Library of Alexandria (Original)

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Riven

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  posted 02-10-2006 12:20 AM                       
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Location

The new Bibliotheca Alexandrina has a site of 45 000m2 located in the cen­ter of Alexandria across from the Silsilah Peninsula. This is the location of the ancient “Royal Quarter”, where the first library is thought to have been located. A 1993 archaeological survey of thes ite further verifies the loca­tion of this “Royal Quarter”.
The Corniche waterfront avenue and the sea bound the library site from the north for a length of 305m giving the Library a magnificent view of the Eastern Harbor. Also, on the site, is the Conference Center of Alexan­dria, 5 000m2, which will augment the facilities of the library.

This was the first research center in the world. It was a sort of scholarly academy attracting prominent scientists and intellectuals, with a library annexed to it.

http://www.egypttourism.org/New%20Site/places/bibliotheca_alexandrina.htm

The Ancient Library of Alexandria was established by Ptolemy I (Soter) in the year 288 B.C.

Several buildings were involved of which the most famous were the museum, and the library by the waterfront (both in the royal district called the Brucheion) and the daughter Library in the Temple of Serapis (the Serapeum).

-Aristarchus, the first to proclaim that the earth revolves around the sun.

-Hipparchus, the first to measure the solar year with six and a half minutes accuracy. -Eratosthenes, the first to measure the circumference of the earth.

-Euclid, who wrote the elements of geometry.

-Archimedes, the greatest mathematician of the Ancient World.

-Callimachus, a poet, and the first to write a catalogue for books classified by topic and author, thereby becoming the father of Library Science.

The Old Testament was translated for the first time from Hebrew to Greek.


The first fire came about during the Alexandrian War, when Julius Caesar burnt the Egyptian fleet in 48 B.C. and the fire inadvertently spread to the library buildings near the docks

Alexandrian scholarships moved to the daughter library in the temple of Serapis (the Serapeum) in the southwest corner of the city


Alexandria was built in the shape of a chessboard. It was divided into five districts, the most important was the Royal District, which holds the Museum, the Great Library of Alexandria, the lighthouse and the Sema, which is the funerary temple where Alexander the Great was buried.


Dar El Hekma, and the library were centers spreading culture to the Hellenistic world

The fame of Alexandria's Library surpassed that of Dar El Hekma as it contained about 700 thousand biblia.

This page of history was folded when the Ptolomaic state ended at the hands of Emperor Augustus, following the battle of Actium in 30 BC, when Alexandria became the headquarters of the Roman Prefect until the Arab conquest in the 7th century AD.


Marcus Orerllius (161 -180) and Sipherios (193 - 2110).


Greek influence prevailed during the Roman rule. Greek was the official language of Egypt. From the religious perspective the Alexandrian triad made up of Serapis, Isis and Harpocratis deified by the ptolemies remained the most prominent among the Gods during the Roman era.

Christianity spread in Egypt at this period and Copts, experienced religious persecutions which were at their worse during the rule of Diocletion, which was referred to as The Age of Martyrs.

Canope bath water cisterns, Roman cemeteries, El Anfoushi cemetery, Koum El Shogafa.

4) Berenice II, daughter of Arsinoe II and Ptolemy II, wife of Ptolemy III, sole heir to Cyrene (wealthy city in Libya),vast income from shipping and trade; governed in Egypt while husband was on military expeditions; sponsored race horses at Panhellenic games; was an accomplished equestrian; was honored with portraiture on coins; praised by poet Callimachus (poem "Lock of Berenice" imitated by the Roman Catullus and later English Pope), killed by one son for trying to advance career of other son, honored as goddess after death with prietess awarded precedence over other priestesses.

5) Cleopatra VII, married her brothers, ruled Egypt, had great facility in languages and could negotiate directly with ambassadors, raised and directed armies, entered into liaisons with Julius Caesar and Marc Antony in order to advance her country's welfare through the help of Rome. She died in 30 B.C.E. after the battle of Actium won by Octavian (Augustus Caesar).

http://www.luc.edu/faculty/pgraha1/womeninantiquity/hellenism.htm


Pausanias, Description of Greece

Attica

1 The Macedonians consider Ptolemy to be the son of Philip, the son of Amyntas, though putatively the son of Lagus, asserting that his mother was with child when she was married to Lagus by Philip. And among the distinguished acts of Ptolemy in Asia they mention that it was he who, of Alexander's companions, was foremost in succoring him when in danger among the Oxydracae. After the death of Alexander2 , by withstanding those who would have conferred all his empire upon Aridaeus, the son of Philip, he became chiefly responsible for the division of the various nations into the kingdoms.

[3] He crossed over to Egypt in person, and killed Cleomenes, whom Alexander had appointed satrap of that country, considering him a friend of Perdiccas, and therefore not faithful to himself; and the Macedonians who had been entrusted with the task of carrying the corpse of Alexander to Aegae, he persuaded to hand it over to him. And he proceeded to bury it with Macedonian rites in Memphis, but, knowing that Perdiccas would make war, he kept Egypt garrisoned. And Perdiccas took Aridaeus, son of Philip, and the boy Alexander, whom Roxana, daughter of Oxyartes, had borne to Alexander, to lend color to the campaign, but really he was plotting to take from Ptolemy his kingdom in Egypt. But being expelled from Egypt, and having lost his reputation as a soldier, and being in other respects unpopular with the Macedonians, he was put to death by his body guard.

[4] The death of Perdiccas immediately raised Ptolemy to power, who both reduced the Syrians and Phoenicia, and also welcomed Seleucus, son of Antiochus, who was in exile, having been expelled by Antigonus; he further himself prepared to attack Antigonus. He prevailed on Cassander, son of Anti pater, and Lysimachus, who was king in Thrace, to join in the war, urging that Seleucus was in exile and that the growth of the power of Antigonus was dangerous to them all.

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Paus.+1.6

This Ptolemy fell in love with Arsinoe, his full sister, and married her, violating herein Macedonian custom, but following that of his Egyptian subjects. Secondly he put to death his brother Argaeus, who was, it is said, plotting against him; and he it was who brought down from Memphis the corpse of Alexander. He put to death another brother also, son of Eurydice, on discovering that he was creating disaffection among the Cyprians. Then Magas, the half-brother of Ptolemy, who had been entrusted with the governorship of Cyrene by his mother Berenice--she had borne him to Philip, a Macedonians but of no note and of lowly origin--induced the people of Cyrene to revolt from Ptolemy and marched against Egypt.

[2] Ptolemy fortified the entrance into Egypt and awaited the attack of the Cyrenians. But while on the march Magas was in formed that the Marmaridae,a tribe of Libyan nomads, had revolted, and thereupon fell back upon Cyrene. Ptolemy resolved to pursue, but was checked owing to the following circumstance. When he was preparing to meet the attack of Magas, he engaged mercenaries, including some four thousand Gauls. Discovering that they were plotting to seize Egypt, he led them through the river to a deserted island. There they perished at one another's hands or by famine.

VIII.

It is pertinent to add here an account of Attalus, because he too is one of the Athenian eponymoi. A Macedonian of the name of Docimus, a general of Antigonus, who afterwards surrendered both himself and his property to Lysimachus, had a Paphlagonian eunuch called Philetaerus. All that Philetaerus did to further the revolt from Lysimachus, and how he won over Seleucus, will form an episode in my account of Lysimachus. Attalus, however, son of Attalus and nephew of Philetaerus, received the kingdom from his cousin Eumenes, who handed it over. The greatest of his achievements was his forcing the Gauls to retire from the sea into the country which they still hold.

[2]

After the statues of the eponymoi come statues of gods, Amphiaraus, and Eirene (Peace) carrying the boy Plutus (Wealth). Here stands a bronze figure of Lycurgus,1 son of Lycophron, and of Callias, who, as most of the Athenians say, brought about the peace between the Greeks and Artaxerxes, son of Xerxes.2 Here also is Demosthenes, whom the Athenians forced to retire to Calauria, the island off Troezen, and then, after receiving him back, banished again after the disaster at Lamia.

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0160&query=chapter%3D%238&layout=&loc=1.7.1
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Posts: 4048 | From: Azores Atlantis Isles. | Registered: May 2003

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Sarah

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   posted 02-10-2006 01:17 AM                       
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Nice account, Riven. But we don't actually have a physical layout for how the library looked, do we? I imagine that most of the works there weren't books at all, but scrolls, parchments.

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Riven

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  posted 02-10-2006 12:10 PM                       
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That is the puzzle I'm trying to visualize first before I go and look for it....


The Descriptions of The Library and it's most prominent location.

It was also common to place scrolls in wooden cylinders, the name eludes me for now..


I seem to envision Alexandria as a meeting hall with library "annexes" on either side, most likely the East and West sides.

That was part of the reason of the recent postfor us to understand the Ptolemy II era and what type of politics was going on.

It is always better to be for one to see.

[ 02-10-2006, 12:13 PM: Message edited by: Riven ]

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.111.[R].Riven The Seer and Royal Bloodline to Atlantis.[R].111.

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Absonite

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  posted 02-10-2006 04:51 PM                       
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Riven
what do you make of

Titan
Ta-ten
Aten
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Heather Delaria

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   posted 02-12-2006 11:12 PM                       
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I think people who are looking at the Library of Alexandria as simply a library are missing the picture.

Scholars used to teach there.

There was a musesum there as well.

The "University of Alexandria" might have been a better title for it.

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Absonite

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  posted 02-12-2006 11:24 PM                       
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Heather,
the museum was a different building from the library.


By the fourth hour after landing they were settled near the eastern end of the long and broad avenue, one hundred feet wide and five miles long, which stretched on out to the western limits of this city of one million people. After the first survey of the city's chief attractions -- university (museum), library, the royal mausoleum of Alexander, the palace, temple of Neptune, theater, and gymnasium -- Gonod addressed himself to business while Jesus and Ganid went to the library, the greatest in the world. Here were assembled nearly a million manuscripts from all the civilized world: Greece, Rome, Palestine, Parthia, India, China, and even Japan.

[ 03-08-2006, 04:16 AM: Message edited by: Absonite ]
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I_am_that_I_am

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   posted 02-12-2006 11:35 PM                       
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I understand it as the "museaum" was a wing of the library, but not in the sense of museaums as we now know them today, more like a teaching hall.

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Talya

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   posted 02-13-2006 01:11 AM                       
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I found some more information on the library, I don't really believe there was any disntinction between which part was the museum and which part was the library, although the research seems a bit vagues about the actual layout.

"Mouseion" is referred to as "library," by the way.


quote:
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Shredding myths and scholarship
The new Library is rising like a phoenix in Alexandria -- or is it? Jenny Jobbins delves into the story of what might have happened to the Great Library built by the Ptolemies
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The physican Galen, who studied and taught at the Mouseion (Illustration courtesy of Watani)
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The legend of the ancient Library of Alexandria and how its valuable store of books was committed to an iconoclastic bonfire has persisted so long that it has entered our history books. Yet we have no contemporary record of such a conflagration, or of who lit the flames, or when. We do not even know exactly where the Great Library was or what shape it took, and we know very little about its organisation and administration, especially in its later years when Egypt had fallen under Roman rule.

When Alexander the Great laid the foundation stone of Alexandria in about 331 BC, he envisioned a capital that would rival Athens in the glory of its architecture and the scope of its power. Yet barely before the first plans were drawn up he had left to fight the Persians in Asia Minor, never to return to see his city. Thus classical Alexandria began as it was to end -- in the shadow of a war with Persia.

Alexander's successor in Egypt was Ptolemy I Soter, who gave his name to the family dynasty of Greek Pharaohs which ruled Egypt, more or less competently (in spite of the vagaries of its neurotic members, among whom the tendency to commit parricide was an inbred weakness) until the suicide of its most gifted and last queen, Cleopatra VII. One of Ptolemy I's first acts was to commission the building of a great Mouseion, a "temple to the Muses", in concept not unlike a vast university campus, incorporating colleges, laboratories and observatories, a teaching hospital and a library.

The chief adviser to Ptolemy in establishing the Mouseion was Demetrius of Phalerum, himself an exiled former tyrant of Athens. Like most Greek political leaders of his day he had studied political philosophy, his mentor being Theophrastus, successor to Aristotle, who in turn had taught Alexander. In Athens, Demetrius had used Aristotle's private library, and this great collection soon found its way to Alexandria.

Leading scholars quickly answered the call to teach, attend lectures and walk the halls of this grand new seat of learning. And imposing it must have been. We can suppose that it was built, like the rest of Alexandria, in shining white marble, with elegant Grecian columns, its carefully tended gardens decorated with exquisite statuary. The Mouseion was built on the south side of the royal palace complex, the Brucheum, which adjoined the harbour. It was therefore close enough to the royal compound to receive the personal attention of the Pharaoh, and it was there that the royal children were educated.

The scholars who arrived were mathematicians, scientists, poets and dramatists, an indication of the schools for which Alexandria would become renowned. Philosophy was less prominent. Among the earlier arrivals were Euclid, Archimedes, Zenodotus and Callimachus. The most prestigious post at the Mouseion was that of director, who was expected to perform the duties of poet laureate, producing odes and eulogies for every occasion.

Ptolemy, who himself wrote a competent history of Alexander's campaigns, wanted Alexandria to become the new great centre of Greek learning. However, the chief sponsor of the library was his son, Ptolemy II Philadelphus, who also built the Pharos, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, which survived as a lighthouse for a thousand years.

Under Ptolemy II the core of the library's collection was amassed. Demetrius lost no time in filling the stacks of the library with books. Not all his methods of acquisition were legal in the strict sense. Perhaps discarding his new hat of scholar for the old one of tyrant, he went to great pains to grasp all the manuscripts he could lay his hands on, even searching ships to confiscate those held in transit. In a startling parallel to how the shelves of the new library are being filled today, appeals went out to foreign states for manuscripts to be sent to Alexandria. The intention, though, in those pre-print and pre- computer scanning days, was that they would be meticulously copied and returned. The original dramas of Euripides and Aeschylus, and the works of Sophocles, were duly sent but, when the owners were unable to pay the high indemnities demanded for their safe return, the Mouseion administrators returned the copies and retained the originals.

Pompey's Pillar at Rhakotis, site of the Serapeum library, from a drawing by EW Lane for his Description of Egypt.
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One major aim was to translate everything written in other languages into Greek, and to this end the Old Testament was translated from Hebrew, which had long since ceased to be a living language. The main body of this work was completed during the first century BC, supposedly by 72 Jewish scholars working simultaneously in 72 cubicles and miraculously ptoducing 72 identical versions. Hence it was known as the Septuagint., though in all probability this is yet another library myth.

Little is known about the administration of the Mouseion. We know even less about its layout, or of what form the library took, or whether each college had it own collection of books. But we do know that the volumes were regularly counted and cared for. Some of these counts have been passed down to us, and the number was thought to be between four and five hundred thousand (no counts were, or could be, the same). The first catalogue alone filled 120 volumes.

The papyrus or parchment scrolls, some of which would be wrapped in linen or leather, were kept in pigeonholes. A handwritten manuscript contained much less information than a modern, tightly printed book, and one volume might run into several scrolls. The volumes contained poetry, drama and classical literature, and also the research and theses of the scientists and mathematicians working at the Mouseion.

One of the fields in which Alexandria became famous was medicine. An early medical scientist to study there was Herophilus of Chalcedon (335--280 BC), the founder of the basic science of anatomy, who carried out systematic dissections of the human body, accurately describing the brain, eye, and circulatory, digestive, glandular and genital systems. He also studied the nervous system. His pupil, Erasistratus (302-250 BC), pioneered the science of physiology, or study of the normal function of the bodily organs. Other leaders in medicine were Sallus and Syrabios the Alexandrian, whose career was sparked off when he studied the drugs the Ancient Egyptians had used. Galen was in Alexandria for only eight years (152- 158 AD), but he did some seminal work there and his anatomical studies, though not definitive, remained unchallenged for 13 centuries.

But by Galen's time Alexandria's golden age under Ptolemaic Greek rule was over. In 30 BC Egypt lost its autonomy and was thenceforth ruled from Rome, where the imperial exchequer tended to allocate its funds to military campaigns, not scholarship. These resources became less plentiful as the empire shrank. One of the most significant facts about the Roman empire was that as soon as it reached its zenith, under Trajan and Hadrian between 110 and 130 AD, it began to decline. However, it took a long time to die, and its death throes reverberated around the Mediterranean for the next few centuries.

What was happening, then, to Alexandria, and to its library? The historian Strabo, who came to do research at the Mouseion, left us a description of the city as it was towards the end of the first century BC. He described the view as one sailed into the harbour: of the royal palace, the temples of Serapis, Saturn and Poseidon, the Mouseion, the hippodrome, the brand new Caesareum and Timonium built respectively by Caesar and Antony -- the former fronted by two obelisks Caesar brought from Heliopolis, one of which now stands in London, the other in New York -- the shops and docks and the Pharos towering over them all.

The study of sciences and the Mysteries continued. By now there was not one library, but two. West of the city, on a hill probably inhabited from the Late Kingdom, was a town and a temple dedicated to a pre-classical god, Rhakotis. Under the Ptolemies, who prudently took on the religion of the Egyptians and many of the customs, including the title Pharaoh (though none until the last, Cleopatra VII, troubled to learn the language) Rhakotis became a centre for the new Graeco-Egyptian cult of Serapis. It also grew into a populous suburb, inhabited mostly by native Egyptians.

At Rhakotis, Ptolemy III Evergetes I built a temple to Serapis, the Serapeum, and in catacombs beneath he installed a library, smaller than the Great Library in the Brucheum, but no less important. This was probably used as an overspill from the Mouseion, and it was here that the 200,000 volumes from the Pergamum library were kept after Mark Antony presented them to the scholarly Cleopatra.

If we look at the political map of Europe, Asia Minor and North Africa in the first centuries of the Christian era, we can see that the Roman Empire had pushed its borders beyond what its central administration could feasibly govern. Insurrections were springing up all over the empire, and belligerent neighbours were constantly trying to encroach on or pillage its territories.

Egypt, as throughout its history, had no shortage of political and religious activists. The list of insurrections makes Palestine and Northern Ireland look like peace havens. During the Jewish revolt, the worst of the Jewish insurrections, which began in 115 AD and went on for three years, the Serapeum was sacked and the contents of its library destroyed. The temple complex was rebuilt, but these manuscripts, at least, were gone.

They were not the only books to be lost. In 48 BC Caesar, partly to aid his paramour, the 20-year-old Queen Cleopatra, but mostly because of his power struggle with Pompey, torched the fleet of her husband and younger brother Ptolemy XIII who, backed by Pompey, was determined to oust her.

Unfortunately the young Pharaoh's fleet was not the only victim of the fire. The sea wind fanned the flames, and a consignment of books on the docks bound for the library -- which library is not clear -- was consumed.

Plutarch, who was not born until 90 years after this event, claims the fire also destroyed the royal palace and the Mouseion, and this tale is repeated in the fifth century by the Christian apologist Paulus Orosius. As we have seen, however, Strabo, who was in Alexandria only a few decades after the fire, described what was far from a ruin. The complex may have been rebuilt in the intervening years, but Plutarch does not reveal his sources, nor does he mention how flames can rip through marble buildings. One has only to visit the numerous mediaeval towns in continental Europe and compare them with Britain, where hardly any complete mediaeval streets survive, to see the advantage of building in brick and stone rather then in timber as the British did.

We know, then, or have fairly reliable evidence, that Caesar accidentally set fire to a stock of books in the harbour and that the library at the Serapeum was probably destroyed in the Jewish Revolt about 170 years later. We know, too, that in the intervening years and in the centuries to come there were many more civil disturbances. The city was pillaged and its inhabitants forcefully defeated when Rome annexed Egypt in 30 BC, and uprisings by the inhabitants did not stop there. As Christianity took a foothold in Egypt there were waves of terrible violence, with official persecution of the Christians under orders from Rome, especially under the Emperors Maximinus and Diocletian, giving way to the destruction of the temples by mobs of Christian monks. In 391, incited by the patriarch Theophilus, angry monks dismantled the second Serapeum stone by stone and probably set fire to it, almost certainly destroying the replenished library in the process. After that, travellers reported seeing only empty shelves in the Serapeum.

Two martyrs stand out: St Catherine, supposedly put to death on a wheel by Maximinus in about 320, and Hypatia, seized from her chariot and torn to shreds by a rabble of frenzied Christians in 415. Hypatia, an astronomer and mathmetician, was the daughter of Theon, the last director of the Great Library. With these events the Mysteries gave way to Christian theology, and the doors closed on the Mouseion.

So, was that the end of it all? There is still a further chapter to refute. In the middle ages another fire legend sprung up, but this one contains as much propaganda as Shakespeare's pro-Tudor historical plays. Nevertheless, like Shakespeare, it has endured, despite being debunked as far back as the early 1800s. This episode concerned an order alleged to have been given in 641 to Amr Ibn Al-As by the Caliph Omar to the effect that, after invading Egypt, he was to destroy any written material he found that did not agree with the Qur'an. Whether or not his troops used biblical texts as fire- lighters to annoy the Egyptians we shall never know, but the story of a bonfire has long been exposed as a political fabrication invented 500 years later.

Even if there was no fire in the Great Library, that does not mean to say that books were not destroyed. Certainly iconoclastic Jews and Christians burned pagan books, and probably Arabs burned Christian books, and vice-versa. But in all this, there is one central point. We must look at the manuscripts themselves. In the early days, these were of papyrus, as were most of the documents produced in ancient and classical Egypt. But later on fine skin parchment, or vellum, came into use. Most of the volumes in the Pergamum library were of parchment, since Egypt had stopped exporting papyrus to prevent the Seleucids from making books. In Roman times, scrolls were replaced by codices, which were in book form.

Let us now take the first known fire, Caesar's accidental immolation of the harbour. Had the fire indeed spread to the Great Library, the volumes held there would by then have been up to 300 years old. The Ptolemies, though, would have paid to have them copied, and these copies might have been in good condition. However, we don't have any proof that the fire spread that far. When we look at the next fire, at the Serapeum in 115 AD, the books in the libraries, which were now funded by public money, are beginning to look a bit tatty. By 391 they have been handled so much they are probably in shreds. The Mouseion is now only a shadow of its former self. While teachers are still paid by their students, there are no salaries for clerks: little is probably being written, and even less copied. Not only that, but law and order has long since broken down. There is no money to pay soldiers to patrol the streets, let alone guard the library. The papyrus scrolls have lost their cases, the parchment has dried and cracked. Books are stolen, borrowed or lost.

Not so long ago a German archaeologist examining a mummy cartonnage found a letter signed by Cleopatra VII herself squidged into the papyrus maché. It is not hard to see what happened to the original plays of Aeschylus and Euripides. Even had they survived the 900 years until Amr Ibn Al-As arrived, they would have been small piles of dust, not even fit for spills.

The Romans considered the Vandals their main threat in the West, and the Persians their main threat in Asia Minor. They paid little attention to Egypt, which they used as a bread basket, helping themselves to its grain and other produce but giving next to nothing in return. The last Roman Emperor of Egypt, Heraclius, was not a bad leader, but he was a military man and in poor health: he needed to expend all his effort in consolidating his campaign against Persia. He failed to protect Egypt. In 619 the Persians invaded, sacked Alexandria, massacred or abducted thousands of the inhabitants and razed half the city. The trail of destruction they left along the coast across North Africa was still visible when the Arabs arrived 20 years later. In all this, was there any time left for books?
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Talya

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   posted 02-13-2006 01:15 AM                       
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On the administration of the library:


quote:
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The Royal Library of the Ptolemies
Today a museum is a building containing old objects and young children, but the word really means ‘house of the Muses’ who were the minor classical deities believed to inspire artists. Hence, a museum was both a place of worship and an academic institution. A library would have been an essential part of any such enterprise and it is usually assumed that Ptolemy II Philadelphus, who reigned from 282BC to 246BC, founded the Royal Library as a complement to the Museum set up by his father, Ptolemy I Soter. But although this seems very reasonable, it should do nothing to detract from the fact that for an institution so famous in the common memory, the historical evidence (and archaeological remnant) of the Royal Library is absolutely pitiful and certainly a reasonable case can be made that it never existed in the form popularly imagined. If that is the case, then any attempt to discover its fate will automatically be doomed to failure although the evidence for its existence appears to be sufficient to make its study worthwhile.

The earliest reference to the Royal Library is found in the Letter of Aristeas which was written by an Alexandrine Jew in about 100BC. The author poses as a gentile and intends to provide reassurance to the Greek-speaking Jewish community that their translation of the Bible, known as the Septuagint, was accurate and even divinely inspired. It tells the famous story about the seventy-two scholars who were summoned from Judea to effect the translation work on the instructions of the Royal Library’s first administrator, Demetrius of Phalerum. The king for whom he is working is not named but later authors usually identify him as Ptolemy II Philadelphus[12] who is also said to have imprisoned Demetrius after a row over the succession[13]. The Letter of Aristeas is the original source for the Septuagint story which is repeated with more or fewer embellishments by Josephus, Philo, Epiphanius and others.

When he recites the story, the Byzantine chronicler Georgius Syncellus claims that the Library of Alexandria was founded about 252BC[14] which is towards the end of the life of Ptolemy II Philadelphus. However, as will be seen in section 3, most scholars would think that was far too later a date given the identities of the librarians.

Regarding the running of the Library, there are a fair number of charming legends that are difficult, if not impossible, to verify. For instance, Vitruvius (writing in about 25BC) tells how Aristophanes of Byzantium earned the job of librarian after memorising most of the Library’s contents and catching out some plagiarists[15]. Galen talks about how one of the Ptolemies borrowed the works of the Greek masters from Athens, copied them and then kept the originals while forfeiting the huge deposit he had had to pay[16]. He also mentions how ships that had docked at Alexandria were searched for books which were then deposited in the Library. Later stories say that Aristotle’s books formed the core of the collection[17] although Strabo disagrees and insists that the Philosopher’s books were eventually carried off to Rome by Sulla[18].

The librarians were reputed to include some of the great figures of ancient scholarship. Since the discovery of a scrap of papyrus with a list on it in the rubbish dumps of Oxyrynchus in Egypt[19], it has become easier to figure out who had the job and when. The list dates from about AD200 and, although much earlier than the other evidence, clearly still contains mistakes. From this and other sources, various scholars have tried to reconstruct the roll call of the Librarians. Two versions are given in Table One.

Callimachus’s inclusion as an actual librarian is widely disputed and Demetrius, credited with starting the whole thing off, is also not usually recognised as in fact having had the job of running it. Parsons feels very bad about this and insists on putting him in anyway[20].

After 145BC the librarianship appears to have passed into the hands of retainers and flunkies of the King who do not seem to have had much scholarly standing[21]. Indeed, there is little evidence that there was a meaningful post at all after Aristarchus of Samothrace, which coincides with the decline of intellectual activity in Alexandria following the depredations of Ptolemy VII Psychon (see below).

Librarian Approximate period of office (all dates BC) Intellectual field (among others)
PM Fraser EA Parsons
Demetrius na to 282 Philosophy
Zenodotus 285 - 270 282 - 260 Homeric textual criticism
Callimachus na 260 - 240 Bibliography and poetry
Apollonius of Rhodes 270 - 245 240 - 230 Epic poetry
Erastosthenes 245 - 204/1 230 -195 Geography
Aristophanes of Byzantium 204/1 - 189/6 195 - 180 Textual criticism
Apollonius Eidographos 189/6 - 175 180 - 160
Aristarchus of Samothrace 175 - 145 160 -131 Grammar
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http://www.bede.org.uk/Library2.htm#Royal

[ 02-13-2006, 01:17 AM: Message edited by: Talya ]
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Table Two

Half a million books is the number usually bandied around by modern writers, but the figures given above almost certainly refer to the number of papyrus scrolls and many of these were needed to make up an entire book. And to house half a million papyrus rolls would require forty kilometres of shelving or a building well over thirty meters square and five meters high[24]. This would be an enormous structure though by no means impossible for the Alexandrines to construct. On the other hand, no mention of this huge edifice is ever made in any of the sources.

It is unlikely anyone will ever know how many books the Royal Library actually held but the uncritical acceptance of half a million in unsustainable. Seneca’s figure of 40,000, although, as section 5 will show, not uncontroversial, seems a more reasonable figure and still makes the Royal Library much larger than any of the later classical or medieval libraries.

The private library found under the lava at Heraculaneum, which belonged to an enormously rich family who hosted a multitude of scholars, contained only 1,700 scrolls[25]. In his book Libraries of the Ancient World, Lionel Casson gives some useful details about the archaeological remains of many libraries which allow their approximate size to be estimated. Roman Libraries used bookshelves placed in wall niches to store scrolls with the floor of the library being used to provide desk space for scholars. Based on the number and size of the niches given by Casson the number of scrolls the libraries could hold can be estimated as given in Table Three.

Library Page reference in Casson Estimated holding
Palatine Library at Temple of Apollo in Rome page 82 6,000
Library at Trajan's Baths in Rome page 85 20,000 (Casson's own estimate)
Library at Caracalla's Baths in Rome page 90 7,500
Hadrian's Library in Athens page 113 10,000
Library of Celsus in Ephesus page 116 3,000 (Casson's own estimate)
Library of Pergamon page 50 30,000

Table Three

Of all these libraries, only Celsus’s was not endowed by an emperor and it can be seen that a library of just ten thousand scrolls would have been considered enormous by the standards of the era. In its time, the Library of Trajan would have been the finest and largest in the capital of the Roman Empire. That the Royal Library of Alexandria could be twice this size seems reasonable, that it could be twenty-five times larger does not. The library in Pergamon at the Temple of Athena is often said to have contained 200,000 scrolls on very flimsy evidence[26] but a perusal of its extant ruins suggest a figure closer to 30,000 would be more sensible for this major rival of the Alexandrian Library[27]. This illustrates how the holdings of large libraries could easily be exaggerated and that the solid evidence of archaeology provides much smaller figures.

One other hint one has about the size of the Library is the length of the Pinakes put together by Callimachus. These catalogues took up 120 scrolls and listed, with biographical and critical summaries, all the works of Greek literature which Callimachus thought were important. A single scroll could hold either two books of Homer or alternatively one of the rather longer books of Thucydides[28] or Plato’s Symposium[29]. This comes to about 10,000 or 20,000 words meaning the Pinakes would themselves have totalled well over one million words over all 120 scrolls. This is a large document, however, if it is supposed to have catalogued the half a million rolls reputed to be in the Royal Library, it would have allowed them about three words each. As mentioned above, complete books each took up several scrolls, but three words still does not seem like very much especially given the amount of detail Callimachus included[30]. Hence, even though Callimachus would not have included everything held by the Library in the Pinakes, the figure of half a million scrolls again seems to be a considerable exaggeration.


http://www.bede.org.uk/Library2.htm#Royal
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Interesting that they have built a new one:


quote:
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The design concept of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina is a simple circle representing the Egyptian sun, to symbolically illuminate the world and human civilization. The inclined roof allows indirect daylight and a clear view of the sea.

The building is clad in Aswan granite engraved with calligraphic inscriptions representing the world civilizations. This wall symbolizes both the heritage of the region and a revival of cultural radiance to reach out to all corners of the universe.

The library is 525 feet (160 meters) in diameter and 750,000 square feet (70,000 square meters) in area. The main reading hall is located in half the building in a large open amphitheater, accessible through a central loaning station and smaller satellite information desks.

The reading room seats 2000 persons and is flexible in its accommodation of current and future technologies.

The room surges upward with a kind of seismic energy while still maintaining an intimacy familiar in Arabic space. The curving wall of the interior creates a secure space for meditation. The surrounding walls move upward and around to further enhance this character.

The Skylights

Pushing up through the interior space are slender columns capped with prism shapes that further distribute light from the overhead skylights. The skylights rise from beneath the earth in a simple repetitive pattern of tetrahedrons.

They face north and are designed not to allow direct sunlight into the main space. The light through these pyramids changes throughout the day to provide a connection to the changing environment.

The tetrahedrons in the ceiling are up to 16 feet (5 meters) deep, fully enclosed and between 55 and 70 feet (17 and 21 meters) over the floor. They act as a "hot box" so that if the electrical and mechanical systems fail, they will act as passive solar convectors, pulling cool air from levels below ground.

The Furnishings

Snøhetta designed the furniture as a part of the overall design. Because the main reading room is terraced, the tops of the tables, shelves, and chairs are highly visible from many viewpoints. As a result, the furnishings are read as a "horizontal facade" when seen from the entrance balcony and terraces high in the room.

The space is further punctuated by the delicately designed chairs that, contrary to the straight lines of the shelves and desk units, express graceful curves and ergonomic considerations, reflecting the early artistic beauty found in historic Egyptian design. The furniture is made of natural materials including various woods, leather, and stainless steel.

The Stone Wall

In contrast to the industrial character of the roof, the building's stone wall acts as a heavy base for the design. It is stone in its simplest form. There are over 86,000 square feet (8000 square meters) of massive 80-inch by 40-inch (2-meter by 1-meter) monoliths, each one uniquely carved with a symbol or alphabetic character.

Nearly 10,000 years of language are portrayed here from over 500 cultures. The stone wall rests in a pool of still water, which reflects the building back into the ground, further enhancing an impression of geologic growth. As the day and seasons progress, the stone wall appears to change in the changing light.

The wall can also be seen as a binding element between earth and object. Lines of sediment appear in the edifice.

A great deal of care has been put into the development of the wall. Egyptian granite was chosen, and local and Norwegian craftsmen joined together to create an efficient and elegant system to use the material to its fullest potential.
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http://www.architectureweek.com/2001/0919/design_1-2.html
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Some excellent articles Talya.

Funny how the author's worry about the size of the library in relation to the volumes of books but fail to mention anything about underground chambers for storage or tunnels.

Tunnel building was a natural art in Egypt and Libya.


It is without doubt that through the ages of the library that it was a hostile career with many battles and civilian uprising throughout both with the Ptolemies and after which has made it difficult for author's to zero in on it's disappearance sometime AFTER the Hebrew Translations by 72 little black Horus priests....


very much in tune with Osiris and his 72 conspirors.


For the most part we have a lot of modern views, and much like the great cover up of Atlantis, most of those modern authors left us empty handed......


As always, we need to feel the part to play the role properly for our Oscar nomination..


That was the concept behind Tribes of Atlantis for us to feel and breath our ancient heritage as if we were there in time past.


Let's see what those people had to say about the library, like Callimachus and this letter to Aristeas, etc.

We have a pretty good idea of The Ptolemies, though not in it's entirety, but a fair view of the many political problems also.


Regardless of what any one says, I personaly would never blame the Romans or The Christians for the disappearance of The Mouseion or Academy of Alexandria...


It is the Root of Envy and Power that caused it's disappearance....

along the lines of a rabid dog like the real dogs that murdered Hypatia.


We do know where that mentality lies.


It is also interesting that Aristotle also had his own collection or "Lil Library" back in Athens before Alexandria, which I would bet that he had already premeditated this Alexandrian Library before Alexander even thought to build it.
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  posted 02-14-2006 02:01 AM                       
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The Letter Of Aristeas
R.H. Charles-Editor
Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1913

http://www.ccel.org/c/charles/otpseudepig/aristeas.htm


Since I have collected Material for a memorable history of my visit to Eleazar the High priest of the Jews, and because you, Philocrates, as you lose no opportunity of reminding me, have set great store upon receiving an account of the motives and object of my mission, I have attempted to draw up a clear exposition of the matter for you, for I perceive that you possess a natural love of learning, 2 a quality which is the highest possession of man - to be constantly attempting 'to add to his stock of knowledge and acquirements' whether through the study of history or by actually participating in the events themselves.
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  posted 02-15-2006 03:50 AM                       
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The Letter Of Aristeas

http://www.ccel.org/c/charles/otpseudepig/aristeas.htm


"Since I have collected Material for a memorable history of my visit to Eleazar the High priest of the Jews, and because you, Philocrates, as you lose no opportunity of reminding me,-Aristeas

9 Demetrius of Phalerum, the president of the king's library, received vast sums of money, for the purpose of collecting together, as far as he possibly could, all the books in the world. By means of purchase and transcription, he carried out, to the best of his ability, the purpose of the king. On one occasion when I was present he was asked, How many thousand books are there in the library? 10 and he replied, 'More than two hundred thousand, O king, and I shall make endeavour in the immediate future to gather together the remainder also, so that the total of five hundred thousand may be reached.


(For some reason they wanted 500,000 books-Riven)


The Memorial of Demetrius to the great king. 'Since you have given me instructions, O king, that the books which are needed to complete your library should be collected together, and that those which are defective should be repaired,.......

... I have devoted myself with the utmost care to the fulfilment of your wishes, 30 and I now have the following proposal to lay before you. The books of the law of the Jews (with some few others) are absent from the library. They are written in the Hebrew characters and language and have been carelessly interpreted, and do not represent the original text as I am 31 informed by those who know; for they have never had a king's care to protect them. It is necessary that these should be made accurate for your library since the law which they contain, in as much as it is of divine origin, is full of wisdom and free from all blemish. For this reason literary men and poets and the mass of historical writers have held aloof from referring to these books and the men who have lived and are living in accordance with them, because their 32 conception of life is so sacred and religious, as Hecataeus of Abdera says. If it please you, O king, a letter shall be written to the High Priest in Jerusalem, asking him to send six elders out of every tribe - men who have lived the noblest life and are most skilled in their law - that we may find out the points in which the majority of them are in agreement, and so having obtained an accurate translation may place it in a conspicuous place in a manner worthy of the work itself and your purpose. May continual prosperity be yours!'


(All the Books in The library must have been in good to excellent condition-Riven)

The Plot thickens.

Aristeas already knew that the count would be 6 High Priests from 12 Tribes of Judah totalling 72 immediately at the opening of his letter-Riven.

47 The following are the names of the elders: Of the first tribe, Joseph, Ezekiah, Zachariah, John, Ezekiah, Elisha. Of the second tribe, Judas, Simon, Samuel, Adaeus, Mattathias, Eschlemias. Of 48 the third tribe, Nehemiah, Joseph, Theodosius, Baseas, Ornias, Dakis. Of the fourth tribe, Jonathan, Abraeus, Elisha, Ananias, Chabrias.... Of the fifth tribe, Isaac, Jacob, Jesus, 49 Sabbataeus, Simon, Levi. Of the sixth tribe, Judas, Joseph, Simon, Zacharias, Samuel, Selemias. Of the seventh tribe, Sabbataeus, Zedekiah, Jacob, Isaac, Jesias, Natthaeus. Of the eighth tribe Theodosius, Jason, Jesus, Theodotus, John, Jonathan. Of the ninth tribe, Theophilus, Abraham 50 Arsamos, Jason, Endemias, Daniel. Of the tenth tribe, Jeremiah, Eleazar, Zachariah, Baneas, Elisha, Dathaeus. Of the eleventh tribe, Samuel, Joseph, Judas, Jonathes, Chabu, Dositheus. Of the twelfth tribe, Isaelus, John, Theodosius, Arsamos, Abietes, Ezekiel. They were seventy-two in all. Such was the answer which Eleazar and his friends gave to the king's letter.


Quite an interesting list of "Dead Sea Scrolls" wouldn't you say?-Riven.

For the most part the letter of Aristeas mainly addresses the Jewish problem of Captivity in Egypt by Ptolemy and his Father and focuses on "proper" books NEEDING to be written from the "IMPROPER" Hebrew.


Ptolemy fell for it as most of us also did to this day.


The Ploy of God to spare their lives and turn their own words against them.

For example Eleazar or RAZAELE's wishes was for Ptolemies kingdom and all his buildings to remain in good fortune.....


which we know crumbled shortly after as did our Library of Alexandria.


The Catch 22 here is that it is almost comparable to when the Germans became the fifth or sixth Allayah with the Tribes of Judas, and shortly after the "DECEPTION OF FRIENDSHIP" came World War II......


Get this, 72 "black priests", a Master,a Greek Egyptian King Ptolemy,Aristaeus, all his servants and guests and no one, nary a soul in Aristeas' letter, which also involves most of the letter to be "QUESTIONS FROM THE KING" to these "72 black priests" can tell you...............


What they brainwashed Ptolemy with........GOD.


Not one of there replies mentions the name of God, but rather just.......

GOD.

You would think I wise KING WOULD HAVE ASKED THAT IN ONE OF HIS FIRST QUESTIONS.

I would have.

WHO IS THIS GOD?

The Greeks and Ptolemy even admit that they call him many different names like Zeus or Dis....

but yet, for some reason believed the Tribes of Judas and their God because they had good balanced answers of logical "PERSUASION", as they even admit in one of their answers to the King.


Slowly, The Lighthouse of Alexandria will shine again...

and the real library and how it was effected by these 72 black priests of mystic "ORACLES" and their grand purpose carried out to this day...


or so it was....stones crumble.


What we experience from this letter of Aristaeus is utter nonsense and misguidance of the grandest scale, be it whether the plan was already set in motion with The Ptolemies of final rulership is questionable.....


however the intent is not and forth with standing to move the focus to the EAST.


Which is exactly what happened later when the Arabs and Muslims adjoined with the Jews in Alexandria and Egypt.


The same that happened with Atlantis.


I know this.......God has a name.....JA.

One of God's main laws is this.....


THOU SHALT NOT KILL.

So tell me where the justification lies to "SLAUGHTER" or protect self claim with "SACRIFICE" of an animal and on the other hand say that any food consumed by violence is an abomination of God's will???


THOU SHALT NOT KILL


THOU SHALT WORSHIP NO GODS BEFORE ME.......


OR IDOLS........BE THEY STONE ALSO......


FOR THAT IS ALSO >>>>>>>>> WORSHIPPING.


Combine all that with the COVERUP of Atlantis and you have very good reason for why the Library of Alexandria was.......


CONCEALED.


The next largest library was PERGAMUN.

--------------------
.111.[R].Riven The Seer and Royal Bloodline to Atlantis.[R].111.

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   posted 02-19-2006 01:28 AM                       
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ATLANTIS : THE LYBIO-PHOENICIAN EMPIRE OF THE CANARY ISLANDS AND MOROCCO





Picture representing the palace-capital of Atlantis according to Critias.


Unluckly, the Atlantis' theme is taken mainly with some skepticism among many scholars as such disappeared advanced civilization did
not leave any trace, so that it left an open gate to inspire many weird theories about superior races, extraterrestrials, and so on; such theories
have wrapped up Atlantis with a certain degree of disdain to some.

The theory that is receiving more support about the identification of Atlantis, is that of the Minoan Thalassocracy (the civilization
developed in actual Crete in the third millenia); this culture fits well with the description offered by Plato about a developed
civilization ruined in a night by an earthquake that submerged the island. Thera Island, north of Crete, is of volcanic nature
and exploded by -1600, provoking it the abandon of the island's city and the sinking of a third of the island, fact that caused a tsunami
that might have destroyed ships and coastal cities of nearer Crete: the Minoan influence and civilization almost ceased after such event.

It has been suggested that the islands of Santorin, Crete, and other Aegean islands were the mythical lost continent of Atlantis, which has
been described briefly by Plato in his dialogs. The theory furthermore is extended to say that the advanced civilization described by Plato
as thriving on Atlantis, was Minoan in origin and that Santorin was one of the many and beautiful Minoan metropoles that were destroyed
by the volcanic eruption and the tsunamis.

Water rushed into the depression left by the volcanic island, and the excess of water rushed out like a gigantic bore. Tremendous tsunamis
radiated out in all directions across the Aegean Sea and Eastern Mediterranean with speeds of up to 350 miles per hour. Undoubtedly, these
waves must have been tremendous in size and must have destroyed most of the coastal Minoan cities on Crete and on the surrounding
Cycladic Islands.

Recent archaeological work on the island of Santorin unearthed, partly submerged below the sea, a completely intact, 3,500-year-old
Minoan city.

The walls of Knossos [the unique Minoan palace left, placed in the countryside] were bulged outward, and large monoliths, several tons
in weight and measuring 6 feet long by 3 feet wide, were moved out of position or are missing altogether. These effects can only be attributed
to the suction of receding water waves.

INFO: The waves at Jaffa-Tel Aviv in the eastern Mediterranean from the explosion/collapse of Santorine [Thera] were only 7 meters high,
the tsunami might have been much more high in nearer regions. The ashes that covered half Crete after the volcanic activity left the
island without crops.

But this theory fails to explain how is that the Egyptian priests that gave the accounts of Atlantis, placed the island in the Atlantic
Ocean, beyond the Columns of Hercules (Gibraltar Strait), or how is that the Atlanteans conquered from their original area the Maghrib
and Spain, trying to invade so Egypt and Greece in an eastward direction.

"Histories tell of a mighty power which unprovoked made an expedition against the whole of Europe and Asia, and to which your city put
an end. This power came forth out of the Atlantic Ocean." [Timaeus]

Herodotus (Hist. II:58) personally saw, in Tyre (Phoenicia), in a temple of Hercules, "two pillars, one of pure gold, the other of emerald,
which shone with great brilliancy at night." Such Pillars of Hercules were erected by the Phoenicians just about everywhere they settled.
But they did it particularly at crucial straits linking two seas, as was the case of Gibraltar, the Bosphorus, etc.

Many critics of Atlantis insist that, besides Plato's dialogues, Timaeus and Critias, there is no other independent evidence provided by
ancient authorities on the matter.

IDEA: But there are no written records about the fall of the Minoan Thalassocracy, just in front of Egyptians, Greeks, Hittites and Phoenicians.
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