by Jeanette C. Fincke
The British Museum's Ashurbanipal Library Project focused on the Babylonian texts from Nineveh (Kouyunjik) is investigating the kind of Babylonian compositions the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal (668-627 BC) ordered to include into his royal library and their relation to the rest of the Kouyunjik Collection and to the king's collecting activities. This project was conceived with a six months research on the Kouyunjik Collection itself and became reality in March 2003 through the generous funding by the Townley Group of the Friends of the British Museum. As a result of the first part of the project I made 86 joins and created a database on the Babylonian Nineveh tablets.
A second part of the Ashurbanipal Library Project was conducted from October until December 2005. This time I made 59 joins. During the third part of the Ashurbanipal Library Project (April until June 2006), I was able to make an additional 38 joins.
During the three months in 2005, I also went through the files of the Museum to collect information on the Nineveh tablet fragments that have been rejoined so far. During the first weeks of 2006 I created a database on the Nineveh joins, the Assyrian and Babylonian ones.