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How did Ashurbanipal’s scribes collect texts for the library at Nineveh?

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Lion Hunt of Ashurbanipal — Ashurbanipal Ashurbanipal depicted in a lion hunt in an Assyrian relief from his northern palace in Nineveh; now in the British Museum.

To assemble the first systematically organized library in the ancient Middle East, King Ashurbanipal issued royal commands to his scribes to search for, collect, and copy ancient texts from across the country.12

The scribes focused their efforts on gathering works from various temple libraries, which were then added to an existing collection of tablets sourced from Ashur, Calah, and Nineveh itself. This process drew upon centuries of experience in managing large archival collections. The resulting library was extensive, containing over 20,000 tablets and fragments that covered a wide range of subjects, including omen texts, lexicographical works, incantations, rituals, and traditional Mesopotamian epics. Many of these tablets were carefully cataloged, and some works were kept in multiple copies, with many bearing the king's mark of ownership in their colophons.132