduk
Marduk
Marduk was the Babylonian name of a late-generation god from ancient Mesopotamia and patron deity of the city of Babylon, who, when Babylon became the political center of the Euphrates valley in the time of Hammurabi , started to...
with him as sign of good will. Shamsh-shuma-ukin's powers were limited. He performed Babylonian rituals but the official building projects were still executed by his younger brother. During his first years Elam
Elam
Elam was an ancient civilization located in what is now southwest Iran. Elam was centered in the far west and the southwest of modern-day Iran, stretching from the lowlands of Khuzestan and Ilam Province, as well as a small part of southern Iraq...
was still in peace as it was under his father. Ashurbanipal even claimed that he sent food supplies during a famine. Around 664 BC the situation changed and Urtaku
Urtaku
Urtaku was an Elamite king who reigned from 676 - 664 BCE. Under his reign, relations between Elam and Babylonia became weaker, and after his death during an attack on Mesopotamia, the Assyrian king Assurbanipal launched a counter-attack, leading to the occupation of Elam by the Assyrians....
, the Elamite king, attacked Babylonia
Babylonia
Babylonia was an ancient cultural region in central-southern Mesopotamia , with Babylon as its capital. Babylonia emerged as a major power when Hammurabi Babylonia was an ancient cultural region in central-southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq), with Babylon as its capital. Babylonia emerged as...
by surprise. Assyria delayed in sending aid to Babylon, this could have been caused for two reasons: either the soothing messages of Elamite ambassadors or Ashurbanipal might simply not have been present at that time. Elamites retreated before the Assyrian troops, and in the same year Urtaku died. He was succeeded by Teumman (Tempti-Khumma-In-Shushinak) who was not his legitimate heir, so many Elamite princes had to flee from him to Ashurbanipal's court, including Urtaku's oldest son Humban-nikash. In 658/657 BC the two empires clashed again. The reason for this was the treasonous province of Gambulu in 664 acting against the Assyrians. Ashurbanipal finally decided to punish them for that. On the other hand, Teumman saw his authority threatened by the Elamite princes at the Assyrian court and demanded their extradition. When the Assyrian forces invaded Elam a battle followed at the Ulaya river.
Elam was defeated in the battle in which, according to Assyrian reliefs, Teumman committed suicide. Ashurbanipal installed Humban-nikash as king of Madaktu and another prince, Tammaritu, as king of the city Hidalu. Elam was considered a new vassal of Assyria and tribute was imposed on it. With the Elamite problem solved the Assyrians could finally punish Gumbulu and seized its capital. Then the victorious army marched home taking with them the head of Teumman. In Nineveh, when the Elamite ambassadors saw the head they lost control; one tore out his beard and the other committed suicide but this wasn't enough. As further humiliation the head of the Elamite king was put on display at the port of Nineveh. The death and head of Teumman was depicted multiple times in the reliefs of Ashurbanipal's palace.
Friction must have grown between the two brother kings and in 652 BC Babylon rebelled. This time Babylon was not alone – it had allied itself with Assyrian Chaldea
Chaldea
Chaldea or Chaldaea , from Greek , Chaldaia; Akkadian ; Hebrew כשדים, Kaśdim; Aramaic: ܟܐܠܕܘ, Kaldo) was a marshy land located in modern-day southern Iraq which came to briefly rule Babylon...
n tribes, its southern regions, the kings of "Gutium
Gutium
The Gutians were a tribe that overran southern Mesopotamia when the Akkadian empire collapsed in approximately 2154 BC....
", Amurru
Amurru
Amurru and Martu are names given in Akkadian and Sumerian texts to the god of the Amorite/Amurru people, often forming part of personal names. He is sometimes called Ilu Amurru . He was the patron god of the Mesopotamian city of Ninab, whose exact location is unknown.-Description:Amurru/Martu was...
, and Malluha, and even Elam. According to a later Aramaic tale on Papyrus 63, Shamash-shum-ukin
Shamash-shum-ukin
Shamash-shum-ukin was the Assyrian king of Babylon from 668-648 BC.He was the second son of the Assyrian King Esarhaddon. His elder brother, crown prince Sin-iddina-apla had died in 672, and in his stead the third son Ashurbanipal was invested as crown prince and later king of Assyria, while...
formally declared war on Ashurbanipal in a letter where he claims that his brother is only the governor of Nineveh and his subject. Again the Assyrians delayed an answer, this time due to unfavourable omens. It's not certain how the rebellion affected the Assyrian heartlands but some unrest in the cities indicates that there were problems. When Babylon finally was attacked, the Assyrians proved to be more powerful. Civil war prevented further military aid, and in 648 BC Borsippa
Borsippa
Borsippa was an important ancient city of Sumer, built on both sides of a lake about southwest of Babylon on the east bank of the Euphrates. The site of Borsippa is in Babil Governorate, Iraq and now called Birs Nimrud, identifying the site with Nimrod...
and Babylon were besieged. Without aid the situation was hopeless. After two years Shamash-shum-ukin met his end in his burning palace just before the city surrendered. This time Babylon was not destroyed, as under Sennacherib
Sennacherib
Sennacherib |Sîn]] has replaced brothers for me"; Aramaic: ) was the son of Sargon II, whom he succeeded on the throne of Assyria .-Rise to power:...
, but a terrible massacre of the rebels took place, according to the king's inscriptions. Ashurbanipal allowed Babylon to keep its semi autonomous position, but it became even more formalized than before. The next king Kandalanu
Kandalanu
- Territory :Kandalanu was king over Babylonia, with exception of the city Nippur. His reign began in 648 B.C. when he was appointed by his overlord King Ashurbanipal of Assyria after the latter had crushed the Babylonian rebellion by Kandalanu’s predecessor, Shamash-shum-ukin.- Identity :Because...
left no official inscription, probably as his function was only ritual.
The end of the Assyrian Empire
The Assyrian empire fell in 609 BC, in the years after his death. During the final decade of his rule, Assyria was quite peaceful, but the country apparently faced a serious decline. Documentation from the last years of Ashurbanipal's reign is very scarce but the latest attestations of Ashurbanipal's reign are of his year 38 (631 BC), but according to later sources he reigned for 42 years (627 BC).Whatever may have been the case, after his death there was a power struggle. The contenders included Ashur-etil-ilani
Ashur-etil-ilani
Ashur-etil-ilani was a king of Assyria . He succeeded his father Ashurbanipal.- Problems with source material :The reconstruction of the events occurring during Ashur-etil-ilani's rule has proven to be very difficult...
, his brother Sinsharishkun
Sinsharishkun
Sinsharishkun , who seems to have been the Saràkos of Berossus, was one of the last kings of the Assyrian empire.-Early years:...
, general Sin-shumu-lishir
Sin-shumu-lishir
Sin-shumu-lishir , was a usurper king of a part of the Assyrian empire during 626 BC. Little is known about this king due to the lack of sources covering this time.-Reign :...
, and the eventual new king of Babylonia, Nabopolassar
Nabopolassar
Nabopolassar was the king of the Babylonia and played a key role in the demise of the Assyrian Empire following the death of the last powerful Assyrian king, Ashurbanipal...
; who fought against whom is not certain, however the internal strife weakened Assyria to such a degree that it was able to be destroyed.
Art and culture
Ashurbanipal was proud of his scribal education. He asserts this in the statement: “I Assurbanipal within [the palace], took care of the wisdom of Nebo, the whole of the inscribed tablets, of all the clay tablets, the whole of their mysteries and difficulties, I solved.”. He was one of the few kings who could read the cuneiform scriptCuneiform script
Cuneiform script )) is one of the earliest known forms of written expression. Emerging in Sumer around the 30th century BC, with predecessors reaching into the late 4th millennium , cuneiform writing began as a system of pictographs...
in Akkadian
Akkadian language
Akkadian is an extinct Semitic language that was spoken in ancient Mesopotamia. The earliest attested Semitic language, it used the cuneiform writing system derived ultimately from ancient Sumerian, an unrelated language isolate...
and Sumerian
Sumerian language
Sumerian is the language of ancient Sumer, which was spoken in southern Mesopotamia since at least the 4th millennium BC. During the 3rd millennium BC, there developed a very intimate cultural symbiosis between the Sumerians and the Akkadians, which included widespread bilingualism...
, and claimed that he even wrote texts from before the great flood. He was also able to solve mathematical problems. During his reign he collected cuneiform texts from all over Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia is a toponym for the area of the Tigris–Euphrates river system, largely corresponding to modern-day Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey and southwestern Iran.Widely considered to be the cradle of civilization, Bronze Age Mesopotamia included Sumer and the...
, and especially Babylonia
Babylonia
Babylonia was an ancient cultural region in central-southern Mesopotamia , with Babylon as its capital. Babylonia emerged as a major power when Hammurabi Babylonia was an ancient cultural region in central-southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq), with Babylon as its capital. Babylonia emerged as...
, in the library in Nineveh
Library of Ashurbanipal
-External links:. In our time discussion programme. 45 minutes....
.
The Library of Ashurbanipal
Library of Ashurbanipal
-External links:. In our time discussion programme. 45 minutes....
at Nineveh is perhaps the most compelling discovery in the Ancient Near East. There have been over 30,000 clay tablets uncovered in Ashurbanipal’s library, providing archaeologists with an amazing wealth of Mesopotamian literary, religious and administrative work. Among the findings was the Enuma Elish
Enûma Elish
The is the Babylonian creation myth . It was recovered by Austen Henry Layard in 1849 in the ruined Library of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh , and published by George Smith in 1876.The Enûma Eliš has about a thousand lines and is recorded in Old Babylonian on seven clay tablets, each holding...
, also known as the Epic of Creation, which depicts a traditional Babylonian view of creation where the god Marduk slays Tiamat
Tiamat
In Babylonian mythology, Tiamat is a chaos monster, a primordial goddess of the ocean, mating with Abzû to produce younger gods. It is suggested that there are two parts to the Tiamat mythos, the first in which Tiamat is 'creatrix', through a "Sacred marriage" between salt and fresh water,...
, the personification of salt water, and creates the world from her body. In this particular version, man is created from the blood of a revolting god, Qingu, in order to toil on behalf of the gods. Also found in Nineveh, The Epic of Gilgamesh
Epic of Gilgamesh
Epic of Gilgamesh is an epic poem from Mesopotamia and is among the earliest known works of literature. Scholars believe that it originated as a series of Sumerian legends and poems about the protagonist of the story, Gilgamesh king of Uruk, which were fashioned into a longer Akkadian epic much...
is a compelling account of the hero and his friend Enkidu seeking out to destroy the demon Humbaba
Humbaba
In Akkadian mythology Humbaba or Huwawa , also Humbaba the Terrible was a monstrous giant of immemorial age raised by Utu, the Sun...
. The Gods punish the pair for their arrogance, however, by having Enkidu die from illness. After Enkidu’s death Gilgamesh seeks Utnapishtim, the survivor of the Deluge, in order to find out the secret of immortality.
The library also included hymns and prayers, medical, mathematical, ritual, divinatory and astrological texts, alongside all sorts of administrative documents, letters and contracts. The discovery of these tablets in the mid-nineteenth century by Hormuzd Raasam provided the modern world its first detailed glimpse of the languages and literature of ancient Mesopotamia. Ashurbanipal had a fascination with the past, and during his forty-two year reign he sponsored the collection and copying of older texts for his library at Neneveh.
Aside from the many other myths found in Nineveh, a large selection of “omen texts” has been excavated and deciphered. Marc Van de Mieroop points out the Enuma Anu Enlil was a popular text among them: “It contained omens dealing with the moon, its visibility, eclipses, and conjunction with planets and fixed stars, the sun, its corona, spots, and eclipses, the weather, namely lightning, thunder, and clouds, and the planets and their visibility, appearance, and stations.”
Other genres found during excavations included standard lists used by scribes and scholars, word lists, bilingual vocabularies, lists of signs and synonyms, lists of medical diagnoses, astronomic/astrological texts. The scribal texts proved to be very helpful in deciphering cuneiform.
All of these texts shed some light on the religious beliefs surrounding Mesopotamian and Assyrian belief, but the library also can be interpreted as a manifestation of the value Ashurbanipal must have had for the preservation of Mesopotamian literature and culture.
The British Museum in London boasts an exhilarating exhibit of carvings from the North Palace of Ashurbanipal, also excavated at Nineveh, depicting the king hunting and killing lions. In Assyria, the lion hunt was seen as a royal sport; the depictions were seen as a symbol of the king’s ability to guard the nation. The “Garden Party” relief shows the king and his queen having a banquet celebrating the Assyrian triumph over Tuemman in the campaign against Elam. The fine carvings serve as testimony to Ashurbanipal’s high regard for art, but also communicate an important message meant to be passed down for posterity.
The sculptor Fred Parhad (1934-) created a larger-than-life statue of Ashurbanipal, which was placed on a street near the San Francisco City Hall
San Francisco City Hall
San Francisco City Hall, re-opened in 1915, in its open space area in the city's Civic Center, is a Beaux-Arts monument to the City Beautiful movement that epitomized the high-minded American Renaissance of the 1880s to 1917. The structure's dome is the fifth largest in the world...
main square in 1988. The sculpture shows Asurbanipal wearing a short tunic and holds a lion cub in his proper right arm. The figure stands on a concrete base, with bronze plaque and rosettes. The statue stands across from City Hall next to the Asian Art Museum and faces the San Francisco Library.
Robert E. Howard
Robert E. Howard
Robert Ervin Howard was an American author who wrote pulp fiction in a diverse range of genres. Best known for his character Conan the Barbarian, he is regarded as the father of the sword and sorcery subgenre....
wrote a short story entitled "The Fire of Asshurbanipal" (sic), first published in the December 1936 issue of Weird Tales
Weird Tales
Weird Tales is an American fantasy and horror fiction pulp magazine first published in March 1923. It ceased its original run in September 1954, after 279 issues, but has since been revived. The magazine was set up in Chicago by J. C. Henneberger, an ex-journalist with a taste for the macabre....
magazine, about an "accursed jewel belonging to a king of long ago, whom the Grecians called Sardanapalus and the Semitic peoples Asshurbanipal".