Stuff You Don’t Really Want To Know (But For Some Reason Have To) About Ashurbanipal…
Three Big Things:
1. He’s the world’s oldest known librarian – or at least the driving force behind the world’s oldest known library. And it was a big one. Its surviving works offer insights into not only Assyrian rule and culture, but that of surrounding peoples as well.
2. He became King of Assyria (Mesopotamia) during its zenith, despite being educated with the assumption he’d never actually hold power.
3. His collection includes the oldest surviving tales of Creation, the Great Flood, and other bits’n’pieces which predate the Old Testament by centuries. This is either exciting or inconvenient, depending on one’s personal paradigm.
Background
Mesopotamia was one of the earliest civilizations in all of world history – maybe the earliest. Agriculture up and down the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers evolved over 5,000 years ago, roughly the same time those strangely postured people from Egyptian paintings were learning to grow stuff up and down their own little creek, the Nile. Mesopotamia was harder to defend than other early “river valley civilizations” – it lacked the geographical protection provided to Egypt or India, and consequently tended to brew a far more diverse population while navigating a greater variety of threats than its peers. It also changed cultural hands every so many centuries.
The first major civilization there was the Sumerians, who developed cuneiform – a record-keeping system in which little triangles and crescents and golf-tee-shapes were etched onto clay tablets. It’s one of the earliest forms of writing discovered to date, and one of several systems in which something approaching an alphabet began to evolve (making it far more flexible than, say, an abacus or a pile of rocks).
Eventually the magic of written language grew up big and strong and branched out to include official accolades for various rulers, religious stories and rituals, histories of major events or important individuals – even medical advice or observations on the mysteries of the earth and stars. It would be a few years before Harry Potter or Hester Prynne come along, but it was a significant start.
The Sumerians were overthrown around 2300 B.C. by the Akkadians, under the rule of Sargon of Akkad. They were in turn supplanted by the Babylonians circa 1900 B.C., the best-known of which was Hammurabi – the guy with the giant pillar of laws posted out front. The early Babylonian Empire encompassed a variety of peoples under fluctuating degrees of actual control, including a soon-to-be problematic bunch known as the Assyrians.
The Assyrians managed to maintain their own line of kings and assert their influence in the northeastern realm (overlapping parts of modern Iraq, Syria, and Turkey). Chipping away at those around them, they gradually built up power until they overthrew Babylonian rule and asserted clear dominance in the region. By the time Ashurbanipal came into power in the 7th century BCE, the Assyrians were running the largest empire the world had ever known.
King Ashurbanipal?
Ashurbanipal never expected to be king. It wasn’t for lack of lineage – his father was king following the assassination of his grandfather, also king, probably by family members (royalty wasn’t always known for healthy relationships). But Ashurbanipal had two or three older brothers, depending on how you counted – one who was definitely the intended successor to the throne, and one by another mother who was a few years older… it was all rather complicated and no doubt packed with melodrama and intrigue.
Ashurbanipal learned the usual horsemanship, chariot-driving, hunting and soldiering, royal etiquette and expectations, like any good “prince.” He was gradually assigned a smattering of kingly responsibilities as he grew up – a sort of mentorship system practiced by foresighted monarchs. But he was also able to devote much of his formative years to studying mathematics, reading, writing, and something called “oil divination” – a mystical prognostic art and precursor to his lifelong interest in the supernatural.
When Ashurbanipal inherited the throne around the age of 17, he could read and write in Sumerian, Akkadian, and Aramaic, and was well-versed in the cultures and knowledge not only of his own people, but of those around them as well. These weren’t skills most rulers had in those times – they had advisors and experts for that sort of thing. These were specialized fields, and it simply wasn’t necessary, nor was it always a good use of royal time and energy. Ashurbanipal was thus something of a Renaissance Man, if one ignores the fact that it would be another 2000 years before that term even meant something. He was well-versed and he knew it.
One For The Books
Ashurbanipal was a popular ruler – good to his subjects, especially brutal to his enemies, and successful at maintaining and expanding his empire. That’s not primarily why he’s remembered, however. His crowning achievement (as it were) goes back to that non-traditional education he received, and what he did with it.
Ashurbanipal put together a library. A big one. As in “Wow, that’s a big library!”
It was discovered in the 1850s by British archeologists and is still being translated and categorized today over a century and a half later. Something like 30,000 clay tablets and fragments thereof were recovered, but those involved didn’t bother to record what was filed where or which ones were actually from other places altogether… so it’s a bit of a mess. Bollocks, mate! You’ve left us a mite knackered on this one, right? (Ashurbanipal inspires a certain multi-linguality, don’t you think?)
Most of the surviving works are in cuneiform, and organized by type. Many are agricultural records, administrative documents, contracts or other official correspondence. Researchers love those sorts of things, but they’re not very exciting for the rest of us to talk about. Others are more colorful. A collection of “omen texts” sought to correlate natural events or phenomenon with signs from the gods. Anonymous authors pondered the complex motions of the galaxy and what it all might mean. Still others recorded prayers, rituals, fables, and “religious education.”
But then there’s the good stuff. For example, the Enuma Elish – the “Epic of Creation” – the tale of the first man’s creation from the blood of a rebellious deity and his curse to forever labor in service of the gods. Several elements are directly reflected in the Genesis account of creation, although other parts are quite distinct – leading to all sorts of interesting discussions. Also discovered was the “Epic of Gilgamesh,” in which large hairy men become close after wrestling one another, then set off to kill a demon, who is apparently quite terrifying despite the name “Humbaba.” And on Tablet XI of that Gilgamesh epic is the oldest known story of a great flood and the man who survived it – again complicating the whole “Old Testament = The Revealed Word of God” issue for those who choose to go there.
What’s most impressive, however, is that not all of the texts discovered were native to the Assyrian capital. As the empire expanded, Ashurbanipal had trusted servants copy and incorporate the various texts found in newly acquired regions. Sometimes he negotiated with other monarchs to gain access to their written records to copy. Several of the Nineveh tablets are copies of much older texts from different civilizations altogether, transcribed into clay for storage and permanent reference.
That anyone would even think that way is… amazing.
There’s much we don’t know about Ashurbanipal and his world, but we know that he valued learning and the maintenance of knowledge long before most even conceived of such a thing. Whether he did it for personal amusement or glory, or whether he saw it as a philanthropic gesture for future generations really doesn’t matter.
Ashurbanipal gave us books.
You Wanna Sound REALLY Smart? {Extra Stuff!}
You Mad, Bro? – As Ashurbanipal’s father, the king, aged, Ashurbanipal’s eldest brother was placed on the primary throne of Assyria, which was in Nineveh. (You may remember a big fish special-delivering a prophet there at one point). A second brother was on the throne in neighboring Babylon. When the eldest died unexpectedly – probably from natural circumstances – Ashurbanipal was given the Assyrian throne by his father.
This was a bit of an insult to Brother Number Two in Babylon, but kings get to do what kings do. Brother Babylon eventually rebelled and attempted to right the power structure, but was soundly defeated by Ashurbanipal and the Assyrian army. The final two decades of Ashurbanipal’s rule were more or less peaceful, but like so many others before and since, the empire was over-extended financially and militarily and couldn’t maintain itself.
Recurring Themes – The Old Testament wasn’t the only work for whom precursors were discovered in the Nineveh library. One of the stories recovered there, “The Poor Man of Nippur,” reappeared well over a thousand years later as part of One Thousand and One Nights. It’s a farcical tale of a fellow who sought to improve his fortunes by giving a goat to the mayor, which – shockingly – doesn’t result in his instant elevation to power and status. The rest of the tale is about his wacky and overly-complex revenge. Parts of it are quite clever, perhaps explaining why the story had such staying power even as it evolved over the centuries.
The Nerd King – It’s easy to overlook Ashurbanipal’s willingness to use extreme violence or demand absolute fealty, neither of which were unexpected in a ruler of his times. Such concentrated power was considered not only proper, but essential in coordinating and controlling such a vast territory. Part of Ashurbanipal’s legacy as a “scholar king” was by his own design, however, as explained in his own words:
I, Ashurbanipal, within the palace, understood the wisdom of Nabu [the god of learning]. All the art of writing of every kind. I made myself the master of them all. I read the cunning tablets of Sumer and the dark Akkadian language which is difficult to rightly use; I took my pleasure in reading stones inscribed before the flood. The best of the scribal art, such works as none of the kings who went before me had ever learnt, remedies from the top of the head to the toenails, non-canonical selections, clever teachings, whatever pertains to the medical mastery of [the gods] Ninurta and Gala, I wrote on tablets, checked and collated, and deposited within my palace for perusing and reading…
I, Ashurbanipal, king of the universe, on whom the gods have bestowed intelligence, who has acquired penetrating acumen for the most recondite details of scholarly erudition (none of my predecessors having any comprehension of such matters), I have placed these tablets for the future in the library at Nineveh for my life and for the well-being of my soul, to sustain the foundations of my royal name.
It seems to have worked.
Why He’s Not Getting Any Gum – In the music video, “The Mesopotamians” by They Might Be Giants, Hammurabi explains that he’s sharing his last stick of gum with the rest of the band, except for Ashurbanipal “who says my haircut makes me look like a Mohenjo-daroan.” This ludicrous bit has a smattering of substance worth lording over your friends at parties – Mohenjo-daro was one of the earliest Indus River Valley civilizations, almost contemporary to Hammurabi, but predating Ashurbanipal by over a thousand years. The small sculpture held by Ashurbanipal in the video is a famous artifact known as “the Priest-King” of Mohenjo-daro – a mysterious figure since there’s little other evidence of either priests or kings ruling that particular civilization, whatever their hairstyles.
In the context of the song, it’s comparable to making fun of someone by comparing them to a rival nationality or subculture. You’ll be relieved to note that – in the video at least – Hammurabi nevertheless shares a small piece of his gum with Ashurbanipal. Presumably Sargon and Gilgamesh received their share off-screen and band unity was maintained.
*phew*