There, on the left:
![](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-QlIoBVk9ZCE/TlD85vmLmTI/AAAAAAAAOr4/vUfAXfCismI/s1600/Iran_Library.jpg)
The Royal Library of Ashurbanipal in Mosul.
![](http://aina.org/images/20180908183127.jpg)
The First Library in the World to Reopen
By Salaam al-Shamaa
https://thearabweekly.com
Posted 2018-09-08 22:32 GMT
Baghdad -- It does not seem that the 3,000-year-old Royal Library of Ashurbanipal in Mosul will reopen soon, even though international institutions and universities pledged to donate hundreds of titles to the project.
This library was one of the victims of the war and the fighting between the Islamic State and the Iraqi forces and Popular Mobilisation Forces. The library stopped operating in 2014.
Work to revive the library began in 2001, two years before the US-led invasion of Iraq. Construction of the library building had been completed but the project was hamstrung by the invasion. It resumed in 2004 thanks to an initiative by the State University of New York at Stony Brook, which donated more than 1,000 books and periodicals.
Read more at: http://aina.org/ata/20180908183221.htm
More:
http://www.samefacts.com/2017/05/international-affairs/ashurbanipals-library-a-drama-in-three-acts/It appears it was mainly built by Assyrians, in their pre-Christian era (3000 years ago)
We're they the Phoenicians? Anyway, this is very much real history, just a few more images:
![](https://www.ancient-origins.net/sites/default/files/field/image/Ashurbanipal.jpg)
https://twitter.com/aliajeena/status/445315201815302145