Abstract
Jules Oppert, appointed to the first chair of Assyrian philology and archaeology at the Collège de France, contributed indirectly to the establishment of the library of the Institut d'Assyriologie. Charles Fossey, his disciple and heir, stated in 1937 in a request for funds : " The library of the recently created Institut d'Assyriologie at the Collège de France comprises barely a thousand volumes ". Since then, this library has considerably expanded and enriched its collection, with nearly forty thousand books available. We propose to retrace the beginnings and ongoing evolution of this project through the prism of its initiator, Jules Oppert.
