Assurbanipal

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Assurbanipal

Assurbanipal (äˌso͝orbäˈnēpäl) or Ashurbanipal (äˈsho͝or–), d. 626? B.C., king of ancient Assyria (669–633 B.C.), son and successor of Esar-Haddon. The last of the great kings of Assyria, he drove Taharka out of Egypt and firmly established Necho in power there only to have Necho's son Psamtik revolt in 660 B.C. and wrest Egypt permanently from Assyria. The uprising took place during a campaign by Assurbanipal against the Elamites and Chaldaeans. His brother, in command at Babylon, also headed a serious revolt by the enemies of the king. This insurgence was suppressed, though not without difficulty, and in retaliation, Assurbanipal took Babylon and slaughtered (648 B.C.) many of the inhabitants. He then defeated Elam and sacked Susa; Elamite power disappeared. Under Assurbanipal, Assyria reached the height of sumptuous living. The famous lion-hunt reliefs in the royal palace at Nineveh date from his reign and are among the finest examples of ancient sculpture. Assurbanipal was interested in learning; excavations at Nineveh have uncovered 22,000 clay tablets from his library—the chief sources of knowledge of ancient Mesopotamia. Among the tablets were found copies of the Babylonian flood and creation stories as well as historical and scientific literature. His reign ended the greatness of the empire (although two of his sons ruled briefly after his death), and Assyria succumbed to the Medes and the Persians only a few years later. His great expenditures in wars to preserve the state contributed somewhat to its collapse. Assurbanipal is probably the Asnappar or Osnapper of Ezra 4.10. He is identified with, but only faintly resembles, the Sardanapalus of the Greeks.

References in periodicals archive ?

This critical text owes its survival to Assurbanipal, an Assyrian king who ruled in the seventh century B.C.

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The Finnish Assyriologist Simo Parpola translated and analyzed these texts in several publications, including Letters from Assyrian Scholars to the Kings Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal (1983).

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Where among the 43 books published in Nepal in 1980, or the 311,602 published in China in 1983, or the lost tablets of Assurbanipal's library at Nineveh, or all the scrolls burned when Caesar flamed his ships at Alexandria, might we have sought the formula for the philosophers' stone?

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The fall of Nineveh (608BC) is recorded in the Bible and, among the thousands of clay tablets which survive from the library or Assurbanipal, last king of that town, about a thousand concern medicine, and contain diagnoses and prognostications, remedies and their ingredients.

Health through the ages under the microscope; The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: A Medical History of Humanity. By Roy Porter, (Harper Collins, pounds 24.99). Reviewed by Monica Foot

She gave him one which she named Assurbanipal, after the Assyrian king mentioned in a Borges story.

Metaphors and magic unmask the soul

The library of the Assyrian King Assurbanipal at Ninevah (also on clay tablets, dating from the 7th century B.C.) contains information on 120 minerals of medicinal value.

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This particular medical composition (series) received a standard canonical edition in Nineveh, in the library of Assurbanipal (seventh century), which is, importantly, reflected in the first part of AMC.

Magic and Medicine in Ancient Mesopotamia--A New Collection of Translations

83) pinned on the seventh century BCE Assyrian king Assurbanipal himself, the first "ultrapragmatic librarian to exhibit 'a complete absence of any speculative or reasoning effort.' Not ability, mind you, but effort." The unreflective librarian, then, is a clerk.

Tracing the archetypal academic librarian

This sequence agrees with the order of gods on a circular table from the Library of Assurbanipal and many other so-called astrolabes: the stars of Enlil lie at the center of the disc, those of Anu surround them, and those of Ea form the outskirts.

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On the Assurbanipal bas-relief, the applied decoration remains conjectural, based upon what is visible on the bas-relief.

Royal Gardens, Parks, and the Architecture Within: Assyrian Views

The authors explain that even though the SAACT series is devoted mainly to the publication of texts from Assurbanipal's library, the inclusion of Nergal and Ereskigal is based on the possibility that the famous library at Nineveh had housed copies of this composition that went missing.