The Royal Library at Nineveh

Ashurbanipal, the last great king of Assyria, was known as a tenacious military commander. Yet he trained as a scribe, and mastered two ancient languages: Akkadian and Sumerian.

Scripture: It will happen that all those who look at you will flee from you, and say, ‘Nineveh is laid waste! Who will mourn for her?’ Where will I seek comforters for you?

Nahum 3:7 names Nineveh, Assyria's capital, as the city laid waste. Its mound, called Kouyunjik, lies in northern Iraq, within modern Mosul. That is where Ashurbanipal's library was found.

Roughly thirty thousand tablets and fragments, from the seventh century BCE. Most are badly broken, and the sources give only approximate counts.

To fill his shelves, he sent scribes across the empire and hired scholars to copy texts, mostly Babylonian. War loot helped too. His reputation for cruelty let him use threats to gain materials.

In late 1849, the first discovery, credited to Austen Henry Layard, was made in the South-West Palace of King Sennacherib, who ruled from 705 to 681 BCE.

According to Wikipedia, about six thousand tablets cover legislation, foreign correspondence, aristocratic declarations and finances. Others hold divination, hymns, medicine, astronomy and literature.

So how does this touch Nahum 3:7? Only indirectly. The library shows Nineveh as a real capital with a royal archive. Nothing in these sources ties the library to the event the verse imagines.

Most tablets went to England and are now in the British Museum. Rassam's finds went unrecorded and the tablets appear to have been mixed up, so the original contents of the two libraries are almost impossible to reconstruct.

Scripture: H. G. Wells, in his Outline of History, gave the library this verdict.

Which writing from someone long gone has taught you the most about their world? Hold that thought. Follow Bible Evidence for another look underground, and may the Lord Jesus Christ be with you today.