The Royal Library of Ashurbanipal was credited to its namesake and rumored to be the inspiration for Alexander's idea for the library that was finished by Ptolemy in Egypt. Assyria's ruler Ashurbanipal was said to be mastered in the Akkadian and Sumerian languages.

Most rulers at that time had a knack for stealing their neighbors idols and relics but Ashurbanipal is said to have had a much stronger interest, possibly coming from his days of a scribe apprentice or just as someone who knew these things helped you stay in power at that time in history.

When they found these tablets some of them were meticulously arranged on each shelf in the manner that they were originally collected. The last line of each tablet was repeated on the next tablet. Then they found other smaller tablets that showed the title of the works. These were all the works of history, religion, natural sciences, astronomy, grammar and laws.

The tablets found were mostly in Akkadian in the cuneiform script; but a lot of those they still aren't sure where they originally came from. There were also a bunch in the Neo-Babylonian Script and written in Assyrian as well.

We may be able to thank the coalition of Medes, Babylonians and Scythians for much of the knowledge we have regarding this now as this library was in Nineveh and may have been burned by them which preserved some clay tablets by hardening them.

"La bibliothèque du palais de Ninive" 1880, Paris: E. Leroux Menant, Joachim

Cultural atlas of Mesopotamia and the ancient Near East. New York: Facts on File Roaf, M. (1990)

Assyrian Library Records. Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 42(1), 1-29 Parpola, S. (1983).