Royal Library of Ashurbanipal. Ancient libraries of Assyria

ASSHURBANIPAL (? - c. 630 BC) King of Assyria in 669 - c. 635 BC. He waged an active military and diplomatic struggle with Egypt, Elam, and Babylonia for the preservation and strengthening of Assyria. He also went down in history as a collector of ancient written monuments. Ashurbanipal was the last

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The first books in the libraries of Assyria were clay tablets - a legacy of the Sumerian civilization. The most ancient of them, dating back to before 3500 BC, were found in the settlements of the cities of Kish and Ur. Many official documents from the 25th century. BC were written in the Sumerian language, the meaning of the words never became known to science.

The sources of writing for Assyria consisted of about 100 thousand book-tablets found in the area of ​​the oldest city of Ur. Their texts described conducting Agriculture, cattle breeding activities, cooking various dishes, handicrafts. The most outstanding were books describing the principles of public administration and the science of jurisprudence. Among them were their own laws and judges.

Merchants, poets, historians and philosophers kept trade records on tablets and immortalized their works on clay. It remains interesting that the foundations of publishing originated in Assyria. The king's orders were engraved on a clay board and then copied by applying them to raw clay tablets.

The materials for writing the Assyrian script were not only clay, but also leather, wood, or papyrus imported from Ancient Egypt. Drawings were also applied to metal objects, vases and bowls.

Libraries of Assyria and Mesopotamia

Speaking about the treasuries of writing in Assyria, it is difficult not to mention the culture of early Mesopotamia, in particular the gallery of books of King Ashurbanipal (about 669 - 633 BC). It collected more than 30 thousand clay sources of knowledge about ancient civilization. We can say that this ruler became the founder of library science. All the tablets in his collection, housed in the Palace of Nineveh, were numbered and arranged chronologically. A shortcut was placed on each for easy quick searching. The king's library was replenished with books - copies of tablets from temples and Assyria.

The topics of the books were important historical events, works of art, religious themes, medical recipes, and scientific achievements of the peoples of the Sumerians, Assyrians and Babylonians.

The works on the structure of the solar system, on the movement of the planet Earth along its axis around the Sun, on the constellations and twelve zodiac signs became outstanding. It is noteworthy that they describe the origin of the Earth as a result of a universal explosion, when a huge celestial body invaded our Galaxy at great speed.

Scientists confidently claim that the biblical story was based on written sources from Ancient Sumeria and Babylon. And the Ten Commandments exactly repeat the laws of the King of Babylonia Hamurappi of the 18th century BC.

Thanks to the discovery of deciphering writing, knowledge about healing and medicine became known. However, many texts have remained unread to this day due to the difficulties of translating the Sumerian language. How many more secrets do they hold, and what new things could we learn from their contents? Perhaps the ancient Sumerians knew where humanity came from and why we came to this world.

In 1846, a failed English lawyer G. Layard escaped from cold London to the East, where hot countries and buried cities always attracted him. He was neither a historian nor an archaeologist, but this is where he was extremely lucky. G. Layard came across the capital of the Assyrian kingdom - city ​​of Nineveh, which Europeans had long known about from the Bible, and which had been waiting for its discovery for almost three thousand years.

Nineveh was the royal residence for almost ninety years and reached its peak during 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 with great love, systematically and with knowledge of ancient “library science.”

The one who dares to take away these tables...
let Ashur and Bellit punish with their anger,
and let his name and his heirs
Will be forgotten in this Country...

Such a formidable warning, according to the plan of King Ashurbanipal, was supposed to plunge into fear and trembling anyone who even thought about stealing books from the Nineveh library. None of the king’s subjects, 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 excavated by Ormuzd, one of the first archaeologists - representatives of the indigenous population of the country.

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

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

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

The Assyrians could rightfully claim the title of pioneer printers, because how many royal decrees, state and economic documents had to be written and rewritten before sending them to all corners of the Assyrian state! And in order to do this quickly, the Assyrians carved the necessary inscriptions on a wooden board and made impressions from it on clay tablets. How is this board not a printing press?

In the Nineveh Library, 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.

The library also had a catalog in which the name, number of lines, and the branch of knowledge—the department to which the book belonged—were recorded. Finding the right book was not difficult: a small clay tag with the name of the department was attached to each shelf - just like in modern libraries.

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

All the books of the Nineveh Library were written on clay tablets (tablets) made from the clay of the High Quality. First, the clay was kneaded for a long time, and then briquettes measuring 32 x 22 centimeters and 2.5 centimeters thick were made from it. When the tablet was ready, the scribe used a triangular iron stick to write on the raw tablet.

Some of the books in the Nineveh Library were brought from countries defeated by Assyria, some were bought from churches in other cities or from private individuals. Since books appeared, book lovers have appeared. 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 man for his time. His father Asargaddon intended to make his son the high priest, so young Ashurbanipal studied all the sciences of that time. Ashurbanipal retained his love of books until the end of his life, which is why he allocated several rooms on the second floor of his palace for a library.

Complete the task:
The significance of LIBRARIES in the history of world culture is enormous. “Houses of tablets”, “shelters of the mind”, “pharmacies for the soul”, “houses of wisdom”, “book preservation chambers”, “temples of literature” - these were called at different times and in different countries libraries.

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

Think about it.
Why do they put a stamp (seal) on library books?

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

Instead of the usual rustling of pages, the light knocking of clay tablets was heard within these walls.

Try to imagine and draw the room of the 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.

But in 612 BC. e. Median (Media is an ancient state located in the north-west of the Iranian plateau) and Babylonian troops captured Assyria and set fire to Nineveh. A fire raged in the city for many days. The city was destroyed, the surviving residents 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 excavate 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 the entire palace was dug up. It was built on a high and extensive artificial terrace. The entrance was guarded by two huge statues of bulls with human heads. Reliefs on the walls of rooms and corridors depicted the lion hunt of Assyrian kings 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 covered with very small wedge-shaped characters. This type of 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, the clay tiles were fired or dried in the sun.

Layard thought that these clay tablets had little 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 their first steps in deciphering Babylonian cuneiform. Finally, historians learned to read Babylonian writings. They also read the tablets from the palace of Ashurbanipal. And only then it became clear what a huge value the find was. It was a whole library, selected carefully and with great skill.

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

Thus, several thousand clay books were collected in the palace of Ashurbanipal. They consisted of many “sheets” - tablets of the same size. On each plate at the bottom was written the name of the book and the number of the “sheet”. The title of the book was initial words the first sign.

In the library, books were placed in a certain order, according to branches of knowledge. Finding the right book was made easier by catalogs - lists that indicated the title of the book and the number of lines in each tablet. All clay “sheets” bear a library stamp with the words: “Palace of Ashurbanipal, King of the Universe, King of Assyria.”

The contents of clay books are 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 with indicating the amount of taxes received from them, works on medicine, letters, lists of animals, plants and minerals, accounting books of royal households, various complaints, contracts, documents drawn up when purchasing 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.

Babylonian and Assyrian priests knew mathematics well. Already at the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. e. The Babylonians solved quite complex geometric problems in measuring areas and 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, multi-storey (usually seven-storey) towers - ziggurats - were built near temples. From the very top floor of the ziggurats, the priests observed the movements of the heavenly bodies from year to year.

The Babylonians and Assyrians knew how to calculate the time of lunar and solar eclipses and knew the movement of celestial 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 movements of the Sun, Moon and stars, the priests compiled a calendar. This calendar indicated when rivers would flood or when water would recede 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 tried 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 found geographical maps in the library of Ashurbanipal. Still very primitive, these maps still covered a large area from Urartu to Egypt. Geographical directories of the Assyrians 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 entering the human body. To cure the disease, the doctor sought to expel the evil spirit from the patient’s body with prayers and spells. Sometimes doctors sculpted clay images of evil spirits and destroyed them, believing that this would help the patient recover.

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 the organ of the mind, but nothing was known about the role of the brain.

Assyrian scribes knew not only their Assyro-Babylonian language, 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 Sumerian cuneiform. Sumerian-Babylonian dictionaries, collections of texts in the Sumerian language with explanations of difficult-to-understand passages, tables of cuneiform characters, collections of grammatical examples and exercises were found in the library of Ashurbanipal. They greatly helped European scientists in the 19th century. decipher Sumerian writing and study the Sumerian language.

Thanks to the ancient library, we are well aware of the legends, myths and traditions of the Sumerians, Babylonians and Assyrians. Particularly interesting are 12 clay tablets on which a wonderful work is written 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. This is what this legend says.

Gilgamesh, the son of the goddess Ninsun and a mortal man, reigned in the city of Uruk in 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 such a creature that would overcome Gilgamesh. The gods created the half-beast, half-man 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 into despair. He began to fear death and went to his distant ancestor Utnapishtim, who lived at the end of the world. The gods granted Utnapishtim immortality for his righteous lifestyle, and Gilgamesh wanted to learn from him how to become immortal. After overcoming many difficulties, Gilgamesh found Utnapishtim. After much hesitation, he told Gilgamesh that he needed to eat the “grass of life” that grows at the bottom of the ocean. Gilgamesh retrieved this herb from the bottom of the ocean. But he wanted immortality not only for himself and decided to bring the grass to the residents of his hometown 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 swim and left the “grass of life” on the seashore. The snake found this grass, ate it and became immortal. And Gilgamesh, sad, returned to his native Uruk.

The poem glorifies the will to live, the courage of the hero, going towards his goal through all the trials sent to him by the insidious, evil and vengeful gods, personifying the formidable forces of nature.

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

Literature:
Children's Encyclopedia, M. 1968.