Pre-Renaissance Man

Historians have acclaimed him as the last of the great monarchs of Assyria. Ashurbanipal, King of Neo-Assyria for more than 40 years, built the largest empire ever known by greatly expanding the Neo-Assyrian territorial dominion. The well-liked king would enhance his reputation by actively supporting the arts and establishing the first meticulously planned library, which included a collection of over 30,000 clay tablets.

One of the biggest and most significant archaeological discoveries in history occurred in the middle of the 19th century CE with the excavation of Ashurbanipal's library. The Enuma Elish, a Babylonian creation narrative, and the Epic of Gilgamesh, an early Mesopotamian account of the Great Flood that predates the Bible and served as the basis for numerous films of various popularity and quality, were among the works discovered.