[140] An international architectural competition took place in 1989 with Norwegian architectural firm Snohetta winning the competition. [15][3] The ancient Hittites and Assyrians had massive archives containing records written in many different languages. Library of Alexandria (Bibliotheca Alexandrina) | Best Things to Do in Alexandria & Alexandria Tours Egypt. During the destruction a group of Christian workmen uncovered the remains of an old Mithraeum. [45][67][60] During this phase of the Library's history, literary criticism reached its peak[45][67] and came to dominate the Library's scholarly output. [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. [9][35][8], Aristophanes of Byzantium (lived c. 257c. The Memory Library: How the library in Hellenistic Alexandria worked. [76] Aristarchus' student Dionysius Thrax (c. 170c. Its empirical standards were applied in one of the first and certainly strongest homes for serious textual criticism. [118] In around 400 AD, Theon's daughter Hypatia (born c. 350370; died 415 AD) succeeded him as the head of his school. 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. The Library of Alexandria was not the first library of its kind. [143], This article is about the ancient library. Its membership appears to have ceased by the 260s AD. King Ptolemy II Philadelphus (309246 BC) is said to have set 500,000 scrolls as an objective for the library. [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. [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. There are many activities that can be done, within the new Library of Alexandria, including what children can do by visiting the childs library, reading books, and easily watching audiovisual material. "[99] Later scholarsbeginning with Father Eusbe Renaudot's remark in 1713 in his translation of the History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria that the tale "had something untrustworthy about it"are skeptical of these stories, given the range of time that had passed before they were written down and the political motivations of the various writers. [73] Consequently, many Greek scholars began to leave Alexandria for safer countries with more generous patronages. Choose a color combination to give the most comfortable contrast. [45], According to legend, during the librarianship of Apollonius, the mathematician and inventor Archimedes (lived c.287 c. Consequently, the Library of Pergamum developed parchment as its own writing material. [25] Other sources claim that the Library was instead created under the reign of Ptolemy I's son Ptolemy II Philadelphus (283246 BC). This Library is not currently open to the public. [93] Eventually, the word "Alexandrian" itself came to be synonymous with the editing of texts, correction of textual errors, and writing of commentaries synthesized from those of earlier scholarsin other words, taking on connotations of pedantry, monotony, and lack of originality. [96] The last known references to scholars being members of the Mouseion date to the 260s. [93] The Romans during this period also had less interest in Alexandrian scholarship, causing the Library's reputation to continue to decline as well. [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. [93] The scholars who worked and studied at the Library of Alexandria during the time of the Roman Empire were less well known than the ones who had studied there during the Ptolemaic Period. [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. Paid parking is available on Alfred Street. [78] Another one of Aristarchus' pupils, Apollodorus of Athens (c. 180c. [44][53][50] Eratosthenes' most important work was his treatise Geographika, which was originally in three volumes. The Library of Alexandria is the fourth largest French-language library in the world, and the second largest library with its contents after the New York Library, and the new library opened in 2002. [48] Although Callimachus did his most famous work at the Library of Alexandria, he never held the position of head librarian there. [52] It is more likely that Apollonius' resignation was on account of Ptolemy III Euergetes' ascension to the throne in 246 BC. [35] Strabo called the group of scholars who lived at the Mouseion a (synodos, "community"). [48] Each entry included the author's name, father's name, place of birth, and other brief biographical information, sometimes including nicknames by which that author was known, followed by a complete list of all that author's known works. [96], It is not possible to determine the collection's size in any era with certainty. About UsI Am Alexandria LibraryPoliciesLibrary Updates, DonateFriends of the LibraryAlexandria Library FoundationVolunteer Opportunities. [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. 235 AD), however, writes: "Many places were set on fire, with the result that, along with other buildings, the dockyards and storehouses of grain and books, said to be great in number and of the finest, were burned. [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. Online Latin text and English translation here, International School of Information Science, "Earth Wind and Fire: The Alexandrian Fire-storm of 48 B.C. Our online Book request form requires one submission per person. 90 BC) established a school on the Greek island of Rhodes. 180 BC) became the fourth head librarian sometime around 200 BC. [110] The pagans of Alexandria were incensed by this act of desecration, especially the teachers of Neoplatonic philosophy and theurgy at the Serapeum. An English translation of the passage in Al-Qifti by Emily Cottrell of Leiden University is at the Roger Pearse blog here, Ed. [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. [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. [76] A diaspora of Alexandrian scholarship occurred, in which scholars dispersed first throughout the eastern Mediterranean and later throughout the western Mediterranean as well. [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. Unfortunately this library is currently closed for refurbishment. Erksine, Andrew (1995). "[87], Very little is known about the Library of Alexandria during the time of the Roman Principate (27 BC 284 AD). [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. [24][25][15] It claims the Library was founded during the reign of Ptolemy I Soter (c. 323c. [138] This marked the beginning of UNESCO and the international community's involvement in trying to bring the project to fruition. 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. In addition, the Museum of Manuscripts, the Museum of Microfilm, the Department of Museums, the Museum of the History of Science, the Anwar Sadat Museum and the Shadi Abd elsalam Museum. Murray, S. A., (2009). [110], Scattered references indicate that, sometime in the fourth century, an institution known as the "Mouseion" may have been reestablished at a different location somewhere in Alexandria. [68] Aristophanes of Byzantium edited poetic texts and introduced the division of poems into separate lines on the page, since they had previously been written out just like prose. [120] Hypatia was extremely popular with the people of Alexandria[121] and exerted profound political influence. Finally, you can visit the planetarium, which offers a beautiful view of Alexandria. [80] Eventually, the position of head librarian lost so much of its former prestige that even contemporary authors ceased to take interest in recording the terms of office for individual head librarians. Opening hours of the library for student visits and school trips: Sunday to Thursday: 9:00 a.m. to 10:30a.m. 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. [118] Theon does not seem to have had any connections to the militant Iamblichean Neoplatonists who taught in the Serapeum. Author & Writer Library of Alexandria: Tamer Ahmed Abd elfatah Yousif, Translated Library of Alexandria: Hazem Eliskandarani, Library of Alexandria Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Egypt | Description, Facts, SEO & design Copyright 2020, All Rights Reserved. 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. The Library of Alexandria provides a special section called Knowledge Embassies, which has sub-centers in all governorates of Egypt to provide knowledge and scientific support to students, members of the training organization, campus pioneers and researchers, where it provides complete digital copies of all books contained in the library so far free of charge in its branches. Papyrus scrolls constituted the collection, and although codices were used after 300 BC, the Alexandrian Library is never documented as having switched to parchment, perhaps because of its strong links to the papyrus trade. New York: Skyhorse Publishing, p.17. [45][73], Aristarchus of Samothrace (lived c. 216c. [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. [58] However, it was also during the early second century BC that the political power of Ptolemaic Egypt began to decline. [80], The same was evidently the case even for the position of head librarian;[80] the only known head librarian from the Roman Period was a man named Tiberius Claudius Balbilus, who lived in the middle of the first century AD and was a politician, administrator, and military officer with no record of substantial scholarly achievements. [19] Historian Roy MacLeod calls this "a programme of cultural imperialism". [122][123] Rumors spread accusing her of preventing Orestes from reconciling with Cyril[122][124] and, in March of 415 AD, she was murdered by a mob of Christians, led by a lector named Peter. In addition to a specialized library for children aged 6 to 12, it aims to encourage children to read and research, and the Youth Library, a specialized library for young people aged 12 to 18. [121] Theophilus respected Alexandria's political structures and raised no objection to the close ties Hypatia established with Roman prefects. [122][125] She had no successor and her school collapsed after her death. The Library dwindled during the Roman period, from a lack of funding and support. During the reign of Ptolemy III Euergetes, a daughter library was established in the Serapeum, a temple to the Greco-Egyptian god Serapis. 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. [77] This diaspora prompted the historian Menecles of Barce to sarcastically comment that Alexandria had become the teacher of all Greeks and barbarians alike. Depth limits if you practice recreational and tourist Diving in Egypt, How do you drift dive? [71] He wrote introductions to many plays, some of which have survived in partially rewritten forms. [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. [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. [135] Nonetheless, the study of pagan authors remained secondary to the study of the Christian scriptures until the Renaissance. [81] The Caesareum and the Claudianum in Alexandria are both known to have had major libraries by the end of the first century AD. [135] By the fourth century AD, there were at least two dozen public libraries in the city of Rome itself alone. [96], In 642 AD, Alexandria was captured by the Muslim army of Amr ibn al-As. [139] Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak took a personal interest in the project, which greatly contributed to its advancement. 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. Connected content from Communico. [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. [64][65] All six of the other judges favored one competitor, but Aristophanes favored the one whom the audience had liked the least. [78] The Romans based their grammatical writings on it, and its basic format remains the basis for grammar guides in many languages even today. Several later Arabic sources describe the library's destruction by the order of Caliph Omar. The Library of Alexandria in fact was indirectly causal in the creation of writing on parchment, as the Egyptians refused to export papyrus to their competitor in the Library of Pergamum. [12][3] A long tradition of libraries existed in both Greece and in the ancient Near East. You can find out more on our cookie page at any time. [25][15][26] Nonetheless, the Letter of Aristeas is very late and contains information that is now known to be inaccurate. The Library was part of a larger research institution called the Mouseion, which was dedicated to the Muses, the nine goddesses of the arts. 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. [42] According to classical scholar Lionel Casson, the idea was that if the scholars were completely freed from all the burdens of everyday life they would be able to devote more time to research and intellectual pursuits. "The Alexandrian Library and Its Aftermath", The Mysterious Fate of the Great Library of Alexandria, discussed The Library of Alexandria 12 March 2009, "The Perniciously Persistent Myths of Hypatia and the Great Library", Ancient Greek and Hellenistic mathematics, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Library_of_Alexandria&oldid=1099019110, Buildings and structures completed in the 3rd century BC, Demolished buildings and structures in Egypt, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles containing Ancient Greek (to 1453)-language text, Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from the Encyclopedia Americana with a Wikisource reference, Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from the New International Encyclopedia, Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from The American Cyclopaedia, Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from The American Cyclopaedia with a Wikisource reference, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Estimates vary; somewhere between 40,000 and 400,000, Estimated to have employed over 100 scholars at its height. [130], A single piece of writing might occupy several scrolls, and this division into self-contained "books" was a major aspect of editorial work. [2] In around 295 BC, Demetrius may have acquired early texts of the writings of Aristotle and Theophrastus, which he would have been uniquely positioned to do, since he was a distinguished member of the Peripatetic school. [47] Each section listed authors in alphabetical order. 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. [72], During the early second century BC, several scholars at the Library of Alexandria studied works on medicine. "[87][81][8] However, Florus and Lucan only mention that the flames burned the fleet itself and some "houses near the sea". [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. [17] The earliest known surviving source of information on the founding of the Library of Alexandria is the pseudepigraphic Letter of Aristeas, which was composed between c. 180 and c. 145 BC. 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. [138] In May 1986, Egypt requested the Executive Board of UNESCO to allow the international organization to conduct a feasibility study for the project. 5005 Duke StreetAlexandria,VA 22304-2903tel: 703.746.1702fax: 703.746.1763. There is a small lot with 9 spaces. [9], After Zenodotus either died or retired, Ptolemy II Philadelphus appointed Apollonius of Rhodes (lived c. 295c. [60][81][8][85] The Greek Middle Platonist Plutarch (c. 46120 AD) writes in his Life of Caesar that, "[W]hen the enemy endeavored to cut off his communication by sea, he was forced to divert that danger by setting fire to his own ships, which, after burning the docks, thence spread on and destroyed the great library.

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