The looting of works of art and the remains of ancient civilizations has been a constant throughout history and, unfortunately, has nurtured an important black market. Some, like the pyramids of Egypt, were protected with "traps" and mysterious curses; others, like the library of Nineveh, with divine punishments. We are going to focus on the latter, although the message seems to have been addressed to the Assyrians themselves, who should not return the "books after borrowing them from the library."
King Ashurbanipal (Sardanapal for the Greeks) ruled Assyria from 668 BC. to 627 BC In the reign of Ashurbanipal, the Assyrian splendor was evident not only in its military might, but also in its culture and the arts. Ashurbanipal created the Nineveh library , which was the first library to systematically collect and organize material. It is believed that he was able to collect more than 30,000 volumes in the form of clay tablets. The largest set of tablets is in the British Museum in London.
In the year 1872, archaeologists George Smith and Hormuzd Rassam were working in the ruins of the Nineveh library and discovered on the edges of the clay tablets some annotations related to the subject matter and a warning:
Whoever takes this tablet, let Asur and Belit overwhelm him with their wrath, and wipe his name and posterity from the face of the earth.
Now we use more direct and concrete messages.
Translation :This is your ass o, this is your ass in jail O. Any questions?
Source:The book of unusual events – Gregorio Doval. Images:Astrosafor, Perufreaks