Ashurbanipal Library Phase 1

Project leader: Jonathan Taylor

Department: Middle East
Project start date: 2002
End date: 2010

Other British Museum staff: Irving Finkel

Project funded by: The Townley Group and the Andrew Mellon Foundation

External partners: Dr Ali Yaseen Al-Juboori, Dean of the College of Archaeology, University of Mosul; Professor Emeritus Riekele Borger, University of Göttingen; Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative, UCLA

Description:

The Ashurbanipal Library Project is the fruit of a long-term co-operation with Iraqi colleagues at the University of Mosul in Iraq. As many as 30,000 cuneiform tablets and fragments were excavated at the Assyrian capital Nineveh (modern Kuyunjik) by the British Museum during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The tablets came from the royal state library of King Ashurbanipal (668-around 630 BC), both a political and literary visionary. We know from internal evidence that the king’s agents travelled the country in pursuit of new manuscripts, some of which were in Assyrian cuneiform and some in Babylonian cuneiform.

A major catalogue was published by the Trustees of the British Museum during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, but thanks to the labours of many scholars much more is now known about ancient Mesopotamian languages and what is written in them. In addition, the library was in fragments when discovered, and Assyriologists have spent the last 150 years looking for pieces that can be rejoined in the hope of retrieving complete compositions.

The Ashurbanipal library is among the most significant discoveries from ancient Iraq and it is chiefly to the work of these royal scribes that we must be thankful for our extensive knowledge of Assyrian literary, administrative and scientific thinking. Our research activities on this collection are designed to tie in with the University of Mosul’s new Institute of Cuneiform Studies, which is currently under construction. It will house the Departments of Archaeology, Assyriology and Ancient Near Eastern Civilisations, as well as a new Department of Excavation and Conservation. A key focus of teaching and research at the Institute will be Ashurbanipal’s Library.

Objectives:

During the first stage of this project Dr Jeanette Fincke (now University of Leiden) investigated all the Nineveh tablets in Babylonian script. This programme produced a new database for classifying the document type for each Babylonian fragment (religious, magical, ritual, medical, lexical or letter) and its formal appearance (shape, colour, number of columns, rulings and dividing lines). This work led to many new ‘joins’. Dr Fincke then shifted her attention to astrological fortune-telling texts from Nineveh in Assyrian script.

In the next stage of the project we were able to enlist the invaluable help of Professor Riekele Borger, Emeritus Professor of Assyriology at the University of Göttingen. For 40 years he has been coming to the Museum, identifying and joining fragments from the Library. The fruits of his work will be incorporated in a new and up-to-date catalogue of the Nineveh Library tablets. This catalogue information will prove an invaluable resource for many investigations and publications, both academic and popular.

The latest phase of the project started in April 2009. As part of a wider collaboration organised by the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative, and funded by the Andrew Mellon Foundation, the project will produce high quality images of all the Library tablets. These will appear in the British Museum’s  Collection database online throughout the course of the project. The complete corpus will appear, together with the up-to-date catalogue and bibliography, as part of a dedicated new online research catalogue. Since the Ashurbanipal Library is the oldest surviving royal library in the world, and one of the highlights of the Museum collection, the importance of this achievement would be hard to over-estimate. The illustrated catalogue will form the foundation of future Museum research on the Library.

Further information:

For more information on the Nineveh Tablet Collection please go to fincke.uni-hd.de.

Publications:

J. Fincke, The British Museum's Ashurbanipal Library Project, Iraq 66, (2004) pp. 55-60

J. Fincke, The Babylonian Texts of Nineveh. Report on the British Museum's Ashurbanipal Library Project, AfO 50 (2003/2004) pp. 111-149

J. Fincke, Babylonische Gelehrte am neuassyrischen Hof: zwischen Anpassung und Individualität, in Akten der 52ten Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, (Münster, forthcoming)

Images (from top, left to right):

• A typical Royal Library tablet from Nineveh: Assyrian magic against evil demons and spirits (K 1283)
• Source material: Nineveh tablets and fragments in their boxes within the collection in the Arched Room
• The Institute of Cuneiform Studies under construction
• Architect's model of the new Institute of Cuneiform Studies in Mosul
• Professor Riekele Borger at work on the Library in the Arched Room