In 612 BC, less than two decades after the death of Ashurbanipal, a coalition of Babylonians and Medes sacked Nineveh, inflicting upon the city and its inhabitants a level of devastation not unfamiliar to Assyrian soldiers. The North Palace, whose exquisite reliefs showed the mighty king calmly stabbing a sword through the chest of a wounded lion, was set on fire.

Meeting the same fate was his royal library in Nineveh, which Ashurbanipal stuffed with tens of thousands of text-bearing clay tablets he had commissioned or amassed from all over his conquered lands in a dedicated effort to build what he considered to be the world's greatest temple of knowledge.

"The fire baked the clay, preserving for millennia Ashurbanipal's knowledge and legend," says Zhang.

Some tablets are labeled: Palace of Ashurbanipal, King of the world and King of Assyria.