The story of the ancient world s most spectacular library, and the civilization that created it

'A thrilling trip back to Mesopotamia, birthplace of horoscopes and algorithms via the abundant records they left behind, written on clay tablets absorbing hums with life' - Mathew Lyons, Daily Telegraph

'Fascinating and rich in detail provides an excellent survey of Mesopotamian literary classics.. and offers snippets of daily life' - Literary Review

When a team of Victorian archaeologists dug into a grassy hill in Iraq, they chanced upon one of the oldest and greatest stores of knowledge ever seen: the library of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal, seventh century BCE ruler of a huge swathe of the ancient Middle East known as Mesopotamia. After his death, vengeful rivals burned Ashurbanipal s library to the ground - yet the texts, carved on clay tablets, were baked and preserved by the heat. Buried for millennia, the tablets were written in cuneiform: the first written language in the world.