The Library of Ashurbanipal contained the world's oldest surviving epic poem
King Ashurbanipal’s massive seventh-century BCE library in Nineveh preserved the Epic of Gilgamesh, a masterpiece of ancient storytelling that predates Homer’s works by hundreds of years.
Archaeologists excavating the ruins of Nineveh in the mid-1800s discovered over 30,000 cuneiform tablets belonging to the Neo-Assyrian King Ashurbanipal. Among these clay records was the most complete version of the Epic of Gilgamesh, which explores timeless themes of friendship and the quest for immortality.
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