EDWARD'S LECTURE NOTES:
More notes at http://tanguay.info/learntracker
C O U R S E
Masterpieces of World Literature
Martin Puchner, Harvard University
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C O U R S E L E C T U R E The 19th Century Recovery of the Library of Ashurbanipal from 650 BC Notes taken on May 16, 2017 by Edward Tanguay |
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the Epic of Gilgamesh is the first great work of literature that has survived
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was the most popular work of literature in the ancient Near East in the second and first millennium before Christ
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then it disappeared and was dug up again, and became a work of world literature in a wholly new way
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the standard form of the epic was composed around 1200 BCE
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circulated widely around the ancient Near East
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to Western Persia
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north to Turkey
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as far East as Jerusalem
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translated into multiple languages that we know about
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the world of the cuneiform [kyoo-NAY-a-form] world disappeared around 300-200 BCE
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people stopped knowing how to write cuneiform around this time
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the epic disappeared
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19th century
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group of explorers, archaeologist adventurers dug up the old capital of Assyria, known from the Bible, lost for hundreds of years
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dug up the city of Nineveh and the palace of Assur-Bani-Pal (668-627 BC), King of the world and King of the Neo-Assyrian Empire (934–609 BC)
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he was barely known at all
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they found the ruins of his library
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had been destroyed by his enemies in the 7th century BCE
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but the texts of Gilgamesh and many other works were written on cuneiform clay tablets
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baking clay makes is last longer, so burning it actually helped preserve it
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Austen Henry Layard (1817-1894)
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1840s working as a law clerk in the London
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doesn't like the job
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they gave him a job as a colonial administrator
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planned to go with Edward Mitford to Ceylon (Sri Lanka)
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Mitford wanted to go the land route there because he got sea sick
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Layard hears of mysterious mounds in Iraq
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goes to Mosul
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site of Nineveh
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starts digging and has luck, finds palace, and makes him palace
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he had to get funding
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nobody in Europe cared enough to fund this archeological research
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nobody in the Middle East cared about these pre-Islamic pagan relics
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so he writes an adventure story
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writes the account of how he found Nineveh
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published in 1849
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audience was Anglo-Irish gentry, clergy, and ladies with leisure
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becomes member of parliament
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does more excavations
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writes another book