CaixaForum Madrid hosts an exhibition about Ashurbanipal, the last great king of Assyria. The exhibition, with pieces from the British Museum, delves into the 7th century BC to present a ruler who was both a scholar and a warrior. Through seven sections, it explores his military campaigns, his passion for hunting, the opulence of his court in Nineveh, and his most enduring legacy: the creation of a vast library of clay tablets with cuneiform writing.
The Library of Nineveh: A Data Center in Clay 🏛️
Ashurbanipal's great contribution was systematizing knowledge. His library in Nineveh functioned as a central data repository. Thousands of clay tablets, inscribed with wedges while the material was wet, contained administrative texts, scientific, literary, and religious treatises. This archive was not just an accumulation; it involved a technical process of collection, copying, classification, and storage in a specific building, preserving information against the degradation of time.
The First Compulsive Collector in History 📚
Ashurbanipal had a profile we would recognize today. A cultured guy who enjoyed reading and big game hunting, but with a clear tendency to take things home. First, neighboring territories. Then, any clay tablet he found. His motto must have been copy and paste, but in clay. Imagine his library as a monumental external hard drive, full of .cunei files, and him, managing the content between one military campaign and the next. A true empire influencer.