Ashurbanipal is chiefly remembered today for his cultural efforts. A patron of artwork and literature, he was deeply interested in the ancient literary culture of Mesopotamia.

One of his most remarkable accomplishments was the founding of the great palace library in Nineveh .
The king himself supervised its construction. Important works were kept in more than one copy, some intended for the king’s personal use.
The work of arranging and cataloging drew upon the experience of centuries in the management of collections in huge temple archives such as the one in Ashur.
Over the course of his long reign, Ashurbanipal utilized the massive resources at his disposal to construct the Library of Ashurbanipal, a collection of texts and documents of various different genres.
It is thought to have been comprised of over 100,000 texts at its height, and was not surpassed until the construction of the Library of Alexandria, several centuries later.

Suggested reading:


I am Ashurbanipal: King of the World, King of Assyria
Brereton, Gareth

THE ROYAL INSCRIPTIONS OF ASHURBANIPAL (668–631 BC), AŠŠURETELILĀNI (630–627 BC), AND SÎNŠARRAIŠKUN (626–612 BC), KINGS OF ASSYRIA
Jamie Novotny and Joshua Jeffers

Assyria: The Rise and Fall of the World's First Empire
Eckart Frahm

The Ancient Assyrians
Empire and Army, 883–612 BC
Mark Healy

Before Nature: Cuneiform Knowledge and the History of Science
Francesca Rochberg

Assyrian Palace Sculptures
Paul Collins

Bronze Age Bureaucracy: Writing and the Practice of Government in Assyria
Nicholas Postgate