a note on the progress of my research into King Assurbanipal’s library:

I stated in my first blog post that I chose this subject because of my interest in archaeology going back to my studies for my BA. Possibly a mistake! The more I look into the Library of Assurbanipal, the more I see there is to learn, and the more potential thesis topics emerge! The more I think I would like to one day go back to uni to study ancient libraries, because it’s a huge and fascinating area… So it looks like a result of my research is that this blog is going to diverge somewhat from the scope that I outlined in the first post. My biggest problem with researching this blog is knowing when to stop delving into Assurbanipal’s library and related topics and just put up a post, but the questions that this research presents are neverending. I am fascinated by questions about literacy in the ancient world – its purpose, and questions about who received education and who didn’t and why, as well as by the use and the purpose of the written word itself to an ancient culture such as Assyria. This has implications for the Assyrians’ understanding and beliefs with regard to the historical record itself and thus for how the modern reader should respond to the record that survives from the library. It is impossible to just treat the ‘facts’ – because a necessary part of the research process is to ask just what the facts are. I will attempt to reign in my research and my findings, but I am a bit worried that it’s going end up looking a little half-baked. I intend to save most of my commentary on the research process itself and the resources that I’ve accessed until my final post, but I some of this will creep into the other posts. I have also added two separate lists of links to the blog – one for useful sites that feature reliable referencing and links, and one for sites that don’t necessarily reference or back up their claims and which I think have the potential to be misleading.