The story of the ancient world's most spectacular library and the king who created it When a
team of Victorian archaeologists began to dig into a grassy hill in Iraq they chanced upon one
of the oldest stores of knowledge ever seen: a library. As they excavated and deciphered the
library's forgotten languages they discovered that it had belonged to Ashurbanipal a scholar
king and conqueror who had ruled the kingdom of Assyria over two thousand years before. After
Ashurbanipal's death vengeful rivals burned his carefully curated library to the ground and
eventually the grass grew over it. Yet the library's knowledge survived carved on clay tablets
which were accidentally miraculously preserved baked into longevity by the flames.
Assyriologist Selena Wisnom has spent years studying the tablets and is our expert lively
guide through the library stacks. These rich strange texts reveal the extraordinary and
little-known influence of an ancient society on our modern world: our understanding of the
constellations the aqueducts the invention of medical diagnosis the sixty-minute hour and
much more is owed to the scholars of the ancient Middle East. Beyond the scholars the library
also allows us to discover the everyday lives of the Assyrians in extraordinary detail with
letters recording their concerns about job security disputes with in-laws jealous rivalries
profound friendships and questions about the meaning of life. Here a long silent civilization
can speak across thousands of years with its own voice uncovering again the world beneath the
hill.
