Libraries in the Ancient World: From Assurbanipal to Alexandria

Catalog description

Long before the storied rise and fall of the Library of Alexandria, Nineveh (now in present-day Mosul, Iraq) was the Assyrian empire’s last capital and home to one of the earliest large-scale collections of ancient literature: Assurbanipal’s library. Remembered in Greek tradition as Sardanapalus, this 7th-century king claims to have amassed thousands of clay tablets and wooden writing boards in a state-sponsored institution that included myths, hymns, rituals, medical and divinatory lore, literature, ancient dictionaries, and more. This course will explore ancient collections like Assurbanipal’s, looking in a comparative way at libraries and other repositories of knowledge and culture across the ancient world in Asia, Africa, the Mediterranean, and beyond. Additional topics include: authors, copyists, and keepers of knowledge; literacy and scribes; stories and literary fantasies about libraries; libraries, archives, museums, and heritage. No prerequisites.