Lost Libraries of Assyria

For thousands of years, the royal cities of Nineveh, Nimrud, and Ashur guarded one of humanity's greatest achievements—the first true libraries. Buried beneath the sands of Mesopotamia lay tens of thousands of clay tablets containing epic poetry, science, astronomy, medicine, war records, omens, and royal letters. These were not random archives, but carefully curated collections—catalogued, labeled, and preserved under the command of kings like Ashurbanipal, who believed that knowledge was power, memory was immortality, and writing was sacred. Lost Libraries of Assyria brings to life the world's first librarians, scribes, and scholars, and reveals how their work shaped the foundations of history, literature, and civilization itself. Centuries later, war and destruction silenced those libraries—until fearless explorers and archaeologists of the 19th century uncovered palace walls, winged bulls, and rooms filled with broken tablets. Out of those fragments emerged the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Flood Story predating the Bible, and the earliest scientific observations of the stars. Today, with digital scans, satellite imaging, and AI reconstruction, the lost libraries continue to rise once more. This book is a journey into their creation, disappearance, rediscovery, and resurrection—a story of empires that fell, words that survived, and the ancient people who believed that writing could defy time itself.