In introducing the historical perspective of the Ashurai civilization, one must begin with one of the last, most famous and great kings of Ashur: Ashurbanipal.
Ashurbanipal is best known for creating the first library in the history of the world. Today tens of thousands of his cuneiform tablets are preserved at the British Museum in London, England. Ashurbanipal was very active in collecting ancient manuscripts. He sent emissaries for the exclusive purpose of seeking out rare tablets, such as the Epic of Gilgamish in its Sumerian version, written three thousand years before his time. The Babylonian version was also several centuries old at the time. The Ashurai version of the epic was in the modern Ashurai language then, the language that was spoken in Nineveh and Babylong. This language has been called "Akkadian" by Western scholars. However, there never has been found any evidence of such a name ever been used in the ancient times. Some acrcheologists have even searched for the "city of Akkad" and found nothing.
One of the tablets in this collection at the British Museum is called the Ashurbanipal Tablet. It is in the form of a verse prayer, very similar to certain passages of the Bible. It has been translated as such:
"I, Ashurbanipal, king ... the body of Ashurkhaddon, king of Ashur ... offspring of Sankhirob ... the God Ashur ... the foundation of the throne ... from my youth on, the great God dwelling in heaven and earth, the destinies fixed like the father, my begetter, he made me great, his supreme paths, he taught me the making of fight and battle, the gathering together of opposition, ordering ... he made great my weapons against my enemies, who from my ... youth to my maturity had been hostile to me...."