[93] Mention of both the Great Library of Alexandria and the Mouseion that housed it disappear after the middle of the third century AD. [138] Starting in 1988, UNESCO and the UNDP worked to support the international architectural competition to design the Library. [58] Zeuxis the Empiricist is credited with having written commentaries on the Hippocratic Corpus[58] and he actively worked to procure medical writings for the Library's collection. [110] The pagans of Alexandria were incensed by this act of desecration, especially the teachers of Neoplatonic philosophy and theurgy at the Serapeum. [138] This marked the beginning of UNESCO and the international community's involvement in trying to bring the project to fruition. [110] They gave some of the cult objects to Theophilus,[110] who had them paraded through the streets so that they could be mocked and ridiculed. [45] A portion of one of Aristarchus' commentaries on the Histories of Herodotus has survived in a papyrus fragment. Dates of visit of the library during Ramadan: Ticket price for foreigners: 70 Egyptian pounds and 10 pounds for students at foreign universities and schools, Ticket price for university students and pensions: EGP 3, Ticket price for foreigners = 50 Egyptian pounds and students of foreign schools = 25 Egyptian pounds, Ticket price for Egyptians = 5 Egyptian pounds, Ticket price for Egyptian students = 5 Egyptian pounds, Ticket price for foreigners = 30 Egyptian pounds and students at foreign schools = 10 Egyptian pounds. [45][46] Most of what is known about him comes from later commentaries that mention his preferred readings of particular passages. You will also find in the museum the radio of President Sadat and all the books he read and his staff, for which he was famous, a collection of swords, shields, a door, coats that he personally kept, and more personal belongings of the late president, the man of war and peace. [63] As the Library expanded, it ran out of space to house the scrolls in its collection, so, during the reign of Ptolemy III Euergetes, it opened a satellite collection in the Serapeum of Alexandria, a temple to the Greco-Egyptian god Serapis located near the royal palace. [83][84][60][8] This fire purportedly spread to the parts of the city nearest to the docks, causing considerable devastation. [64] According to a legend recorded by the Roman writer Vitruvius, Aristophanes was one of seven judges appointed for a poetry competition hosted by Ptolemy III Euergetes. [135], Ironically, the survival of ancient texts owes nothing to the great libraries of antiquity and instead owes everything to the fact that they were exhaustingly copied and recopied, at first by professional scribes during the Roman Period onto papyrus and later by monks during the Middle Ages onto parchment. This page was last edited on 18 July 2022, at 16:16. [87] Edward J. Watts argues that Mark Antony's gift may have been intended to replenish the Library's collection after the damage to it caused by Caesar's fire roughly a decade and a half prior. (2014). Several later Arabic sources describe the library's destruction by the order of Caliph Omar. There is a small lot with 9 spaces. 
Discover Ancient Egypt History & Egyptian Pharaohs kings Life by Booking Best Egypt Pyramids Tour & Egypt Tour Packages & Nile Cruise Luxor Aswan & Luxor Day Tours Packages for Family, Honeymoon and Holiday from Best Egypt Travel Agency and Egypt Tours Operator. [54] The work itself has not survived, but many fragments of it are preserved through quotation in the writings of the later geographer Strabo. The Arab Folklore Exhibition which is a permanent exhibition to present paintings sponsored by Al-Nimr and Abdul Ghani Abu Al-Ain. [46] Zenodotus' system of alphabetization, however, only used the first letter of the word[46] and it was not until the second century AD that anyone is known to have applied the same method of alphabetization to the remaining letters of the word. [66], The librarianship of Aristophanes of Byzantium is widely considered to have opened a more mature phase of the Library of Alexandria's history. Metrorail: King Street & Braddock Road Stations, 4701 Seminary RoadAlexandria, VA 22304tel: 703.746.1704fax: 703.746.1775. [25] Other sources claim that the Library was instead created under the reign of Ptolemy I's son Ptolemy II Philadelphus (283246 BC). The Knights of Heaven exhibition: it is a permanent exhibition to present a collection of ancient astronomical instruments used by the Arabs in the Middle Ages. [29][a] Its main purpose was to show off the wealth of Egypt, with research as a lesser goal,[24] but its contents were used to aid the ruler of Egypt. [9][47] The most basic division was between writers of poetry and prose, with each section divided into smaller subsections. ", "Introduction: Alexandria in History and Myth", "Demetrius of Phalerum: Who was He and Who was He Not? [96] It may have possessed some bibliographic resources, but whatever they may have been, they were clearly not comparable to those of its predecessor. [81] The emperor Claudius (ruled 4154 AD) is recorded to have built an addition onto the Library,[92] but it seems that the Library of Alexandria's general fortunes followed those of the city of Alexandria itself. New York: Skyhorse Publishing, p.17. [84][81][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. [61][42][5][62] This story may also be construed erroneously to show the power of Alexandria over Athens during the Ptolemaic dynasty. [96][80] If they did survive the attack, then whatever was left of them would have been destroyed during the emperor Diocletian's siege of Alexandria in 297. [49] Apollonius of Rhodes is best known as the author of the Argonautica, an epic poem about the voyages of Jason and the Argonauts, which has survived to the present in its complete form. [58] A scholar named Ptolemy Epithetes wrote a treatise on wounds in the Homeric poems, a subject straddling the line between traditional philology and medicine. [39], In addition to collecting works from the past, the Mouseion which housed the Library also served as home to a host of international scholars, poets, philosophers, and researchers, who, according to the first-century BC Greek geographer Strabo, were provided with a large salary, free food and lodging, and exemption from taxes. [90][87] Didymus is said to have produced somewhere between 3,500 and 4,000 books, making him the most prolific known writer in all of antiquity. The most important activities that can be carried out within the library are the visit of the new museums of the library, where the library contains 6 museums, the most important of which is the Museum of Antiquities, which houses 1,080 pieces from different eras and civilizations passed by Egypt. 
[96] The last known references to scholars being members of the Mouseion date to the 260s. Watts. The Library, or part of its collection, was accidentally burned by Julius Caesar during his civil war in 48 BC, but it is unclear how much was actually destroyed and it seems to have either survived or been rebuilt shortly thereafter; the geographer Strabo mentions having visited the Mouseion in around 20 BC and the prodigious scholarly output of Didymus Chalcenterus in Alexandria from this period indicates that he had access to at least some of the Library's resources. [118] In around 400 AD, Theon's daughter Hypatia (born c. 350370; died 415 AD) succeeded him as the head of his school. [93] Other libraries also sprang up within the city of Alexandria itself[81] and the scrolls from the Great Library may have been used to stock some of these smaller libraries. [58] However, it was also during the early second century BC that the political power of Ptolemaic Egypt began to decline. [12][3] A long tradition of libraries existed in both Greece and in the ancient Near East. [45][74] In 145 BC, however, Aristarchus became caught up in a dynastic struggle in which he supported Ptolemy VII Neos Philopator as the ruler of Egypt. [112] However, none of the accounts of the Serapeum's destruction mention anything about it containing a library, and sources written before its destruction speak of its collection of books in the past tense, indicating that it probably did not have any significant collection of scrolls in it at the time of its destruction. [96] 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. [46], Meanwhile, the scholar and poet Callimachus compiled the Pinakes, a 120-book catalogue of various authors and all their known works. "[87], Very little is known about the Library of Alexandria during the time of the Roman Principate (27 BC 284 AD). Opened in 2002 and containing 1,133 pieces, where pieces that were discovered in 1995 during the excavations and construction of the library, the museum was technically developed for display and lighting and maps to explain the History Of Egyptian each piece of antiquities in Arabic, English and French. 280 BC) and Erasistratus (c. 304c. 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.
627 BC). 250 BC) studied human anatomy, but their studies were hindered by protests against the dissection of human corpses, which was seen as immoral. [42] There were also numerous classrooms, where the scholars were expected to at least occasionally teach students. Its empirical standards were applied in one of the first and certainly strongest homes for serious textual criticism. This decline began with the purging of intellectuals from Alexandria in 145 BC during the reign of Ptolemy VIII Physcon, which resulted in Aristarchus of Samothrace, the head librarian, resigning from his position and exiling himself to Cyprus. [76] A diaspora of Alexandrian scholarship occurred, in which scholars dispersed first throughout the eastern Mediterranean and later throughout the western Mediterranean as well. [37][9][8][20] The Library particularly focused on acquiring manuscripts of the Homeric poems, which were the foundation of Greek education and revered above all other poems. [93] After Alexandria came under Roman rule, the city's status and, consequently that of its famous Library, gradually diminished. [137], 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. [76] The scholars who had studied at the Library of Alexandria and their students continued to conduct research and write treatises, but most of them no longer did so in association with the Library. [54] Eratosthenes was the first scholar to apply mathematics to geography and map-making[55] and, in his treatise Concerning the Measurement of the Earth, he calculated the circumference of the earth and was only off by less than a few hundred kilometers. [14] The later kingdoms and empires of the ancient Near East had long traditions of book collecting. [80] Confronted with growing social unrest and other major political and economic problems, the later Ptolemies did not devote as much attention towards the Library and the Mouseion as their predecessors had. [71] He wrote introductions to many plays, some of which have survived in partially rewritten forms. [8] Despite mentioning the Mouseion, Strabo does not mention the Library separately, perhaps indicating that it had been so drastically reduced in stature and significance that Strabo felt it did not warrant separate mention. During the destruction a group of Christian workmen uncovered the remains of an old Mithraeum. His soldiers set fire to some of the Egyptian ships docked in the Alexandrian port while trying to clear the wharves to block the fleet belonging to Cleopatra's brother Ptolemy XIV. [109] He enjoined his students to worship the old gods in traditional ways, and he may have even taught them theurgy. ), Actes du IIe symposium syro-arabicum (Sayyidat al-Br, septembre 1998). [75] Ptolemy VII was murdered and succeeded by Ptolemy VIII Physcon, who immediately set about punishing all those who had supported his predecessor, forcing Aristarchus to flee Egypt and take refuge on the island of Cyprus, where he died shortly thereafter. "Culture and Power in Ptolemaic Egypt: The Museum and Library of Alexandria". [42][44][45][46], The first recorded head librarian was Zenodotus of Ephesus (lived c. 325c. [108] It remained a fully functioning temple, and had classrooms for philosophers to teach in. [94] The Greek writer Philostratus records that the emperor Hadrian (ruled 117138 AD) appointed the ethnographer Dionysius of Miletus and the sophist Polemon of Laodicea as members of the Mouseion, even though neither of these men is known to have ever spent any significant amount of time in Alexandria. Our online Book request form requires one submission per person. [44][9] Callimachus' pupil Hermippus of Smyrna wrote biographies, Philostephanus of Cyrene studied geography, and Istros (who may have also been from Cyrene) studied Attic antiquities. [96][80][3] If the Mouseion and Library still existed at this time, they were almost certainly destroyed during the attack as well. [45][72] One late lexicographical source explains this epithet as referring to the classification of poetry on the basis of musical forms. Depth limits if you practice recreational and tourist Diving in Egypt, How do you drift dive? At its height, the library was said to possess nearly half a million scrolls, and, although historians debate the precise number, the highest estimates claim 400,000 scrolls while the most conservative estimates are as low as 40,000,[6] which is still an enormous collection that required vast storage space. [64][66] The king demanded that he prove this, so he retrieved the texts that the authors had plagiarized from the Library, locating them by memory. Monday - Thursday: 10am - 8pmFriday: 10am - 5pmSaturday: 10am - 5pmSunday: 1pm - 5pmHoliday Closings, Metrorail: King Street & Van Dorn Stations, 717 Queen StreetAlexandria,VA 22314-2420tel: 703.746.1703fax: 703.746.1708. 2501 Commonwealth AvenueAlexandria, VA 22301tel: 703.746.1705fax: 703.746.1785. [78] The Romans based their grammatical writings on it, and its basic format remains the basis for grammar guides in many languages even today. [24][25][15] It claims the Library was founded during the reign of Ptolemy I Soter (c. 323c. If you prefer or if you're not sure what you want our staff will be happy to put together a selection of books for you based on your reading preferences. [135], In late antiquity, as the Roman Empire became Christianized, Christian libraries modeled directly on the Library of Alexandria and other great libraries of earlier pagan times began to be founded all across the Greek-speaking eastern part of the empire. [9] One likely apocryphal story is told of a poet named Sotades who wrote an obscene epigram making fun of Ptolemy II for marrying his sister Arsinoe II. The Serapeum was vandalized and demolished in 391 AD under a decree issued by Coptic Christian Pope Theophilus of Alexandria, but it does not seem to have housed books at the time and was mainly used as a gathering place for Neoplatonist philosophers following the teachings of Iamblichus. [100][101][102][103][104] According to Diana Delia, "Omar's rejection of pagan and Christian wisdom may have been devised and exploited by conservative authorities as a moral exemplum for Muslims to follow in later, uncertain times, when the devotion of the faithful was once again tested by proximity to nonbelievers". [118], 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. [87][81][8][89] The geographer Strabo (c. 63 BCc. It houses a collection of pieces of Pharaohs antiquities from the Roman, Byzantine and Hellenistic periods, as well as a collection of statues found during the construction of the library. 212 BC) came to visit the Library of Alexandria. [73] After the Battle of Raphia in 217 BC, Ptolemaic power became increasingly unstable. [25] By that time, Demetrius of Phalerum had fallen out of favor with the Ptolemaic court and could not, therefore, have had any role in establishing the Library as an institution. [90][91] Parts of some of Didymus' commentaries have been preserved in the forms of later extracts and these remains are modern scholars' most important sources of information about the critical works of the earlier scholars at the Library of Alexandria. [79], Meanwhile, in Alexandria, from the middle of the second century BC onwards, Ptolemaic rule in Egypt grew less stable than it had been previously. From the inside, the BA contains many books in different modern languages: Arabic, English and French, and a selection of books in other European languages such as German, Italian, Spanish and other rare languages such as Crepoli, Haiti and Zulu. [18] The Macedonian kings who succeeded Alexander the Great as rulers of the Near East wanted to promote Hellenistic culture and learning throughout the known world. [4][20] Eventually, for these reasons, every major Hellenistic urban center would have a royal library. [28], The Library was built in the Brucheion (Royal Quarter) as part of the Mouseion. The Library dwindled during the Roman period, from a lack of funding and support. [32] A hall contained shelves for the collections of papyrus scrolls known as bibliothekai (). [15] In Greece, the Athenian tyrant Peisistratos was said to have founded the first major public library in the sixth century BC. [54] 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. [110] The teachers at the Serapeum took up arms and led their students and other followers in a guerrilla attack on the Christian population of Alexandria, killing many of them before being forced to retreat. [10] The idea of a universal library in Alexandria may have been proposed by Demetrius of Phalerum, an exiled Athenian statesman living in Alexandria, to Ptolemy I Soter, who may have established plans for the Library, but the Library itself was probably not built until the reign of his son Ptolemy II Philadelphus.
Many other scholars, including Dionysius Thrax and Apollodorus of Athens, fled to other cities, where they continued teaching and conducting scholarship. [77], In 48 BC, during Caesar's Civil War, Julius Caesar was besieged at Alexandria. [77] This diaspora prompted the historian Menecles of Barce to sarcastically comment that Alexandria had become the teacher of all Greeks and barbarians alike. We use cookies, which are small text files, to improve your experience on our website and to show you personalised content. [119] Like her father, she rejected the teachings of Iamblichus and instead embraced the original Neoplatonism formulated by Plotinus.
[40], The Library of Alexandria was one of the largest and most prestigious libraries of the ancient world, but it was far from the only one. [131] The library's index, Callimachus' Pinakes, has only survived in the form of a few fragments, and it is not possible to know with certainty how large and how diverse the collection may have been. Opening hours of the library to visit museums and exhibitions: From Sunday to Thursday: from 10:00 am. at 4:00p.m. [129] The late fifth-century writers Zacharias Scholasticus and Aeneas of Gaza both speak of the "Mouseion" as occupying some kind of a physical space. You can allow all or manage them individually. This shift paralleled a similar, concurrent trend in philosophy, in which many philosophers were beginning to synthesize the views of earlier philosophers rather than coming up with original ideas of their own. [42], The Library of Alexandria was not affiliated with any particular philosophical school and, consequently, scholars who studied there had considerable academic freedom. [45], The fifth head librarian was an obscure individual named Apollonius, who is known by the epithet Greek: ("the classifier of forms"). The Exhibition of the Press of Bolaq: You will see the first Egyptian printing house, which was found in the printing house of Bolaq under Sultan Muhammad Ali in 1820 AD. [72], During the early second century BC, several scholars at the Library of Alexandria studied works on medicine. Monday - Friday: 9am - 2pmSaturday: CLOSEDSunday: CLOSEDHoliday Closings. [45][49][50] Philadelphus also appointed Apollonius of Rhodes as the tutor to his son, the future Ptolemy III Euergetes. "[87][81][8] However, Florus and Lucan only mention that the flames burned the fleet itself and some "houses near the sea". [4][5] To support this endeavor, they were well positioned as Egypt was the ideal habitat for the papyrus plant, which provided a monopoly on materials needed to amass their knowledge repository. Street parking is available. [44][53][50] Eratosthenes' most important work was his treatise Geographika, which was originally in three volumes. Cloistered Bookworms in the Chicken-Coop of the Muses: The Ancient Library of Alexandria", "What happened to the Great Library at Alexandria? [126], Nonetheless, Hypatia was not the last pagan in Alexandria, nor was she the last Neoplatonist philosopher. The library is open for visitors from Sunday to Thursday from 11:00 to 19:00. [17][3], Following the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C., there was a power grab for his empire among his top ranking officers. [95], By the second century AD, the Roman Empire grew less dependent on grain from Alexandria and the city's prominence declined further. The result was that the empire was divided into three: the Antigonids dynasty controlled Greece; the Seleucids, who had their capitals at Atioch and Seleuceia, controlled large areas of Asia Minor, Syria, and Mesopotamia; and the Ptolemies controlled Egypt with Alexandria as its capital. Murray, S. A., (2009). [2] Stephen V. Tracy, however, argues that it is highly probable that Demetrius played an important role in collecting at least some of the earliest texts that would later become part of the Library's collection. This Library is not currently open to the public. Located inside the Kate Waller Barrett Branch Library. [117] According to classical historian Edward J. Watts, however, Theon was probably the head of a school called the "Mouseion", which was named in emulation of the Hellenistic Mouseion that had once included the Library of Alexandria, but which had little other connection to it. It is considered one of the permanent museums of the Library of Alexandria, a complete library documented on the history of the late President Mohamed Anwar Sadat, will see inside of the museum all his decorations and a collection of gifts he received such as gold and silver dishes as well as medals and military uniforms, in particular the uniform he wore on the day of his death and his article of 6 October 1981. [81] The Serapeum, originally the "daughter library" of the Great Library, probably expanded during this period as well, according to classical historian Edward J. Library of Alexandria (Bibliotheca Alexandrina) | Best Things to Do in Alexandria & Alexandria Tours Egypt. [94], Meanwhile, as the reputation of Alexandrian scholarship declined, the reputations of other libraries across the Mediterranean world improved, diminishing the Library of Alexandria's former status as the most prominent. [48] The entries for prolific authors such as Aeschylus, Euripides, Sophocles, and Theophrastus must have been extremely long, spanning multiple columns of text. Between 270 and 275 AD, the city of Alexandria saw a Palmyrene invasion and an imperial counterattack that probably destroyed whatever remained of the Library, if it still existed at that time. For its present-day counterpart, see, "Great library" redirects here. [46] Since the collection at the Library of Alexandria seems to have been organized in alphabetical order by the first letter of the author's name from very early, Casson concludes that it is highly probable that Zenodotus was the one who organized it in this way. tudes arabes chrtiennes, = Parole de l'Orient 28 (2003) 551598. The daughter library in the Serapeum may have survived after the main Library's destruction. [15][3] The ancient Hittites and Assyrians had massive archives containing records written in many different languages. [35] They dispatched royal agents with large amounts of money and ordered them to purchase and collect as many texts as they possibly could, about any subject and by any author. The Memory Library: How the library in Hellenistic Alexandria worked. [108] The Neoplatonist philosopher Damascius (lived c. 458after 538) records that a man named Olympus came from Cilicia to teach at the Serapeum, where he enthusiastically taught his students the rules of traditional divine worship and ancient religious practices. 270 BC). Opening hours of the library for student visits and school trips: Sunday to Thursday: 9:00 a.m. to 10:30a.m. This detail arises from the fact that Alexandria was a man-made bidirectional port between the mainland and the Pharos island, welcoming trade from the East and West, and soon found itself to be an international hub for trade, the leading producer of papyrus and, soon enough, books. [23], The Library was one of the largest and most significant libraries of the ancient world, but details about it are a mixture of history and legend. [130], A single piece of writing might occupy several scrolls, and this division into self-contained "books" was a major aspect of editorial work. Its membership appears to have ceased by the 260s AD. Mohammed Ibrahims exhibition Permanent Exhibition: You will see a collection of paintings expressing the stages of the foundation of Arabic calligraphy. [35] Older copies of texts were favored over newer ones, since it was assumed that older copies had undergone less copying and that they were therefore more likely to more closely resemble what the original author had written. It is considered one of the museums of the permanent Library of Alexandria and a complete presentation of the history of Egypt is achieved by the beginning of the ancient Egyptian Pharaonic civilization, then the stage of the Hellenistic era, then the history of Islamic civilization in the Middle Ages. Located inside the Alexandria Court House. 25 BC), a student of Dionysius Thrax. [9][35][8], Aristophanes of Byzantium (lived c. 257c. [90][82] 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. [9] As a religious center, the Mouseion was directed by a priest of the Muses known as an epistates, who was appointed by the king in the same manner as the priests who managed the various Egyptian temples. From the 15th to the 19th century, you will see a distinctive collection of rare photographs and maps of artists who passed through Alexandria, as well as photographs of Alexandria from the 19th to the 20th century, and more documents collected by Dr. Mohammed Awad at the Faculty of Engineering of Alexandria and founder of the Alexandria Heritage Preservation Fund.
Discover Ancient Egypt History & Egyptian Pharaohs kings Life by Booking Best Egypt Pyramids Tour & Egypt Tour Packages & Nile Cruise Luxor Aswan & Luxor Day Tours Packages for Family, Honeymoon and Holiday from Best Egypt Travel Agency and Egypt Tours Operator. [54] The work itself has not survived, but many fragments of it are preserved through quotation in the writings of the later geographer Strabo. The Arab Folklore Exhibition which is a permanent exhibition to present paintings sponsored by Al-Nimr and Abdul Ghani Abu Al-Ain. [46] Zenodotus' system of alphabetization, however, only used the first letter of the word[46] and it was not until the second century AD that anyone is known to have applied the same method of alphabetization to the remaining letters of the word. [66], The librarianship of Aristophanes of Byzantium is widely considered to have opened a more mature phase of the Library of Alexandria's history. Metrorail: King Street & Braddock Road Stations, 4701 Seminary RoadAlexandria, VA 22304tel: 703.746.1704fax: 703.746.1775. [25] Other sources claim that the Library was instead created under the reign of Ptolemy I's son Ptolemy II Philadelphus (283246 BC). The Knights of Heaven exhibition: it is a permanent exhibition to present a collection of ancient astronomical instruments used by the Arabs in the Middle Ages. [29][a] Its main purpose was to show off the wealth of Egypt, with research as a lesser goal,[24] but its contents were used to aid the ruler of Egypt. [9][47] The most basic division was between writers of poetry and prose, with each section divided into smaller subsections. ", "Introduction: Alexandria in History and Myth", "Demetrius of Phalerum: Who was He and Who was He Not? [96] It may have possessed some bibliographic resources, but whatever they may have been, they were clearly not comparable to those of its predecessor. [81] The emperor Claudius (ruled 4154 AD) is recorded to have built an addition onto the Library,[92] but it seems that the Library of Alexandria's general fortunes followed those of the city of Alexandria itself. New York: Skyhorse Publishing, p.17. [84][81][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. [61][42][5][62] This story may also be construed erroneously to show the power of Alexandria over Athens during the Ptolemaic dynasty. [96][80] If they did survive the attack, then whatever was left of them would have been destroyed during the emperor Diocletian's siege of Alexandria in 297. [49] Apollonius of Rhodes is best known as the author of the Argonautica, an epic poem about the voyages of Jason and the Argonauts, which has survived to the present in its complete form. [58] A scholar named Ptolemy Epithetes wrote a treatise on wounds in the Homeric poems, a subject straddling the line between traditional philology and medicine. [39], In addition to collecting works from the past, the Mouseion which housed the Library also served as home to a host of international scholars, poets, philosophers, and researchers, who, according to the first-century BC Greek geographer Strabo, were provided with a large salary, free food and lodging, and exemption from taxes. [90][87] Didymus is said to have produced somewhere between 3,500 and 4,000 books, making him the most prolific known writer in all of antiquity. The most important activities that can be carried out within the library are the visit of the new museums of the library, where the library contains 6 museums, the most important of which is the Museum of Antiquities, which houses 1,080 pieces from different eras and civilizations passed by Egypt. [96] The last known references to scholars being members of the Mouseion date to the 260s. Watts. The Library, or part of its collection, was accidentally burned by Julius Caesar during his civil war in 48 BC, but it is unclear how much was actually destroyed and it seems to have either survived or been rebuilt shortly thereafter; the geographer Strabo mentions having visited the Mouseion in around 20 BC and the prodigious scholarly output of Didymus Chalcenterus in Alexandria from this period indicates that he had access to at least some of the Library's resources. [118] In around 400 AD, Theon's daughter Hypatia (born c. 350370; died 415 AD) succeeded him as the head of his school. [93] Other libraries also sprang up within the city of Alexandria itself[81] and the scrolls from the Great Library may have been used to stock some of these smaller libraries. [58] However, it was also during the early second century BC that the political power of Ptolemaic Egypt began to decline. [12][3] A long tradition of libraries existed in both Greece and in the ancient Near East. [45][74] In 145 BC, however, Aristarchus became caught up in a dynastic struggle in which he supported Ptolemy VII Neos Philopator as the ruler of Egypt. [112] However, none of the accounts of the Serapeum's destruction mention anything about it containing a library, and sources written before its destruction speak of its collection of books in the past tense, indicating that it probably did not have any significant collection of scrolls in it at the time of its destruction. [96] 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. [46], Meanwhile, the scholar and poet Callimachus compiled the Pinakes, a 120-book catalogue of various authors and all their known works. "[87], Very little is known about the Library of Alexandria during the time of the Roman Principate (27 BC 284 AD). Opened in 2002 and containing 1,133 pieces, where pieces that were discovered in 1995 during the excavations and construction of the library, the museum was technically developed for display and lighting and maps to explain the History Of Egyptian each piece of antiquities in Arabic, English and French. 280 BC) and Erasistratus (c. 304c. 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. 627 BC). 250 BC) studied human anatomy, but their studies were hindered by protests against the dissection of human corpses, which was seen as immoral. [42] There were also numerous classrooms, where the scholars were expected to at least occasionally teach students. Its empirical standards were applied in one of the first and certainly strongest homes for serious textual criticism. This decline began with the purging of intellectuals from Alexandria in 145 BC during the reign of Ptolemy VIII Physcon, which resulted in Aristarchus of Samothrace, the head librarian, resigning from his position and exiling himself to Cyprus. [76] A diaspora of Alexandrian scholarship occurred, in which scholars dispersed first throughout the eastern Mediterranean and later throughout the western Mediterranean as well. [37][9][8][20] The Library particularly focused on acquiring manuscripts of the Homeric poems, which were the foundation of Greek education and revered above all other poems. [93] After Alexandria came under Roman rule, the city's status and, consequently that of its famous Library, gradually diminished. [137], 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. [76] The scholars who had studied at the Library of Alexandria and their students continued to conduct research and write treatises, but most of them no longer did so in association with the Library. [54] Eratosthenes was the first scholar to apply mathematics to geography and map-making[55] and, in his treatise Concerning the Measurement of the Earth, he calculated the circumference of the earth and was only off by less than a few hundred kilometers. [14] The later kingdoms and empires of the ancient Near East had long traditions of book collecting. [80] Confronted with growing social unrest and other major political and economic problems, the later Ptolemies did not devote as much attention towards the Library and the Mouseion as their predecessors had. [71] He wrote introductions to many plays, some of which have survived in partially rewritten forms. [8] Despite mentioning the Mouseion, Strabo does not mention the Library separately, perhaps indicating that it had been so drastically reduced in stature and significance that Strabo felt it did not warrant separate mention. During the destruction a group of Christian workmen uncovered the remains of an old Mithraeum. His soldiers set fire to some of the Egyptian ships docked in the Alexandrian port while trying to clear the wharves to block the fleet belonging to Cleopatra's brother Ptolemy XIV. [109] He enjoined his students to worship the old gods in traditional ways, and he may have even taught them theurgy. ), Actes du IIe symposium syro-arabicum (Sayyidat al-Br, septembre 1998). [75] Ptolemy VII was murdered and succeeded by Ptolemy VIII Physcon, who immediately set about punishing all those who had supported his predecessor, forcing Aristarchus to flee Egypt and take refuge on the island of Cyprus, where he died shortly thereafter. "Culture and Power in Ptolemaic Egypt: The Museum and Library of Alexandria". [42][44][45][46], The first recorded head librarian was Zenodotus of Ephesus (lived c. 325c. [108] It remained a fully functioning temple, and had classrooms for philosophers to teach in. [94] The Greek writer Philostratus records that the emperor Hadrian (ruled 117138 AD) appointed the ethnographer Dionysius of Miletus and the sophist Polemon of Laodicea as members of the Mouseion, even though neither of these men is known to have ever spent any significant amount of time in Alexandria. Our online Book request form requires one submission per person. [44][9] Callimachus' pupil Hermippus of Smyrna wrote biographies, Philostephanus of Cyrene studied geography, and Istros (who may have also been from Cyrene) studied Attic antiquities. [96][80][3] If the Mouseion and Library still existed at this time, they were almost certainly destroyed during the attack as well. [45][72] One late lexicographical source explains this epithet as referring to the classification of poetry on the basis of musical forms. Depth limits if you practice recreational and tourist Diving in Egypt, How do you drift dive? At its height, the library was said to possess nearly half a million scrolls, and, although historians debate the precise number, the highest estimates claim 400,000 scrolls while the most conservative estimates are as low as 40,000,[6] which is still an enormous collection that required vast storage space. [64][66] The king demanded that he prove this, so he retrieved the texts that the authors had plagiarized from the Library, locating them by memory. Monday - Thursday: 10am - 8pmFriday: 10am - 5pmSaturday: 10am - 5pmSunday: 1pm - 5pmHoliday Closings, Metrorail: King Street & Van Dorn Stations, 717 Queen StreetAlexandria,VA 22314-2420tel: 703.746.1703fax: 703.746.1708. 2501 Commonwealth AvenueAlexandria, VA 22301tel: 703.746.1705fax: 703.746.1785. [78] The Romans based their grammatical writings on it, and its basic format remains the basis for grammar guides in many languages even today. [24][25][15] It claims the Library was founded during the reign of Ptolemy I Soter (c. 323c. If you prefer or if you're not sure what you want our staff will be happy to put together a selection of books for you based on your reading preferences. [135], In late antiquity, as the Roman Empire became Christianized, Christian libraries modeled directly on the Library of Alexandria and other great libraries of earlier pagan times began to be founded all across the Greek-speaking eastern part of the empire. [9] One likely apocryphal story is told of a poet named Sotades who wrote an obscene epigram making fun of Ptolemy II for marrying his sister Arsinoe II. The Serapeum was vandalized and demolished in 391 AD under a decree issued by Coptic Christian Pope Theophilus of Alexandria, but it does not seem to have housed books at the time and was mainly used as a gathering place for Neoplatonist philosophers following the teachings of Iamblichus. [100][101][102][103][104] According to Diana Delia, "Omar's rejection of pagan and Christian wisdom may have been devised and exploited by conservative authorities as a moral exemplum for Muslims to follow in later, uncertain times, when the devotion of the faithful was once again tested by proximity to nonbelievers". [118], 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. [87][81][8][89] The geographer Strabo (c. 63 BCc. It houses a collection of pieces of Pharaohs antiquities from the Roman, Byzantine and Hellenistic periods, as well as a collection of statues found during the construction of the library. 212 BC) came to visit the Library of Alexandria. [73] After the Battle of Raphia in 217 BC, Ptolemaic power became increasingly unstable. [25] By that time, Demetrius of Phalerum had fallen out of favor with the Ptolemaic court and could not, therefore, have had any role in establishing the Library as an institution. [90][91] Parts of some of Didymus' commentaries have been preserved in the forms of later extracts and these remains are modern scholars' most important sources of information about the critical works of the earlier scholars at the Library of Alexandria. [79], Meanwhile, in Alexandria, from the middle of the second century BC onwards, Ptolemaic rule in Egypt grew less stable than it had been previously. From the inside, the BA contains many books in different modern languages: Arabic, English and French, and a selection of books in other European languages such as German, Italian, Spanish and other rare languages such as Crepoli, Haiti and Zulu. [18] The Macedonian kings who succeeded Alexander the Great as rulers of the Near East wanted to promote Hellenistic culture and learning throughout the known world. [4][20] Eventually, for these reasons, every major Hellenistic urban center would have a royal library. [28], The Library was built in the Brucheion (Royal Quarter) as part of the Mouseion. The Library dwindled during the Roman period, from a lack of funding and support. [32] A hall contained shelves for the collections of papyrus scrolls known as bibliothekai (). [15] In Greece, the Athenian tyrant Peisistratos was said to have founded the first major public library in the sixth century BC. [54] 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. [110] The teachers at the Serapeum took up arms and led their students and other followers in a guerrilla attack on the Christian population of Alexandria, killing many of them before being forced to retreat. [10] The idea of a universal library in Alexandria may have been proposed by Demetrius of Phalerum, an exiled Athenian statesman living in Alexandria, to Ptolemy I Soter, who may have established plans for the Library, but the Library itself was probably not built until the reign of his son Ptolemy II Philadelphus.
Many other scholars, including Dionysius Thrax and Apollodorus of Athens, fled to other cities, where they continued teaching and conducting scholarship. [77], In 48 BC, during Caesar's Civil War, Julius Caesar was besieged at Alexandria. [77] This diaspora prompted the historian Menecles of Barce to sarcastically comment that Alexandria had become the teacher of all Greeks and barbarians alike. We use cookies, which are small text files, to improve your experience on our website and to show you personalised content. [119] Like her father, she rejected the teachings of Iamblichus and instead embraced the original Neoplatonism formulated by Plotinus.
[40], The Library of Alexandria was one of the largest and most prestigious libraries of the ancient world, but it was far from the only one. [131] The library's index, Callimachus' Pinakes, has only survived in the form of a few fragments, and it is not possible to know with certainty how large and how diverse the collection may have been. Opening hours of the library to visit museums and exhibitions: From Sunday to Thursday: from 10:00 am. at 4:00p.m. [129] The late fifth-century writers Zacharias Scholasticus and Aeneas of Gaza both speak of the "Mouseion" as occupying some kind of a physical space. You can allow all or manage them individually. This shift paralleled a similar, concurrent trend in philosophy, in which many philosophers were beginning to synthesize the views of earlier philosophers rather than coming up with original ideas of their own. [42], The Library of Alexandria was not affiliated with any particular philosophical school and, consequently, scholars who studied there had considerable academic freedom. [45], The fifth head librarian was an obscure individual named Apollonius, who is known by the epithet Greek: ("the classifier of forms"). The Exhibition of the Press of Bolaq: You will see the first Egyptian printing house, which was found in the printing house of Bolaq under Sultan Muhammad Ali in 1820 AD. [72], During the early second century BC, several scholars at the Library of Alexandria studied works on medicine. Monday - Friday: 9am - 2pmSaturday: CLOSEDSunday: CLOSEDHoliday Closings. [45][49][50] Philadelphus also appointed Apollonius of Rhodes as the tutor to his son, the future Ptolemy III Euergetes. "[87][81][8] However, Florus and Lucan only mention that the flames burned the fleet itself and some "houses near the sea". [4][5] To support this endeavor, they were well positioned as Egypt was the ideal habitat for the papyrus plant, which provided a monopoly on materials needed to amass their knowledge repository. Street parking is available. [44][53][50] Eratosthenes' most important work was his treatise Geographika, which was originally in three volumes. Cloistered Bookworms in the Chicken-Coop of the Muses: The Ancient Library of Alexandria", "What happened to the Great Library at Alexandria? [126], Nonetheless, Hypatia was not the last pagan in Alexandria, nor was she the last Neoplatonist philosopher. The library is open for visitors from Sunday to Thursday from 11:00 to 19:00. [17][3], Following the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C., there was a power grab for his empire among his top ranking officers. [95], By the second century AD, the Roman Empire grew less dependent on grain from Alexandria and the city's prominence declined further. The result was that the empire was divided into three: the Antigonids dynasty controlled Greece; the Seleucids, who had their capitals at Atioch and Seleuceia, controlled large areas of Asia Minor, Syria, and Mesopotamia; and the Ptolemies controlled Egypt with Alexandria as its capital. Murray, S. A., (2009). [2] Stephen V. Tracy, however, argues that it is highly probable that Demetrius played an important role in collecting at least some of the earliest texts that would later become part of the Library's collection. This Library is not currently open to the public. Located inside the Kate Waller Barrett Branch Library. [117] According to classical historian Edward J. Watts, however, Theon was probably the head of a school called the "Mouseion", which was named in emulation of the Hellenistic Mouseion that had once included the Library of Alexandria, but which had little other connection to it. It is considered one of the permanent museums of the Library of Alexandria, a complete library documented on the history of the late President Mohamed Anwar Sadat, will see inside of the museum all his decorations and a collection of gifts he received such as gold and silver dishes as well as medals and military uniforms, in particular the uniform he wore on the day of his death and his article of 6 October 1981. [81] The Serapeum, originally the "daughter library" of the Great Library, probably expanded during this period as well, according to classical historian Edward J. Library of Alexandria (Bibliotheca Alexandrina) | Best Things to Do in Alexandria & Alexandria Tours Egypt. [94], Meanwhile, as the reputation of Alexandrian scholarship declined, the reputations of other libraries across the Mediterranean world improved, diminishing the Library of Alexandria's former status as the most prominent. [48] The entries for prolific authors such as Aeschylus, Euripides, Sophocles, and Theophrastus must have been extremely long, spanning multiple columns of text. Between 270 and 275 AD, the city of Alexandria saw a Palmyrene invasion and an imperial counterattack that probably destroyed whatever remained of the Library, if it still existed at that time. For its present-day counterpart, see, "Great library" redirects here. [46] Since the collection at the Library of Alexandria seems to have been organized in alphabetical order by the first letter of the author's name from very early, Casson concludes that it is highly probable that Zenodotus was the one who organized it in this way. tudes arabes chrtiennes, = Parole de l'Orient 28 (2003) 551598. The daughter library in the Serapeum may have survived after the main Library's destruction. [15][3] The ancient Hittites and Assyrians had massive archives containing records written in many different languages. [35] They dispatched royal agents with large amounts of money and ordered them to purchase and collect as many texts as they possibly could, about any subject and by any author. The Memory Library: How the library in Hellenistic Alexandria worked. [108] The Neoplatonist philosopher Damascius (lived c. 458after 538) records that a man named Olympus came from Cilicia to teach at the Serapeum, where he enthusiastically taught his students the rules of traditional divine worship and ancient religious practices. 270 BC). Opening hours of the library for student visits and school trips: Sunday to Thursday: 9:00 a.m. to 10:30a.m. This detail arises from the fact that Alexandria was a man-made bidirectional port between the mainland and the Pharos island, welcoming trade from the East and West, and soon found itself to be an international hub for trade, the leading producer of papyrus and, soon enough, books. [23], The Library was one of the largest and most significant libraries of the ancient world, but details about it are a mixture of history and legend. [130], A single piece of writing might occupy several scrolls, and this division into self-contained "books" was a major aspect of editorial work. Its membership appears to have ceased by the 260s AD. Mohammed Ibrahims exhibition Permanent Exhibition: You will see a collection of paintings expressing the stages of the foundation of Arabic calligraphy. [35] Older copies of texts were favored over newer ones, since it was assumed that older copies had undergone less copying and that they were therefore more likely to more closely resemble what the original author had written. It is considered one of the museums of the permanent Library of Alexandria and a complete presentation of the history of Egypt is achieved by the beginning of the ancient Egyptian Pharaonic civilization, then the stage of the Hellenistic era, then the history of Islamic civilization in the Middle Ages. Located inside the Alexandria Court House. 25 BC), a student of Dionysius Thrax. [9][35][8], Aristophanes of Byzantium (lived c. 257c. [90][82] 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. [9] As a religious center, the Mouseion was directed by a priest of the Muses known as an epistates, who was appointed by the king in the same manner as the priests who managed the various Egyptian temples. From the 15th to the 19th century, you will see a distinctive collection of rare photographs and maps of artists who passed through Alexandria, as well as photographs of Alexandria from the 19th to the 20th century, and more documents collected by Dr. Mohammed Awad at the Faculty of Engineering of Alexandria and founder of the Alexandria Heritage Preservation Fund.