Library of Ashurbanipal: tablet
- Gallery: Room 55
- Culture: Neo-Assyrian
- Object type: tablet
- Materials: clay
- Museum number: K.197
- Museum: The British Museum
- Collection record: British Museum website
- Image © The Trustees of the British Museum, shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 licence.
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About this object
This is a clay tablet from the Neo-Assyrian period, part of the famous Library of Ashurbanipal. It features a bilingual explanatory list of cuneiform ideographs, arranged by Semitic word roots. Some of the characters are clearly carved with Assyrian-style wedge-shaped marks.
The tablet has four columns of writing, containing 50, 54, 46, and 36 lines respectively, though parts are damaged. In the last lines of Column IV, you'll find what scholars call an "official note".
This piece was likely used for reference or study, helping scribes or scholars understand and classify words. It gives a rare look into how language and knowledge were systematically recorded thousands of years ago.
This tablet was discovered at Kouyunjik, a major archaeological site in ancient Mesopotamia. It connects visitors to the world’s earliest known library and one of history's most powerful rulers, Ashurbanipal.
See it in person
Library of Ashurbanipal: tablet is on display in Room 55 at the British Museum on Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury, London — free to enter. Choose British Museum on audioguide.london and take a photo of it to hear this free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
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