Ashur-bani-pal, which that king kept in his palace. The tablets found by Layard in 1852 and by Bassam in 1853 form the unique and magnificent collection of cuneiform tablets in the British Museum, which is now commonly known as the Kuyfinjik Collection. The approximate number of the inscribed baked clay tablets and fragments that have come from Kuyfinjik and are now in the British Museum is It is impossible to over-estimate their importance and value from religious, historical and literary points of View; besides this, they have supplied the material for the decipherment of cuneiform inscriptions in the Assyrian, Babylonian and Sumerian languages, and form the foundation of the science of Assyriology which has been built up with such conspicuous success during the last 70 years.