private library that belonged to a family of scribes. The tablet dates to the seventh century
B.C.E.^233
BB, VAT9435
Like tablet AA, this tablet is written in Neo-Assyrian script. Some parts of this tablet
were previously published by Weidner.^234 Little can be said in regard to its provenience.
CC, K11251
The script is Neo-Assyrian, and the catalogue number indicates this tablet was excavated
at Nineveh. The reverse of the tablet, following the name of the scribe, reads: gabarī uru
TIN.[TIRki], “original from Babylon.”^235 This is quite possibly a copy made for Ashur-
banipal’s library by an Assyrian scribe who copied an original tablet from the city of
Babylon.
(^233) According to O. Pedersén, Archive and Libraries in the Ancient Near East 1500-300 B.C. (^) (Maryland:
CDL Press, 1998) 134, the library was kept in a private house situated close to the main zikkurat in Ashur.
Most of the texts from the library date from the seventh century B.C.E. The location of the house in the
north-east of the city, close to the Temple of Ashur, makes some connection with the temple library possi-
ble according to O. Pedersén, Archives and Libraries in Assur, 2.30-31, or alternatively with another library
connected with the prince’s palace built by Sennacherib for Ashur-muballissu (O. Pedersén, Archives and
Libraries in Assur 234 , 2.81).
235 E.F. Weidner, Handbuch, 141-42, and KAO 4, 24-25.
The colophon is not given in AfO 24. See the drawing in L.W. King, Cuneiform Texts From Babylonian
Tablets in the British Museum: Part XXVI (CT 26; London: The British Museum, 1909) pl. 47.