In Assur, the source of 11 texts in the present corpus, some idea of the distribution of texts and libraries within the city at the time of its destruction can be gained, since the exact find spots of the objects found were recorded.[[8]] Of these 11 tablets, information is available on five. The Assurbanipal coronation composition was found in a private house within a large library and archive belonging to a family of exorcists, the older members of which bore the title "exorcist of the Aššur temple". In the same house were found the tablet with the mystical compendium (no. 39), and a tablet with part of the Marduk Ordeal composition (no. 34). A further tablet of the latter was found in the library of the Aššur temple. The composition the "Assyrian Crown Prince's View of the Netherworld" was found in a private house in a library of which remain 20 tablets or fragments of miscellaneous contents. The impression given by these find spots agrees generally with the distribution of literature within the various libraries and archives in Assur. Specialist priests did not necessarily confine themselves to their speciality, a circumstance reflected also in the study of intertextuality, which is discussed below in relation to two specific examples.
Of the remaining 13 texts in the present corpus, one was found in the non-literary archive of the governor's palace at Calah, one is of unknown origin, and the rest are from the private library partially recovered at the provincial town near the modern village of Sultantepe.
8 This information has been made accessible by 0. Pedersén, Archives and Libraries in the City of Assur: A Survey of the Material from the German Excavations, Part II, Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, Studia Semitica Upsaliensia 8 (1986). Cf. also idem, "The Libraries in the City of Assur," in CRRAI 32 (1986), p. 143ff.
Alasdair Livingstone
Alasdair Livingstone, 'Other Libraries Represented in the Present Corpus', Court Poetry and Literary Miscellanea, SAA 3. Original publication: Helsinki, Helsinki University Press, 1989; online contents: SAAo/SAA03 Project, a sub-project of MOCCI, 2020 [http://oracc.org/saao/saa03/sourcesandattribution/otherlibraries/]