Library of Ashurbanipal: tablet
- Gallery: Room 55
- Culture: Neo-Assyrian
- Date: 7thC BC
- Object type: tablet
- Materials: clay
- Museum number: K.162
- 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.
Listen to the free audio guide
About this object
Before you is the "Library of Ashurbanipal," a clay tablet from the Neo-Assyrian period, dating to the 7th century BCE. This tablet is one of many from a vast collection of texts discovered at Kouyunjik, now in northern Iraq.
The tablet contains a famous myth: the descent of Ishtar, the goddess of love, into the Underworld. The story, inscribed in cuneiform, tells how Ishtar travels through seven gates, each time removing a part of her clothing until she stands bare before the Queen of the Underworld. It is a powerful narrative about transformation and the power of gods.
Though some parts of the tablet are broken, it provides valuable insight into Assyrian mythology and how stories were preserved for the king’s library in Nineveh.
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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