The Conqueror's Library

The story of the largest library in the ancient world before Alexandria

Ashurbanipal hunting a lion. Relief from Nineveh, 7th century BC. Image source: Wikimedia

1849, English explorer Austen Henry Layard discovered a series of clay tablets in the ruins of Nineveh. Once upon a time, Nineveh was a flourishing city and the capital of the mighty Assyrian empire. His junior archaeologist, Hormuzd Rassam, found more tablets in the same region three years later. A series of excavations revealed one of the ancient world’s largest libraries.

The Library of King Ashurbanipal.

The library may have inspired the renowned Library of Alexandria, one of the ancient world’s centers of knowledge and the birthplace of several discoveries.

Ashurbanipal was a fearsome conqueror. Under his reign from 669 to 631 B.C., the Assyrian Empire (also known as Neo-Assyrian Empire) peaked. At the same time, he was a learned man. His growing appetite for knowledge exceeded his desire to conquer new lands.

Why did a terrifying conqueror have an insatiable curiosity for knowledge? Before we …