Ashurbanipal's Legacy: Rediscovering the Greatest Library the World had Ever Known

In this time of seemingly endless war, it is more important than ever to preserve and study the artifacts left behind by the early inhabitants of the Middle East. In absence of physical artifacts, the only records of history are the mutable oral traditions passed from person to person through the centuries. Like in the children's game of telephone, these stories change with each iteration. Despots can take advantage of this by reshaping the narrative to fit their rhetoric; conceivably changing the perception of the past irreparably within a generation. Without immutable proof, the truth can be lost in the propaganda. The Middle East has undergone this process of benign misinterpretation and malevolent revising for thousands of years; Ashurbanipal's Library represents one of the rare caches of unadulterated truth. It is vital from both a regional identity and a world history standpoint that this truth is preserved for future generations