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Fascinating Biblical and Biblical Era Archaeology

Khalid Elhassan May 4, 2025 17 min

Archaeology - Ashurbanipal in a chariot, inspecting booty and prisoners from Babylon — Ashurbanipal in a chariot, inspecting booty and prisoners from Babylon. Wikimedia

19. Finding an Ancient Library

Archaeology - Ashurbanipal's library and the Epic of Gilgamesh — Ashurbanipal’s library and the Epic of Gilgamesh. Vintage News

In 1849, British archaeologist Austen Henry Layard excavated Ashurbanipal’s library in Nineveh, in today’s Iraq. It contained more than 30,000 tablets and writing boards. Many were severely fragmented, but many were still recoverable and legible. They included financial and religious documents, diplomatic correspondence, laws, plus texts on literature, medicine, and astronomy. The greatest discovery in the library was The Epic of Gilgamesh. A masterpiece of ancient Babylonian poetry, it dates to the third millennium BC, and is considered to be humanity’s oldest known literary work.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.