[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. Library visit times and ticket prices as well as the best activities you can do when visiting the most important places and attractions of the coastal city of Alexandria as well as visiting the distinctive gardens of the park. [96], In 272 AD, the emperor Aurelian fought to recapture the city of Alexandria from the forces of the Palmyrene queen Zenobia. 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. 2022. In 391 AD, the bishop of Alexandria, Theophilus, ordered the destruction of the Serapeum and its conversion into a church. 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. [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. [48] The entries for prolific authors such as Aeschylus, Euripides, Sophocles, and Theophrastus must have been extremely long, spanning multiple columns of text. [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. [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. [69] He also invented the system of Greek diacritics,[70][60] wrote important works on lexicography,[45] and introduced a series of signs for textual criticism. [8] It is unclear what happened to the Mouseion after Strabo's mention of it.
The library also offers special programs to learn about the history of the Library of Alexandria between past, present, and future, a dedicated program for visits for school children and young university students, as well as a family program to get to know the library in its entirety. [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. The Library quickly acquired many papyrus scrolls, owing largely to the Ptolemaic kings' aggressive and well-funded policies for procuring texts. [87] Casson, however, argues that, even if the story was made up, it would not have been believable unless the Library still existed. 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. "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. [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. 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. [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. [126], Nonetheless, Hypatia was not the last pagan in Alexandria, nor was she the last Neoplatonist philosopher. According to popular description, an inscription above the shelves read: "The place of the cure of the soul. [14] The later kingdoms and empires of the ancient Near East had long traditions of book collecting. 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. [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. [58] The doctors Herophilus (lived c. 335c. [77] Many scholars began producing syntheses and reworkings of the commentaries of the Alexandrian scholars of previous centuries, at the expense of their own originalities. We use cookies, which are small text files, to improve your experience on our website and to show you personalised content. [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. Once ascertained, canonical copies would then be made for scholars, royalty, and wealthy bibliophiles the world over, this commerce bringing income to the library. [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. [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. "[87][81][8] However, Florus and Lucan only mention that the flames burned the fleet itself and some "houses near the sea". The library has a large parking lot with 175 spaces. The Great Library of Alexandria in Alexandria, Egypt, was one of the largest and most significant libraries of the ancient world.
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. Its empirical standards were applied in one of the first and certainly strongest homes for serious textual criticism. [118] Theon does not seem to have had any connections to the militant Iamblichean Neoplatonists who taught in the Serapeum. Several later Arabic sources describe the library's destruction by the order of Caliph Omar. The Library dwindled during the Roman period, from a lack of funding and support.
[43] The Library itself was directed by a scholar who served as head librarian, as well as tutor to the king's son. [37][3][38][8][20] The original texts were kept in the library, and the copies delivered to the owners.
[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. [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. This is a reconstruction of the old library of Alexandria, one of the largest libraries of its time, where the library was rebuilt on a site close to the old library in the al-Shatbi district. [35] Strabo called the group of scholars who lived at the Mouseion a (synodos, "community"). 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. [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. [15] The most famous library of the ancient Near East was the Library of Ashurbanipal in Nineveh, founded in the seventh century BC by the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal (ruled 668c. "[54] Meanwhile, other scholars at the Library of Alexandria also displayed interest in scientific subjects. [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. 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. Permanent museums of the Library of Alexandria and you can see through a collection of rare manuscripts of world maps and some archaeological books, especially for those looking for information. [96][80][3] During the course of the fighting, Aurelian's forces destroyed the Broucheion quarter of the city in which the main library was located. [81], A shift in Greek scholarship at large occurred around the beginning of the first century BC. [121] Theophilus respected Alexandria's political structures and raised no objection to the close ties Hypatia established with Roman prefects. at 17:00.
[77], In 48 BC, during Caesar's Civil War, Julius Caesar was besieged at Alexandria. [45][49][50] Philadelphus also appointed Apollonius of Rhodes as the tutor to his son, the future Ptolemy III Euergetes. [122][125] She had no successor and her school collapsed after her death. Alexandria came to be regarded as the capitol of knowledge and learning, in part because of the Great Library. Opening hours of the library to visit museums and exhibitions: From Sunday to Thursday: from 10:00 am. 562 BC). Connected content from Communico. You can allow all or manage them individually. The most important heritage and cultural tourist places in Egypt. [83][84][60][8] This fire purportedly spread to the parts of the city nearest to the docks, causing considerable devastation. Murray, S. A., (2009). 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. [66], The librarianship of Aristophanes of Byzantium is widely considered to have opened a more mature phase of the Library of Alexandria's history. Erksine, Andrew (1995). 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. [11] Many important and influential scholars worked at the Library during the third and second centuries BC, including, among many others: Zenodotus of Ephesus, who worked towards standardizing the texts of the Homeric poems; Callimachus, who wrote the Pinakes, sometimes considered to be the world's first library catalogue; Apollonius of Rhodes, who composed the epic poem the Argonautica; Eratosthenes of Cyrene, who calculated the circumference of the earth within a few hundred kilometers of accuracy; Aristophanes of Byzantium, who invented the system of Greek diacritics and was the first to divide poetic texts into lines; and Aristarchus of Samothrace, who produced the definitive texts of the Homeric poems as well as extensive commentaries on them. 405) a "man of the Mouseion". [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. [42] As early as 283 BC, they may have numbered between thirty and fifty learned men. [35] This program involved trips to the book fairs of Rhodes and Athens. [78] This book remained the primary grammar textbook for Greek schoolboys until as late as the twelfth century AD. [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. [138] This marked the beginning of UNESCO and the international community's involvement in trying to bring the project to fruition. [60], Furthermore, Plutarch records in his Life of Marc Antony that, in the years leading up to the Battle of Actium in 33 BC, Mark Antony was rumored to have given Cleopatra all 200,000 scrolls in the Library of Pergamum. 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. During your library tour, you can visit the BA Museum Room to see a collection of rare art works and a photo and art gallery, as well as to see the planetarium center, which features scientific content. [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. [138] Egypt devoted four hectares of land for the building of the Library and established the National High Commission for the Library of Alexandria. 270 BC). [1][136] Shibli Nomani published a research work in 1892 about this library named Kutubkhana-i-lskandriyya. [47] The Pinakes was divided into multiple sections, each containing entries for writers of a particular genre of literature. During the reign of Ptolemy III Euergetes, a daughter library was established in the Serapeum, a temple to the Greco-Egyptian god Serapis. 194 BC), is best known today for his scientific works, but he was also a literary scholar. [7][133][134] By the end of the Hellenistic Period, almost every city in the Eastern Mediterranean had a public library and so did many medium-sized towns. 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. [95], By the second century AD, the Roman Empire grew less dependent on grain from Alexandria and the city's prominence declined further.
[90] Lionel Casson states that Didymus' prodigious output "would have been impossible without at least a good part of the resources of the library at his disposal. Depth limits if you practice recreational and tourist Diving in Egypt, How do you drift dive? [46], Meanwhile, the scholar and poet Callimachus compiled the Pinakes, a 120-book catalogue of various authors and all their known works. 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. The exhibition opened in 2005 and includes a collection of paintings, sketches, sequences from the film of the Momie, a library, furniture and special collections of Shadi Abdelsalam, who won the Gog Sadol Prize in 1970 for the production of the film The Mummy, as well as a talented artist in painting, photography, scriptwriting, decorations and clothing design for films and has also been a distinguished director. [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. [117] Theon's school was exclusive, highly prestigious, and doctrinally conservative. Place your book order using the form below: Don't worry if you currently have any library items out on loan, ALL items will be automatically renewed until we re-open fully when you can safely return them.
145 BC) was the sixth head librarian. 25 BC), a student of Dionysius Thrax. Olesen-Bagneux, O. There is a library parking lot available. [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. [118] In around 400 AD, Theon's daughter Hypatia (born c. 350370; died 415 AD) succeeded him as the head of his school. [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. [81], Further evidence for the Library's survival after 48 BC comes from the fact that the most notable producer of composite commentaries during the late first century BC and early first century AD was a scholar who worked in Alexandria named Didymus Chalcenterus, whose epithet (Chalknteros) means "bronze guts". [61][42][5][62] This story may also be construed erroneously to show the power of Alexandria over Athens during the Ptolemaic dynasty. 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. [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. [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. The daughter library in the Serapeum may have survived after the main Library's destruction. [80] Ptolemy VIII appointed a man named Cydas, one of his palace guards, as head librarian[81][80] and Ptolemy IX Soter II (ruled 8881 BC) is said to have given the position to a political supporter. [105], The Serapeum is often called the "daughter library" of Alexandria. [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. 2501 Commonwealth AvenueAlexandria, VA 22301tel: 703.746.1705fax: 703.746.1785. [9], After Zenodotus either died or retired, Ptolemy II Philadelphus appointed Apollonius of Rhodes (lived c. 295c. [120] Hypatia was extremely popular with the people of Alexandria[121] and exerted profound political influence. [13][3] The earliest recorded archive of written materials comes from the ancient Sumerian city-state of Uruk in around 3400 BC, when writing had only just begun to develop. [132], As a research institution, the library filled its stacks with new works in mathematics, astronomy, physics, natural sciences and other subjects. [28], The Library was built in the Brucheion (Royal Quarter) as part of the Mouseion. [112] Instead, he seems to have rejected the teachings of Iamblichus[118] and may have taken pride in teaching a pure, Plotinian Neoplatonism. [40][41][42] They had a large, circular dining hall with a high domed ceiling in which they ate meals communally. The library is open for visitors from Sunday to Thursday from 11:00 to 19:00. King Ptolemy II Philadelphus (309246 BC) is said to have set 500,000 scrolls as an objective for the library. [108] It naturally tended to attract followers of Iamblichean Neoplatonism. [16] It was out of this mixed heritage of both Greek and Near Eastern book collections that the idea for the Library of Alexandria was born. Mohammed Ibrahims exhibition Permanent Exhibition: You will see a collection of paintings expressing the stages of the foundation of Arabic calligraphy. [50], According to two late and largely unreliable biographies, Apollonius was forced to resign from his position as head librarian and moved to the island of Rhodes (after which he takes his name) on account of the hostile reception he received in Alexandria to the first draft of his Argonautica. Online Latin text and English translation here, International School of Information Science, "Earth Wind and Fire: The Alexandrian Fire-storm of 48 B.C. 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. The Library of Alexandria was not the first library of its kind. [77][78] Dionysius Thrax wrote the first book on Greek grammar, a succinct guide to speaking and writing clearly and effectively. [73] After the Battle of Raphia in 217 BC, Ptolemaic power became increasingly unstable. [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. [142] In line with the mission of the Great Library of Alexandria, the Bibliotheca Alexandrina also houses the International School of Information Science, a school for students preparing for highly specialized post-graduate degrees, whose goal is to train professional staff for libraries in Egypt and across the Middle East. 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. [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.
We obviously understand this is a difficult time so theres no need to worry about fines or charges. "[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. 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. You can allow all or manage them individually. 250 BC) studied human anatomy, but their studies were hindered by protests against the dissection of human corpses, which was seen as immoral. [12][3] A long tradition of libraries existed in both Greece and in the ancient Near East. Finally, you can visit the planetarium, which offers a beautiful view of Alexandria. [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. 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. [77][82] By this time, all major classical poetic texts had finally been standardized and extensive commentaries had already been produced on the writings of all the major literary authors of the Greek Classical Era. 283 BC) and that it was initially organized by Demetrius of Phalerum, a student of Aristotle who had been exiled from Athens and taken refuge in Alexandria within the Ptolemaic court. 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. [51], The third head librarian, Eratosthenes of Cyrene (lived c. 280c. [9][35][8], Aristophanes of Byzantium (lived c. 257c. 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. [109] He enjoined his students to worship the old gods in traditional ways, and he may have even taught them theurgy. The library also includes an Internet archive center with more than 10 billion pages, 1,000 documentaries, 2,000 hours of television broadcasts and 100 teras of information stored on 200 computers. [44][53][50] Eratosthenes' most important work was his treatise Geographika, which was originally in three volumes. Our online Book request form requires one submission per person. [57] Eratosthenes believed that the setting of the Homeric poems was purely imaginary and argued that the purpose of poetry was "to capture the soul", rather than to give a historically accurate account of actual events. ", "Introduction: Alexandria in History and Myth", "Demetrius of Phalerum: Who was He and Who was He Not? [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. 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. As the same text often existed in several different versions, comparative textual criticism was crucial for ensuring their veracity. Once the items are ready, a member of staff will call you to arrange a date and time to have them delivered. [56], Eratosthenes was the first person to advance geography towards becoming a scientific discipline. [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.
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