The Royal Library of the ancient Kingdom of Ebla is thought to be the oldest library in the world. The library was discovered in the years 1974 – 1976 by Italian archaeologists from the University of Rome La Sapienza. They found about 2,000 complete tablets ranging in size from 1 in to over a foot, 4,000 tablet fragments, and over 10,000 chips and small fragments. This collection of texts is the largest ever found from the 3rd millennium BCE.
Unlike other ancient archives, there is evidence that suggests the tablets from the Ebla library were purposely arranged and even classified. The larger tablets were originally stored on shelves, but fell over when the palace was destroyed. Archaeologists were able to reconstruct the tablets’ original positions and discovered that they had been arranged by subject. Additionally, the tablets show evidence of the early transcription of texts into foreign languages and scripts.
