Ancient Libraries

• Syria, Ebla (2500 B.C. - 2250 B.C.)

Constitute the oldest organized library yet discovered: see Ebla tablets.

• Nippur temple library (2500 B.C.)

Also one of the oldest known library known to exist. A section of the temple or palace allocated for library.

• Hattusa (1900 B.C. - 1190 B.C.) (Modern Bogazkoy)

This archive constituted the largest collection of Hittite texts discovered with approximately thirty thousand inscribed cuneiform tablets. The tablets had also been classified according to a precise system.

• Tell Leilan (Northeast Syria) (1900 B.C.)

This archive housed over a thousand clay tablets

• Mari (Modern Tell Hariri) (1900 B.C.)

The archive held approximately 15,000 tablets which included works on litigation, letters, foreign negotiations, literary, and theological works

• Nuzi (Modern Yorgan Tepe) (1500 B.C.)

This archive consisted of over 6,000 tablets written primarily in Babylonian cuneiform, however a select few were composed in the indigenous Hurrian language.

• Ugarit (Modern Ras Shamra) (1200 B.C.)

Several thousand texts consisting of diplomatic archives, census records, literary works and the earliest privately owned libraries yet recovered. Even though the tablets were written in several different languages, the most important aspect of the library were the 1400 texts written in a previously unknown tongue called Ugaritic.