was the library of alexandria real

[97][81][3] During the course of the fighting, Aurelian's forces destroyed the Broucheion quarter of the city in which the main library was located. But even the newest, most advanced libraries need to be treasured and respected if the knowledge they contain is to survive. New York: Skyhorse Publishing, p.17. [57], Eratosthenes was the first person to advance geography towards becoming a scientific discipline. [97], In 272 AD, the emperor Aurelian fought to recapture the city of Alexandria from the forces of the Palmyrene queen Zenobia. [52], The third head librarian, Eratosthenes of Cyrene (lived c. 280c. His aim throughout had not been restricted to conquering lands as far from Macedonia as India but had been to also explore them. [138], The idea of reviving the ancient Library of Alexandria in the modern era was first proposed in 1974, when Lotfy Dowidar was president of the University of Alexandria. The Great Library of Alexandria: The Untold Story Explained - TheCollector The founding of the Library of Alexandria, actually two or more libraries, is obscure. The Ohio State University - ehistory - The Burning of the Library of Alexandria, UNESCO World Heritage Convention - Alexandria, ancient remains and the new library, Social Studies for Kids - The Great Library of Alexandria, Biblical Archaeology Society - The Ancient Library of Alexandria, Live Science - The rise and fall of the Great Library of Alexandria, Library of Alexandria - Children's Encyclopedia (Ages 8-11), Library of Alexandria - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up). The opening episode of Carl Sagans TV series Cosmos, first shown in 1980, lamented the most famous burning of books in historythe conflagration that destroyed the Library of Alexandria. [98][99] Bar-Hebraeus, writing in the thirteenth century, quotes Omar as saying to Yay al-Naw: "If those books are in agreement with the Quran, we have no need of them; and if these are opposed to the Quran, destroy them. The writer Edward Gibbon, in his classic The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire dismissed another theory, that the destruction could be blamed on one of the Muslim conquerors of Egypt, Caliph Omar. Those irregular methods of collection were supplemented by the purchase of books from different places, especially from Athens and Rhodes, which sustained the largest book markets of the time. Get your history fix in one place: sign up for the weekly TIME History newsletter. [82], Further evidence for the Library's survival after 48 BC comes from the fact that the most notable producer of composite commentaries during the late first century BC and early first century AD was a scholar who worked in Alexandria named Didymus Chalcenterus, whose epithet (Chalknteros) means "bronze guts". It was a technological triumph and is the archetype of all lighthouses since. [43] Ptolemy II Philadelphus is said to have had a keen interest in zoology, so it has been speculated that the Mouseion may have even had a zoo for exotic animals. Alexandria was founded in Egypt by Alexander the Great. There is literary evidence of Greek individuals visiting Egypt especially to acquire knowledge: e.g., Herodotus, Plato (particularly in Phaedrus and Timaeus), Theophrastus, and Eudoxus of Cnidus (as detailed by Diogenes Lartius in the 3rd century ce). He could not, therefore, have had any role in establishing the Library as an institution. Updates? 25 BC), a student of Dionysius Thrax. Alexandria is, in that telling, a cautionary tale of the danger of creeping decline, through the underfunding, low prioritization and general disregard for the institutions that preserve and share knowledge: libraries and archives. [91][83] He was also given the nickname (Bibliolths), meaning "book-forgetter" because it was said that even he could not remember all the books he had written. [122] Theophilus respected Alexandria's political structures and raised no objection to the close ties Hypatia established with Roman prefects. [121] Hypatia was extremely popular with the people of Alexandria[122] and exerted profound political influence. Founded around 330 BC by Alexander the Great, it became well known in ancient times for its repository of knowledge, known as the Royal Library of Alexandria. [43][45][46][47], The first recorded head librarian was Zenodotus of Ephesus (lived c. 325c. Who burned down the library of Alexandria? - Studybuff The story of Alexandria is a mythin fact a collection of myths and legends, sometimes competing with each otherto which the popular imagination continues to cling. [84][85][61][8] This fire purportedly spread to the parts of the city nearest to the docks, causing considerable devastation. This ties in with the account of the geographer Strabo who did much of his own research some decades after the events of 4847 BCE using sources from the library. [97], In 642 AD, Alexandria was captured by the Muslim army of Amr ibn al-As. Pococke, p. 181, translation on p. 114. The library contained the works of the greatest writers and philosophers of the ancient world. Ancient Greece. One of our sources about the Alexandrian Library is the Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus, who, in his History (written around AD 380-390) also brings together the two key facts: that there was a massive library, and that it was destroyed. Credit - Heritage Images/Getty Images. Once ascertained, canonical copies would then be made for scholars, royalty, and wealthy bibliophiles all over the world, this commerce bringing income to the library. During the Pharaonic period, there were many libraries rich with different books and manuscripts. Eratosthenes calculated the planet to be 24,650 miles around, which is almost a real distance of 24,900. Several later Arabic sources describe the library's destruction by the order of Caliph Omar. [44] The Library itself was directed by a scholar who served as head librarian, as well as tutor to the king's son. In 391 AD, the beautiful temple of wisdom was ruined. [109] It naturally tended to attract followers of Iamblichean Neoplatonism. [110] He enjoined his students to worship the old gods in traditional ways, and he may have even taught them theurgy. "[87][88][8] The Roman historian Cassius Dio (c. 155 c. The Letter of Aristeas of the 2nd century bce reveals that the institution was conceived as a universal library: Demetriushad at his disposal a large budget in order to collect, if possible, all the books in the world;to the best of his ability, he carried out the kings objective. How was the Library of Alexandria Destroyed - DailyHistory.org [46], The fifth head librarian was an obscure individual named Apollonius, who is known by the epithet Greek: ("the classifier of forms"). Perhaps one of the most interesting accounts of its destruction comes from the accounts of the Roman writers. Elizabeth Cox details the rise and fall of this great building. Supported financially by the Ptolemaic rulers of Egypt, its librarians collected every book available. [96], By the second century AD, the Roman Empire grew less dependent on grain from Alexandria and the city's prominence declined further. [128][129] Neoplatonism and paganism both survived in Alexandria and throughout the eastern Mediterranean for centuries after her death. If we are going to heed Sagans warning, however, we must be sure of the true reason for the librarys demise. From the French Revolution, through the early history of the United States of America, from the First World War to the conflicts in the Balkans in the late 20th century, the word Alexandria has been a reference point for the subsequent destruction of libraries and archives. [77] Aristarchus' student Dionysius Thrax (c. 170c. [61], According to Galen, around this time, Ptolemy III requested permission from the Athenians to borrow the original manuscripts of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, for which the Athenians demanded the enormous amount of fifteen talents (1,000lb; 450kg) of a precious metal as guarantee that he would return them. [136] These libraries held both pagan and Christian writings side-by-side[136] and Christian scholars applied to the Christian scriptures the same philological techniques that the scholars of the Library of Alexandria had used for analyzing the Greek classics. It is believed that around 295 BCE, the scholar and orator Demetrius of Phalerum, an exiled governor of Athens, convinced Ptolemy I Soter to establish the Library. [119], Theophilus, the bishop involved in the destruction of the Serapeum, tolerated Hypatia's school and even encouraged two of her students to become bishops in territory under his authority. Ammianus Marcellinus thought that it happened when the city was sacked under Caesar, and Caesar himself reported the burning of Alexandria as an accidental consequence of his war against his great rival Pompey, in 4847 BCE. What if the Library of Alexandria never burned down? Would we - Reddit [97] Archaeologists have identified lecture halls dating to around this time period, located near, but not on, the site of the Ptolemaic Mouseion, which may be the "Mouseion" to which these writers refer. The daughter library in the Serapeum may have survived after the main Library's destruction. The Memory Library: How the library in Hellenistic Alexandria worked. [121] Hypatia was later implicated in a political feud between Orestes, the Roman prefect of Alexandria, and Cyril of Alexandria, Theophilus' successor as bishop. [141] An international architectural competition took place in 1989 with Norwegian architectural firm Snohetta winning the competition. For much of the late fourth century AD it was probably the largest collection of books in the city of Alexandria. What happened to the Great Library at Alexandria? [111], Scattered references indicate that, sometime in the fourth century, an institution known as the "Mouseion" may have been reestablished at a different location somewhere in Alexandria. An English translation of the passage in Al-Qifti by Emily Cottrell of Leiden University is at the Roger Pearse blog here, Ed. When did the Great Library of Alexandria burn down? 24 AD) mentions visiting the Mouseion, the larger research institution to which the Library was attached, in around 20 BC, several decades after Caesar's fire, indicating that it either survived the fire or was rebuilt soon afterwards. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our, Digital [53] It is more likely that Apollonius' resignation was on account of Ptolemy III Euergetes' ascension to the throne in 246 BC. In the conflagration that followed, a number of nearby buildings were destroyed. [78][83] By this time, all major classical poetic texts had finally been standardized and extensive commentaries had already been produced on the writings of all the major literary authors of the Greek Classical Era. [72] He wrote introductions to many plays, some of which have survived in partially rewritten forms. [85][82][8] The first-century AD Roman playwright and Stoic philosopher Seneca the Younger quotes Livy's Ab Urbe Condita Libri, which was written between 63 and 14 BC, as saying that the fire started by Caesar destroyed 40,000 scrolls from the Library of Alexandria. [79] The Romans based their grammatical writings on it, and its basic format remains the basis for grammar guides in many languages even today. Alexandria, Egypt - World History Encyclopedia [46], According to legend, during the librarianship of Apollonius, the mathematician and inventor Archimedes (lived c.287 c. The REAL reason why The Library Of Alexandria was burned down However, in 642 AD, when the city was captured by Muslims, they burned all the books not . [75] He made many contributions to a variety of studies, but particularly the study of the Homeric poems,[46] and his editorial opinions are widely quoted by ancient authors as authoritative. Many argue that it was catastrophic and world histories, science documents and mathematical theories were lost. The Library of Alexandria - Alexandria Attractions | GAT Tours . [97] It may have possessed some bibliographic resources, but whatever they may have been, they were clearly not comparable to those of its predecessor. [55] Strabo quotes him as having sarcastically commented, "a man might find the places of Odysseus' wanderings if the day were to come when he would find the leatherworker who stitched the goatskin of the winds. Caesar and Cleopatra, Erastosthenes and Euclid, Archimedes and Alexander the Great are just a few of the famous people connected to its story. What If The Library Of Alexandria Was Never Destroyed?Subscribe To Life's Biggest Questions: http://bit.ly/2evqECeThe library of Alexandria was located in Al. World History. The museum and library were founded and maintained by a succession of Ptolemies from the early 3rd century bc.The library aspired to the ideal of an international libraryincorporating all Greek literature and also translations into Greekbut .
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