The Serapeum was destroyed in 391 AD either by Roman soldiers or a Christian mob. In the 4th Century CE, Emperor Theodosius outlawed pagan practices and ordered the Temple of Serapis in Alexandria to be burned. But none of the new Atheist talk about that?? Kiwi Hellenist: The library of Alexandria and the loss of ... Is that your point?”. Elizabeth Cox: What really happened to the Library of ... Anyone who works in library services will tell you that the main enemy of a library’s continuation is a lack of funding. A lot of material would be irreplaceable, to be sure, but that's mainly antiquarian material, not treatises on cutting-edge technology. The fact that so many writers agree that Caesar’s fire destroyed the Great Library simply can’t be ignored, however, and at the very least the fire seems to have destroyed a substantial portion of the book collection, probably stored in warehouses on the docks. Describes how a group of Timbuktu librarians enacted a daring plan to smuggle the city's great collection of rare Islamic manuscripts away from the threat of destruction at the hands of Al Qaeda militants to the safety of southern Mali. Was Never Destroyed? I can’t think of any reason the information we have lost would, for some reason, indicate a larger number of natural philosophers working there than the evidence we have does. People chose the Jewish God because the Greek Gods left humans much to use their brains to solve their problems. The real end probably came in 272 AD when Aurelian stormed the Broucheion with Ammianus noting “[Alexandria’s] walls were destroyed and she lost the greater part of the district called Bruchion.” (Ammianus, History, XII.15). You have a strange habit of overstating things. It took several scrolls to compri. They trace their lineage back to the great library of Alexandria begun by Alexander the Great's lieutenant Ptolemy and his son. And so Bagnall deals with that as well. This was not some foreign war, this was more like a police action. This is the untold story of the Library of Alexandria. No, this is George the Cappadocian – bishop of Alexandria until his death in 361. The first problem relevant here is that the sources vary widely in the figures they give for the number of scrolls in the Library. The Ancient Library of Alexandria. Ancient Library of Alexandria - Bible Odyssey There was some translation of non-Hellenic works into Greek in Greek libraries and the translation of the Jewish Bible into the Septuagint is the most famous example of this. It is entirely possible that it was the largest library in the ancient world, though we have no way of confirming this given that we have little reliable information about the size of its collection. Ammianus seems to have visited Egypt, given he also writes elsewhere of seeing obelisks at Thebes. In this film however he has portrayed “Fundamentalism” of all the religions as being the cause of the Library’s destruction (yes, he actually thinks the library was destroyed at this time without fact checking) and of course by his means “fundamentalism” It was mostly just Christianity, nothing to do with Paganism (especially when the pagans were “Rational Skeptic Philosopher of Greatest of Knowledge who built rockets!). It would be a catastrophic loss in cultural terms, and purely economic terms; but only a minority of material would be lost for good. In this revelatory book, Edward Glaeser, a leading urban economist, declares that cities are actually the healthiest, greenest, and richest (in both cultural and economic terms) places to live. That might be a blessing in disguise as Saturn clearly has a problem with sand worms. This library was plundered by the angry mob which killed the Arian bishop George, and Julian wanted these books to be returned because George’s library contained pagan book, not just Christian ones. Furthermore, the library was mandated (and well endowed) to search the world for works and bring copies back. I've heard the opinion repeated many times that if the Library hadn't been destroyed, we'd probably all be colonizing Alpha Centauri by now. 95% of the supposedly "lost" works from antiquity are out there. The idea that any ancient library could have survived into the modern era is also ridiculous, given that none of the many other libraries of the time did so. a tinfoil hatter …. The Serapeum survived most of the fourth century, but it is very likely that the expense of maintaining an extensive library would have been a strain. . What we call the “Great Library” was a collection of books gathered to service the scholars who were housed and worked in the Mouseion and it was stored partially in the complex itself and, later, on other sites including at least three “daughter libraries”. Recently a new library was built in Alexandria, but it can never replace the ancient collection burnt in the fire. Alexandria is a port city located on the Mediterranean Sea in northern Egypt founded in 331 BCE by Alexander the Great.It was the site of the Pharos (lighthouse), one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, and the legendary Library of Alexandria and was once the most vital cultural center of the ancient world, rivalling even Athens, Greece.. Strabo doesn't actually mention a library at all, however, he does talk about the Museum, he describes it as "part of the royal palace." He said, "It comprises . The most harmless small thing gets you a warning. That’s why his testimony that it no longer contained libraries is significant. But it used induction and common sense more than measurement and experiment. It became the most widely watched public television series of the 1980s and virtually single-handedly established a new kind of public science education. The two Editors are El-Abbadi, who twenty years ago devoted an essay on the . | Not the physical library itself, of course - because that definitely burned down | But the knowledge inside the library, what if it had survived | .. Bagnall makes other calculations taking into account guesses at what number of completely lost authors there may have been and still does not manage to get close to most of the figures given in our sources. Overall, the idea that there was still any library there when the temple was demolished is dubious at best and almost certainly wrong. Sagan’s hymn of praise says that Hipparchus studied there, but he seems to have only used some of the books from the collection and there is no evidence he ever even visited from his home on Rhodes. If a great library had been destroyed then Eunapius, the pagan scholar, would surely have mentioned it. well who knows . “he nowhere mentions the possibility George could have taken books from the Serapeum”, “Therefore, we can rule out that George took books from the Serapeum, let alone that he plundered a substantial part of that library.”. It is most widely believed . The destruction of the Library of Alexandria is one of its greatest mysteries. How long is train from Cairo to Alexandria? The Julian letter is, as I’ve said, circumstantial evidence, but interesting given its proximity to the ransacking of the Serapeum by George. No traces of the library have ever been found, but historic records speak of its devastating demise. Alexandria was founded in Egypt by Alexander the Great. Contrary to popular myth Library of Alexandria wasn't destroyed by Julius Caesar and Romans who interfered with civil war in Egypt in 48 BC. Many believed it was destroyed in a catastrophic fire. *Includes ancient accounts about the Library of Alexandria and its destruction. Does it not make a difference to the question at hand whether he wrote in 378 or 398 (or any other time)? Often the flourish is added that he said “If the books contradict the Quran, they are sinful; if they agree with the Quran, they are redundant.” Where did that originate? He notes: “We must then assume, to save the ancient figures for the contents of the Library, either that more than 90 percent of classical authors are not even quoted or cited in what survives, or that the Ptolemies acquired a dozen copies of everything, or some combination of these unlikely hypotheses. Adding Classical works to the works of the third and second centuries BC isn’t enough to get there either. Nearly one million documents from across Assyria, Greece, Persia, Egypt, India and many other powerful civilizations at the time graced its shelves. I’m pretty clear on what the main activity there was, thanks. What if the great Library of Alexandria hadn't been destroyed? Notify me of followup comments via e-mail. Scholars in this period were polymaths and did not narrowly specialise the way academics today generally do. Interesting. Who Killed the Great Library of Alexandria? It absolutely was Rome had long since ceased to be the Imperial capital, even of the western Empire and he is describing how “the venerable city” was one of “nothing save dissensions, taverns, and other similar vulgarities”. But after all, that is just rhetoric. On top of that the Library of Alexandria functioned more like a modern research institute, housing scholars and paying them to compile new works. He does not mention that George took any books from the Serapeum neither in this letter, nor his letters to Ecdicius. The Mouseion was, after all, one of the jewels in the crown of the Ptolemaic kingdom and it sat in the Broucheion or Royal Quarter where the Ptolemies themselves lived. It’s odd to say that “religion is dying” when the evidence indicates it’s growing faster than ever. However, Alexandria and its famous library weren't completely destroyed as Athenaeus visited the library and wrote about the fire many years later (AD 200). But several who are often claimed as working there (or even as being “librarians” of the Great Library, no less) clearly did not. (Ammianus, XXII.16.12). It was built in the third century B.C. Today, a hopeful high school football team in the provinces might call itself the “rival” of Manchester United. It’s a meme that often pops up on history sites or, in another form (with “book lover” rather than “history fan”), on library and bookshop sites. 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