Ashurbanipal's intense interest in collecting divination texts was one of his driving motivations in collecting works for his library. His original motive may have been to "gain possession of rituals and incantations that were vital to maintain his royal power."

if one were to search for a historical event with which to link pre-Homeric traditions of Achaean warriors fighting on the Anatolian mainland, the Assuwa Rebellion, ca. 1430 BC, would stand out as one of the largest military events within northwestern Anatolia prior to the Trojan War, and as one of the few events to which the Mycenaeans

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Shutruk-Nahhunte’s own mother was a Kassite princess, as he tells us in a letter that he wrote to the Kassite court, and which the German excavators found at Babylon.64 In that letter, he complains that he had been passed over for the Babylonian throne, despite being fully qualified for the position, including by birth. His indignation is palpable

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