Thanks for learning the NRTIME podcast. For more details about NRTIME and for our terms

of use, please go to bbc.co.uk forward slash radio 4. I hope you enjoy the program.

Hello, in 1849 a young English adventurer called Henry Leard started digging into a small

hill. It was on the banks of the River Tigris in northern Iraq and underneath it was the

ancient city of Nineveh. Leard found extraordinary things, wonderful carved reliefs, ancient

palace rooms and great statues of winged bulls. He also found a collection of clay tablets

broken up and jumbled around on the floor of the anti-room to the royal chamber. It was

the remnants of a library and although Leard didn't know at the time, it was one of the greatest

archaeological finds ever made. With me to discuss the library of Nineveh, I'm Nineveh,

I'm Eleanor Robson, senior lecturer at Cambridge University and a vice-chair of the British

Institute for the Study of Iraq, Karen Radner, lecturer in ancient Near Eastern history at

University College London and Andrew George, professor of Babylonian at the School of Oriental

and African Studies at the University of London. That's a bit of a fib because Andrew George

isn't yet here, but we know he's on his way. Eleanor Robson. Can you explain why the library

Nineveh is such an important find? It's an extraordinary find, it's 28,000 also original documents

that give us a direct window into the political and intellectual lives of the centre of power of

one of the ancient world's most incredible empires. It ruled all of the Middle East from the 7th

century BC and was formative in shaping Western intellectual history and political history,

very influential directly and indirectly to Greek and Roman civilisation as well, and to the Bible,

of course. We'll be talking about the library with the king who built it up in the 7th century BC,

but as a as a as a kingdom as you were, I've been going for 700 years before then, hadn't it?

Yes, it had it was a very well-established but even ancient kingdom by this point. So our window

...