Library of Alexandria

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The Great Library of Alexandria in Alexandria, Egypt, was one of the largest and most significant libraries of the ancient world. The library was part of a larger research institution called the Mouseion, which was dedicated to the Muses, the nine goddesses of the arts.<ref name=":0">Murray, S. A., (2009). The library: An illustrated history. New York: Skyhorse Publishing, p. 17</ref> 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. The Library quickly acquired many papyrus scrolls, owing largely to the Ptolemaic kings' aggressive and well-funded policies for procuring texts.Template:Sfn It is unknown precisely how many scrolls were housed at any given time, but estimates range from 40,000 to 400,000 at its height.

Alexandria came to be regarded as the capital of knowledge and learning, in part because of the Great Library.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Many important and influential scholars worked at the Library during the third and second centuries BC, including: Zenodotus of Ephesus, who worked towards standardizing the works of Homer; Callimachus, who wrote the Pinakes, sometimes considered the world's first library catalog;Template:Sfn 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; Hero of Alexandria, who invented the first recorded steam engine; 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. During the reign of Ptolemy III Euergetes, a daughter library was established in the Serapeum, a temple to the Greco-Egyptian god Serapis.

The influence of the Library declined gradually over the course of several centuries. 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 and exiling himself to Cyprus. Many other scholars, including Dionysius Thrax and Apollodorus of Athens, fled to other cities, where they continued teaching and conducting scholarship. 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.

The Library dwindled during the Roman period, from a lack of funding and support. Its membership appears to have ceased by the 260s AD. Between 270 and 275 AD, Alexandria saw a Palmyrene invasion and an imperial counterattack that probably destroyed whatever remained of the Library, if it still existed. The daughter library in the Serapeum may have survived after the main Library's destruction. The Serapeum, mainly used as a gathering place for Neoplatonist philosophers following the teachings of Iamblichus, was vandalized and demolished in 391 AD under a decree issued by bishop Theophilus of Alexandria.

Historical backgroundEdit

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The Library of Alexandria was not the first library of its kind.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn A long tradition of libraries existed in both Greece and in the ancient Near East.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn Scholarly curation of literary texts began in around 2500 BC.Template:Sfn The later kingdoms and empires of the ancient Near East had long traditions of book collecting.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn The ancient Hittites and Assyrians had massive archives containing records written in many different languages.Template:Sfn 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 668–Template:Circa 627 BC).Template:Sfn Template:Sfn A large library also existed in Babylon during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II (Template:Circa 605–Template:Circa 562 BC).Template:Sfn In Greece, the Athenian tyrant Pisistratus was said to have founded the first major public library in the sixth century BC.Template:Sfn It was out of this mixed heritage of both Greek and Near Eastern book collections that the idea for the Library of Alexandria may have been born.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn

Following the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC, there was a power grab for his empire among his top-ranking officers. The empire was divided into three: the Antigonid dynasty controlled Greece; the Seleucid dynasty, who had their capitals at Antioch and Seleucia, controlled large areas of Asia Minor, Syria, and Mesopotamia; and the Ptolemaic dynasty controlled Egypt with Alexandria as its capital.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn These rulers, therefore, had a vested interest in collecting and compiling information from both the Greeks and the far more ancient kingdoms of the Near East.Template:Sfn Libraries enhanced a city's prestige, attracted scholars, and provided practical assistance in ruling and governing the kingdom.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Eventually, for these reasons, every major Hellenistic urban center would have a royal library.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn The Library of Alexandria, however, was unprecedented because of the scope and scale of the Ptolemies' ambitions;Template:Sfn Template:Sfn unlike their predecessors and contemporaries, the Ptolemies wanted to produce a repository of all knowledge.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn To support this endeavor, they were well positioned as Egypt was the ideal habitat for the papyrus plant, which provided an abundant supply of materials needed to amass their knowledge repository.Template:Sfn

Under Ptolemaic patronageEdit

FoundingEdit

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Bust excavated at the Villa of the Papyri depicting Ptolemy II Philadelphus, who is believed to have been the one to establish the Library as an actual institution,Template:Sfn although plans for it may have been developed by his father Ptolemy I Soter Template:Sfn

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.Template:Sfn 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 Template:Circa 180 and Template:Circa 145 BC.<ref name="Lindberg1980" />Template:Sfn Template:Sfn It claims the Library was founded during the reign of Ptolemy I Soter (Template:Circa 323–Template:Circa 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.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn<ref>Letter of Aristeas, 9–12.</ref> Nonetheless, the Letter of Aristeas is very late and contains information that is now known to be inaccurate.Template:Sfn According to Diogenes Laertius, Demetrius was a student of Theophrastus, a student of Aristotle.<ref>Template:Cite LotEP</ref> Other sources claim that the Library was instead created under the reign of Ptolemy I's son Ptolemy II Philadelphus (283–246 BC).Template:Sfn

Modern scholars agree that, while it is possible that Ptolemy I, who was a historian and authorTemplate:Sfn of an account of Alexander's campaign, may have laid the groundwork for the Library, it probably did not come into being as a physical institution until the reign of Ptolemy II.Template:Sfn By that time, Demetrius of Phalerum had fallen out of favor with the Ptolemaic court. He probably would not, therefore, have had any role in establishing the Library as an institution.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn

The Library was built in the Brucheion (Royal Quarter) as part of the Mouseion.Template:Sfn Template:Efn Its main purpose was to show off the wealth of Egypt, with research as a lesser goal,<ref name="Lindberg1980">Template:Cite book</ref> but its contents were used to aid the ruler of Egypt.Template:Sfn The exact layout of the library is not known, but ancient sources describe the Library of Alexandria as comprising a collection of scrolls, Greek columns, a Template:Wikt-lang walk, a room for shared dining, a reading room, meeting rooms, gardens, and lecture halls, creating a model for the modern university campus.Template:Sfn A hall contained shelves for the collections of papyrus scrolls known as bibliothekai (βιβλιοθῆκαι). According to popular description, an inscription above the shelves read: "The place of the cure of the soul."<ref name="Alberto2008">Manguel, Alberto (2008).The Library at Night. New Haven: Yale University Press, p. 26.</ref>

Early expansion and organizationEdit

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Map of ancient Alexandria. The Mouseion was located in the royal Broucheion quarter (listed on this map as "Bruchium") in the central part of the city near the Great Harbor ("Portus Magnus" on the map).Template:Sfn

The Ptolemaic rulers intended the Library to be a collection of all knowledgeTemplate:Sfn and they worked to expand the Library's collections through an aggressive and well-funded policy of book purchasing.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn This program involved trips to the book fairs of Rhodes and Athens.<ref>Erksine, Andrew (1995). "Culture and Power in Ptolemaic Egypt: The Museum and Library of Alexandria". Greece & Rome, 2nd ser., 42(1), 38–48.</ref> According to the Greek medical writer Galen, under the decree of Ptolemy II, any books found on ships that came into port were taken to the library, where they were copied by official scribes.<ref name="Galen">Galen, xvii.a, p. 606.</ref>Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Sfn The original texts were kept in the library, and the copies delivered to the owners.<ref name="Galen" />Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Sfn The Library particularly focused on acquiring manuscripts of the Homeric poems, which were the foundation of Greek education and revered above all other poems.Template:Sfn The Library therefore acquired many different manuscripts of these poems, tagging each copy with a label to indicate where it had come from.Template:Sfn

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.<ref name="Kennedy1999">Kennedy, George. The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism: Classical Criticism, New York: University of Cambridge Press, 1999.</ref>Template:Sfn Template:Sfn They had a large, circular dining hall with a high domed ceiling in which they ate meals communally.Template:Sfn There were also numerous classrooms, where the scholars were expected to at least occasionally teach students.Template:Sfn Ptolemy II Philadelphus is said to have had a keen interest in zoology, so it has been speculated that the Mouseion may have even had a zoo for exotic animals.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn Strabo called the group of scholars who lived at the Mouseion a σύνοδος ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, "community").Template:Sfn As early as 283 BC, they may have numbered between thirty and fifty learned men.Template:Sfn

Early scholarshipEdit

The Library of Alexandria was not affiliated with any particular philosophical school; consequently, scholars who studied there had considerable academic freedom.Template:Sfn They were, however, subject to the authority of the king.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn Ptolemy II is said to have jailed him and, after he escaped and was caught again, sealed him in a lead jar and dropped him into the sea.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn The Library itself was directed by a scholar who served as head librarian, as well as tutor to the king's son.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Sfn

The first recorded head librarian was Zenodotus of Ephesus (lived Template:Circa).Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Zenodotus' main work was devoted to the establishment of canonical texts for the Homeric poems and the early Greek lyric poets.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Most of what is known about him comes from later commentaries that mention his preferred readings of particular passages.Template:Sfn Zenodotus is known to have written a glossary of rare and unusual words, which was organized in alphabetical order, making him the first person known to have employed alphabetical order as a method of organization.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn Zenodotus' system of alphabetization, however, only used the first letter of the wordTemplate:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn

Meanwhile, the scholar and poet Callimachus compiled the Pinakes, a 120-book catalogue of various authors and all their known works.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Sfn The Pinakes has not survived, but enough references to it and fragments of it have survived to allow scholars to reconstruct its basic structure.Template:Sfn The Pinakes was divided into multiple sections, each containing entries for writers of a particular genre of literature.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn The most basic division was between writers of poetry and prose, with each section divided into smaller subsections.Template:Sfn Each section listed authors in alphabetical order.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn The entries for prolific authors such as Aeschylus, Euripides, Sophocles, and Theophrastus must have been extremely long, spanning multiple columns of text.Template:Sfn Although Callimachus did his most famous work at the Library of Alexandria, he never held the position of head librarian there.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Callimachus' pupil Hermippus of Smyrna wrote biographies, Philostephanus of Cyrene studied geography, and Istros (who may have also been from Cyrene) studied Attic antiquities.Template:Sfn In addition to the Great Library, many other smaller libraries also began to spring up all around the city of Alexandria.Template:Sfn

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According to legend, the Syracusan inventor Archimedes invented the Archimedes' screw, a pump for transporting water, while studying at the Library of Alexandria.Template:Sfn

After Zenodotus either died or retired, Ptolemy II Philadelphus appointed Apollonius of Rhodes (lived Template:Circa), a native of Alexandria and a student of Callimachus, as the second head librarian of the Library of Alexandria.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Philadelphus also appointed Apollonius of Rhodes as the tutor to his son, the future Ptolemy III Euergetes.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn The Argonautica displays Apollonius' vast knowledge of history and literature and makes allusions to a vast array of events and texts while simultaneously imitating the style of the Homeric poems.Template:Sfn Some fragments of his scholarly writings have also survived, but he is generally more famous today as a poet than as a scholar.Template:Sfn

According to legend, during the librarianship of Apollonius, the mathematician and inventor Archimedes (lived Template:Circa 287 –Template:Circa 212 BC) came to visit the Library of Alexandria.Template:Sfn During his time in Egypt, Archimedes is said to have observed the rise and fall of the Nile, leading him to invent the Archimedes' screw, which can be used to transport water from low-lying bodies into irrigation ditches.Template:Sfn Archimedes later returned to Syracuse, where he continued making new inventions.Template:Sfn

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.Template:Sfn It is more likely that Apollonius' resignation was on account of Ptolemy III Euergetes' ascension to the throne in 246 BC.Template:Sfn

Later scholarship and expansionEdit

The third head librarian, Eratosthenes of Cyrene (lived Template:Circa 280–Template:Circa 194 BC), is best known today for his scientific works, but he was also a literary scholar.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Eratosthenes' most important work was his treatise Geographika, which was originally in three volumes.Template:Sfn The work itself has not survived, but many fragments of it are preserved through quotation in the writings of the later geographer Strabo.Template:Sfn Eratosthenes was the first scholar to apply mathematics to geography and map-makingTemplate:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Eratosthenes also produced a map of the entire known world, which incorporated information taken from sources held in the Library, including accounts of Alexander the Great's campaigns in India and reports written by members of Ptolemaic elephant-hunting expeditions along the coast of East Africa.Template:Sfn

Eratosthenes was the first person to advance geography towards becoming a scientific discipline.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn 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."Template:Sfn Meanwhile, scholars at the Library of Alexandria displayed interest in other scientific subjects.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Bacchius of Tanagra, a contemporary of Eratosthenes, edited and commented on the medical writings of the Hippocratic Corpus.Template:Sfn The doctors Herophilus (lived Template:Circa 335–Template:Circa 280 BC) and Erasistratus (Template:Circa 304–Template:Circa 250 BC) studied human anatomy, but their studies were hindered by protests against the dissection of human corpses, which was seen as immoral.Template:Sfn

According to Galen, around this time, Ptolemy III requested permission from the Athenians to borrow the original manuscripts of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, for which the Athenians demanded the enormous amount of fifteen talents (Template:Convert) of a precious metal as guarantee that he would return them.<ref name="Galenxviia">Galen, xvii.a, p. 607</ref>Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Ptolemy III had expensive copies of the plays made on the highest quality papyrus and sent the Athenians the copies, keeping the original manuscripts for the library Template:Sfn and telling the Athenians they could keep the talents.<ref name="Galenxviia"/>Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Sfn This story may also be construed erroneously to show the power of Alexandria over Athens during the Ptolemaic dynasty. 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.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Sfn

Peak of literary criticismEdit

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Present-day ruins of the Serapeum of Alexandria, where the Library of Alexandria moved part of its collection after it ran out of storage space in the main buildingTemplate:Sfn

Aristophanes of Byzantium (lived Template:Circa 257–Template:Circa 180 BC) became the fourth head librarian sometime around 200 BC.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn All six of the other judges favored one competitor, but Aristophanes favored the one whom the audience had liked the least.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Aristophanes declared that all of the poets except for the one he had chosen had committed plagiarism and were therefore disqualified.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn The king demanded that he prove this, so he retrieved the texts that the authors had plagiarized from the Library, locating them by memory.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn On account of his impressive memory and diligence, Ptolemy III appointed him as head librarian.Template:Sfn

The librarianship of Aristophanes of Byzantium is widely considered to have opened a more mature phase of scholarship in the Library of Alexandria's history.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Sfn During this phase, literary criticism reached its peakTemplate:Sfn Template:Sfn and came to dominate the Library's scholarly output.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn He also invented the system of Greek diacritics,Template:Sfn Template:Sfn wrote important works on lexicography,Template:Sfn and introduced a series of signs for textual criticism.Template:Sfn He wrote introductions to many plays, some of which have survived in partially rewritten forms.Template:Sfn

The fifth head librarian was an obscure individual named Apollonius Eidographus, who is known by the epithet Template:Langx ("the classifier of forms").Template:Sfn Template:Sfn One late lexicographical source explains this epithet as referring to the classification of poetry on the basis of musical forms.Template:Sfn

During the early second century BC, several scholars at the Library of Alexandria studied works on medicine.Template:Sfn Zeuxis the Empiricist is credited with having written commentaries on the Hippocratic CorpusTemplate:Sfn and he actively worked to procure medical writings for the Library's collection.Template:Sfn A scholar named Ptolemy Epithetes wrote a treatise on wounds in the Homeric poems, a subject straddling the line between traditional philology and medicine.Template:Sfn However, it was also during the early second century BC that the political power of Ptolemaic Egypt began to decline.Template:Sfn After the Battle of Raphia in 217 BC, Ptolemaic power became increasingly unstable.Template:Sfn There were uprisings among segments of the Egyptian population and, in the first half of the second century BC, connection with Upper Egypt became largely disrupted.Template:Sfn Ptolemaic rulers also began to emphasize the Egyptian aspect of their nation over the Greek aspect.Template:Sfn Consequently, many Greek scholars began to leave Alexandria for safer countries with more generous patronages.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn

Aristarchus of Samothrace (lived Template:Circa 216–Template:Circa 145 BC) was the sixth head librarian.Template:Sfn He earned a reputation as the greatest of all ancient scholars and produced not only texts of classic poems and works of prose, but full hypomnemata, or long, free-standing commentaries, on them.Template:Sfn These commentaries would typically cite a passage of a classical text, explain its meaning, define any unusual words used in it, and comment on whether the words in the passage were really those used by the original author or if they were later interpolations added by scribes.Template:Sfn He made many contributions to a variety of studies, but particularly the study of the Homeric poems,Template:Sfn and his editorial opinions are widely quoted by ancient authors as authoritative.Template:Sfn A portion of one of Aristarchus' commentaries on the Histories of Herodotus has survived in a papyrus fragment.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn 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 after.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Ptolemy VIII expelled all foreign scholars from Alexandria, forcing them to disperse across the Eastern Mediterranean.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn

DeclineEdit

After Ptolemy VIII's expulsionsEdit

Ptolemy VIII Physcon's expulsion of the scholars from Alexandria brought about a shift in the history of Hellenistic scholarship.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn Due to this decline in respect and prestige, the Library of Alexandria began a decline.Template:Sfn A diaspora of Alexandrian scholarship occurred, in which scholars of the Library dispersed first into the eastern Mediterranean and then into the world of the western Mediterranean as well.Template:Sfn Former scholars and their disciples took their scholarly energies elsewhere. For example, Aristarchus' student Dionysius Thrax (Template:Circa) established a school on the Greek island of Rhodes.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn He also wrote the first book on Greek grammar, a succinct guide to speaking and writing clearly and effectivelyTemplate:Sfn – a book that remained the primary grammar textbook for Greek schoolboys until as late as the twelfth century AD.Template:Sfn Another one of Aristarchus' pupils, Apollodorus of Athens (Template:Circa), went to Alexandria's greatest rival, Pergamum, where he taught and conducted research.Template:Sfn This scholarly diaspora prompted the historian Menecles of Barca to sarcastically comment that Alexandria had become the teacher of all Greeks and barbarians alike.Template:Sfn

Meanwhile, in Alexandria, from the middle of the second century BC onwards, Ptolemaic rule in Egypt grew less stable than it had been previously.Template:Sfn 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, continuing the decline that had begun under Ptolemy VIII Physcon.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn The status of both the Library and the head librarian diminished.Template:Sfn Several of the later Ptolemies used the position of head librarian as a mere political plum to reward their most devoted supporters.Template:Sfn Ptolemy VIII appointed a man named Cydas, one of his palace guards, as head librarianTemplate:Sfn Template:Sfn and Ptolemy IX Soter II (ruled 88–81 BC) is said to have given the position to a political supporter.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn

A shift in Greek scholarship at large occurred around the beginning of the first century BC.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn Consequently, there was little original work left for scholars to do with these texts.Template:Sfn Many scholars began producing syntheses and reworkings of the commentaries of the Alexandrian scholars of previous centuries, at the expense of their own originalities.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Efn Other scholars branched out and began writing commentaries on the poetic works of postclassical authors, including Alexandrian poets such as Callimachus and Apollonius of Rhodes.Template:Sfn Meanwhile, Alexandrian scholarship was probably introduced to Rome in the first century BC by Tyrannion of Amisus (Template:Circa), a student of Dionysius Thrax.Template:Sfn

Burning by Julius CaesarEdit

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Julius Caesar burned his ships during the Siege of Alexandria in 48 BC.Template:Sfn Ancient writers said the fire spread and destroyed part of the Library's collections;Template:Sfn the Library seems to have partially survived or been quickly rebuilt.Template:Sfn

In 48 BC, during Caesar's Civil War, Julius Caesar was besieged at Alexandria. 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.<ref>Pollard, Justin, and Reid, Howard. 2006. The Rise and Fall of Alexandria, Birthplace of the Modern World.</ref><ref name="AulusGellius">Aulus Gellius. Attic Nights book 7 chapter 17.</ref>Template:Sfn Template:Sfn This fire purportedly spread to the parts of the city nearest to the docks, causing considerable devastation in that area.<ref name="AulusGellius" />Template:Sfn Template:Sfn The first-century AD Roman playwright and Stoic philosopher Seneca the Younger quotes Livy's {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, 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.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Sfn The Greek Middle Platonist Plutarch (Template:Circa 46–120 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 ships, which, after burning the docks, thence spread on and destroyed the great library."<ref name="Plutarch">Plutarch, Life of Caesar, 49.6.</ref>Template:Sfn Template:Sfn The Roman historian Cassius Dio (Template:Circa), 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."Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Sfn However, Florus and Lucan only mention that the flames burned the fleet itself and some "houses near the sea".<ref name="El-AbbadiFathallah2008">Template:Cite book</ref>

Scholars have interpreted Cassius Dio's wording to indicate that the fire did not actually destroy the entire Library itself, but rather one or more Library warehouses near the docks.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Whatever damage Caesar's fire may have caused, evidently the Library was not completely destroyed.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Sfn The geographer Strabo (Template:Circa) 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.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Nonetheless, Strabo's manner of talking about the Mouseion shows that it was nowhere near as prestigious as it had been a few centuries prior. It is unknown whether this was due to historical decline or catastrophic destruction.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn It is unclear what happened to the Mouseion after Strabo's mention of it.Template:Sfn

Furthermore, Plutarch records in his Life of Mark 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.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Plutarch himself notes that his source for this anecdote was sometimes unreliable and it is possible that the story may be nothing more than propaganda intended to show that Mark Antony was loyal to Cleopatra and Egypt rather than to Rome.Template:Sfn Casson, however, argues that even if the story was made up, it would not have been believable unless the Library still existed.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn

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 {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}) means "bronze guts".Template:Sfn Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn He was also given the nickname {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}), meaning "book-forgetter" because it was said that even he could not remember all the books he had written.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn 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".Template:Sfn

Roman period and destructionEdit

File:Alexandria Library Inscription.jpg

lang}} (line eight).

Very little is known about the Library of Alexandria during the time of the Roman Principate (27 BC – 284 AD).Template:Sfn The emperor Claudius (ruled 41–54 AD) is recorded to have built an extension to the Library,Template:Sfn but it seems that the Library of Alexandria's general fortunes followed those of the city of Alexandria itself.Template:Sfn After Alexandria came under Roman rule, the city's status and, consequently that of its famous Library, gradually diminished.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn While the Mouseion still existed, membership was granted not on the basis of scholarly achievement, but rather on the basis of distinction in government, the military, or even in athletics.Template:Sfn

The same was evidently the case even for the position of head librarian;Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn Members of the Mouseion were no longer required to teach, conduct research, or even live in Alexandria.Template:Sfn The Greek writer Philostratus records that the emperor Hadrian (ruled 117–138 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.Template:Sfn

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.Template:Sfn Other libraries also sprang up within the city of Alexandria itselfTemplate:Sfn and the scrolls from the Great Library may have been used to stock some of these smaller libraries.Template:Sfn The Caesareum and the Claudianum in Alexandria are both known to have had major libraries by the end of the first century AD.Template:Sfn The Serapeum, originally the "daughter library" of the Great Library, probably expanded during this period as well, according to classical historian Edward J. Watts.Template:Sfn

By the second century AD, the Roman Empire grew less dependent on grain from Alexandria and the city's prominence declined further.Template:Sfn The Romans during this period also had less interest in Alexandrian scholarship, causing the Library's reputation to continue to decline as well.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn 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 scholars—in other words, taking on connotations of pedantry, monotony, and lack of originality.Template:Sfn Mention of both the Great Library of Alexandria and the Mouseion that housed it disappear after the middle of the third century AD.Template:Sfn The last known references to scholars being members of the Mouseion date to the 260s.Template:Sfn

In 272 AD, the emperor Aurelian fought to recapture the city of Alexandria from the forces of the Palmyrene queen Zenobia.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Sfn During the course of the fighting, Aurelian's forces destroyed the Broucheion quarter of the city in which the main library was located.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Sfn If the Mouseion and Library still existed at this time, they were almost certainly destroyed or damaged during the attack.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn If they did survive the attack, whatever was left of them would have been further damaged or destroyed during the emperor Diocletian's siege of Alexandria in 297, when the Brouchion quarter was again destroyed.Template:Sfn

Arabic sources on the Arab conquestEdit

In 642 AD, Alexandria was captured by an Arab army under the command of Amr ibn al-As. Several later Arabic sources describe the library's destruction by the order of Caliph Umar.<ref>De Sacy, {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, Paris, 1810. Translated by Roger Pearse. Template:Webarchive. "Above the column of the pillars is a dome supported by this column. I think this building was the portico where Aristotle taught, and after him his disciples; and that this was the academy that Alexander built when he built this city, and where was placed the library which Amr ibn-Alas burned, with the permission of Omar."</ref> The earliest was al-Qifti who described the story in a biographical dictionary History of Learned Men, written before 1248.<ref>Samir Khalil. {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}. In Samir Khalil Samir, ed. {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} 28 (2003) 551–598. An English translation of the passage in Al-Qifti by Emily Cottrell of Leiden University is acceptable at the Roger Pearse blog. Template:Webarchive</ref> Bar-Hebraeus, writing in the thirteenth century, quotes Umar as saying to Yaḥyā al-Naḥwī (John Philoponus): "If those books are in agreement with the Quran, we have no need of them; and if these are opposed to the Quran, destroy them." So, Ibn al Qifti recounts, the general ordered that the books be burned to fuel the fires that heated Alexandria's city baths. It is said that they were enough to provide heating for six months.<ref>Ed. Pococke, p. 181, translation on p. 114. Translated by Roger Pearse. Template:Webarchive. Template:Langx</ref>

Later scholars, beginning with Father Eusèbe Renaudot in his 1713 translation of the History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria, are skeptical of these stories, given the amount of time that had passed before they were recorded and the political motivations of the various authors.<ref>E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall, chapter 51: "It would be endless to enumerate the moderns who have wondered and believed, but I may distinguish with honour the rational scepticism of Renaudot, (Hist. Alex. Patriarch, p. 170: ) 'historia ... habet aliquid ut απιστον ut Arabibus familiare est.' However Butler says: 'Renaudot thinks the story has an element of untrustworthiness: Gibbon discusses it rather briefly and disbelieves it.Template:'" (ch. 25, p. 401)</ref><ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>Template:Sfn Roy MacLeod, for example, points out that the story first appeared 500 years after the event, that John Philoponus was almost certainly dead by the time of the conquest of Egypt and that both the Great Library of Alexandria and the Mouseion were likely long gone by then.Template:Sfn 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".<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> The historian Bernard Lewis suggests the myth came into existence during the reign of Saladin in order to justify the Sunni Ayyubids' breaking up of the Shia Fatimid collections and library at public auction.<ref>Bernard Lewis (2008). Mostafa El-Abbadi and Omnia Mounir Fathallah, eds. What Happened to the Ancient Library of Alexandria. Leiden: Brill. pp. 213–217</ref>

Successors to the MouseionEdit

File:Alexandrian World Chronicle - 6v.jpg

Drawing from the Alexandrian World Chronicle depicting Pope Theophilus I of Alexandria, gospel in hand, standing triumphantly atop the Serapeum in 391 ADTemplate:Sfn

SerapeumEdit

The Serapeum is often called the "Daughter Library"<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> of Alexandria. For much of the late fourth century AD it was probably the largest collection of books in the city of Alexandria.Template:Sfn In the 370s and 380s, the Serapeum was still a major pilgrimage site for pagans.Template:Sfn It remained a fully functioning temple, and had classrooms for philosophers to teach in.Template:Sfn It naturally tended to attract followers of Iamblichean Neoplatonism.Template:Sfn Most of these philosophers were primarily interested in theurgy, the study of cultic rituals and esoteric religious practices.Template:Sfn The Neoplatonist philosopher Damascius (lived Template:Circa 458 –after 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.Template:Sfn He enjoined his students to worship the old gods in traditional ways, and he may have even taught them theurgy.Template:Sfn

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.Template:Sfn Nothing, however, is known about the characteristics of this organization.Template:Sfn It may have possessed some bibliographic resources, but whatever they may have been, they were clearly not comparable to those of its predecessor.Template:Sfn

Under the Christian rule of Roman emperor Theodosius I, pagan rituals were outlawed, and pagan temples were destroyed. In 391 AD, the bishop of Alexandria, Theophilus, supervised the destruction of an old Mithraeum.Template:Sfn They gave some of the cult objects to Theophilus,Template:Sfn who had them paraded through the streets so that they could be mocked and ridiculed.Template:Sfn The pagans of Alexandria were incensed by this act of desecration, especially the teachers of Neoplatonic philosophy and theurgy at the Serapeum.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn In retaliation, the Christians vandalized and demolished the Serapeum,Template:Sfn Template:Sfn although some parts of the colonnade were still standing as late as the twelfth century.Template:Sfn Whether an actual library still existed at this point, and if so how extensive it was, is not recorded. Jonathan Theodore has stated that by 391/392 AD there was "no remaining "Great Library" in the sense of the iconic vast, priceless collection".Template:Sfn Only Orosius explicitly mentions the destruction of books or scrolls; sources probably written after the Serapeum's destruction speak of its collection of literature in the past tense.<ref>Paulus Orosius, vi.15.32</ref><ref>Template:Citation</ref> On the other hand, a recent article identifies the literary evidence suggesting that the original Ptolemaic library collection was moved to the Serapeum by the end of the second century AD and that a library is attested there until the Serapeum was destroyed along with the books it contained.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

School of Theon and HypatiaEdit

File:Hypatia (Charles Mitchell).jpg

Hypatia (1885) by Charles William Mitchell, believed to be a depiction of a scene in Charles Kingsley's 1853 novel HypatiaTemplate:Sfn

The Suda, a tenth-century Byzantine encyclopedia, calls the mathematician Theon of Alexandria (Template:Circa AD 335–Template:Circa 405) a "man of the Mouseion".Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn Theon's school was exclusive, highly prestigious, and doctrinally conservative.Template:Sfn Theon does not seem to have had any connections to the militant Iamblichean Neoplatonists who taught in the Serapeum.Template:Sfn Instead, he seems to have rejected the teachings of IamblichusTemplate:Sfn and may have taken pride in teaching a pure, Plotinian Neoplatonism.Template:Sfn In around 400 AD, Theon's daughter Hypatia (born c. 350–370; died 415 AD) succeeded him as the head of his school.Template:Sfn Like her father, she rejected the teachings of Iamblichus and instead embraced the original Neoplatonism formulated by Plotinus.Template:Sfn

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.Template:Sfn Hypatia was extremely popular with the people of AlexandriaTemplate:Sfn and exerted profound political influence.Template:Sfn Theophilus respected Alexandria's political structures and raised no objection to the close ties Hypatia established with Roman prefects.Template:Sfn Hypatia was later implicated in a political feud between Orestes, the Roman prefect of Alexandria, and Cyril of Alexandria, Theophilus' successor as bishop.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Rumors spread accusing her of preventing Orestes from reconciling with CyrilTemplate:Sfn Template:Sfn and, in March of 415 AD, she was murdered by a mob of Christians, led by a lector named Peter.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn She had no successor and her school collapsed after her death.Template:Sfn

Later schools and libraries in AlexandriaEdit

Nonetheless, Hypatia was not the last pagan in Alexandria, nor was she the last Neoplatonist philosopher.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Neoplatonism and paganism both survived in Alexandria and throughout the eastern Mediterranean for centuries after her death.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn British Egyptologist Charlotte Booth notes that many new academic lecture halls were built in Alexandria at Kom el-Dikka shortly after Hypatia's death, indicating that philosophy was clearly still taught in Alexandrian schools.Template:Sfn The late fifth-century writers Zacharias Scholasticus and Aeneas of Gaza both speak of the "Mouseion" as occupying some kind of a physical space.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn

CollectionEdit

It is not possible to determine the collection's size in any era with certainty. 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. 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. Consequently, the Library of Pergamum developed parchment as its own writing material.<ref>Murray, S.A. (2009). The Library: An illustrated history. New York: Skyhorse Publishing, p. 14</ref>

A single piece of writing might occupy several scrolls, and this division into self-contained "books" was a major aspect of editorial work. King Ptolemy II Philadelphus (309–246 BC) is said to have set 500,000 scrolls as an objective for the library.<ref>Tarn, W.W. (1928). "Ptolemy II". The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, 14(3/4), 246–260. The Byzantine writer Tzetzes gives a similar figure in his essay On Comedy.</ref> 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. 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 900,000 scrollsTemplate:Sfn while the most conservative estimates are as low as 40,000,Template:Sfn Template:Sfn which is still an enormous collection that required vast storage space.<ref name=Murray>Template:Cite book</ref>

As a research institution, the library filled its stacks with new works in mathematics, astronomy, physics, natural sciences, and other subjects. Its empirical standards were applied in one of the first and certainly strongest homes for serious textual criticism. As the same text often existed in several different versions, comparative textual criticism was crucial for ensuring their veracity. Once ascertained, canonical copies would then be made for scholars, royalty, and wealthy bibliophiles all over the world, this commerce bringing income to the library.<ref name="Kennedy1999" />

LegacyEdit

In antiquityEdit

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.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn During the Roman Period, the number of libraries only proliferated.Template:Sfn By the fourth century AD, there were at least two dozen public libraries in the city of Rome alone.Template:Sfn As the Library of Alexandria declined, centers of academic excellence arose in various other capital cities. It is possible most of the material from the Library of Alexandria survived, by way of the Imperial Library of Constantinople, the Academy of Gondishapur, and the House of Wisdom. This material may then have been preserved by the Reconquista, which led to the formation of European universities and the recompilation of ancient texts from formerly scattered fragments.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

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.Template:Sfn Among the largest and most prominent of these libraries were the Theological Library of Caesarea Maritima, the Library of Jerusalem, and a Christian library in Alexandria.Template:Sfn These libraries held both pagan and Christian writings side-by-sideTemplate:Sfn and Christian scholars applied to the Christian scriptures the same philological techniques that the scholars of the Library of Alexandria had used for analyzing the Greek classics.Template:Sfn Nonetheless, the study of pagan authors remained secondary to the study of the Christian scriptures until the Renaissance.Template:Sfn

File:Maqamat hariri.jpg

Illustration by Yahyá al-Wasiti from 1237 depicting scholars at an Abbasid library in Baghdad

The survival of ancient texts owes a great deal to the fact that they were exhaustingly copied and recopied. At first, they were copied by professional scribes during the Roman period.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Mediaeval Muslim scholars also played a crucial role in preserving and translating the knowledge of the ancient world.Template:Sfn The Graeco-Arabic translation movement translated a significant number of ancient texts into Arabic, keeping the texts intact and preserving them.Template:Sfn Later, they were translated and re-introduced to Europe.Template:Sfn This movement began in earnest under the Abbasid Caliphate where it played a significant role in the Islamic Golden Age. The translation movement encompassed scholars of various religions in the Abbasid empire. For example, under the patronage of Caliph al-Ma'mun, a Christian scholar and translator named Hunayn ibn Ishaq completed major translation projects of Aristotle, Hypocrates, and GalenTemplate:Sfn so that they remained accessible to scholars. These translations were translated into Latin and re-introduced to Europe.Template:Sfn These texts were copied by monks during Middle Ages and Renaissance, making them more easily available to European scholars once more.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn

Modern library: Bibliotheca AlexandrinaEdit

{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}}

File:CW BibliotechaAlexandrina Inside.jpg

Interior of the modern Bibliotheca Alexandrina

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.Template:Sfn In May 1986, Egypt requested the executive board of UNESCO to allow the international organization to conduct a feasibility study for the project.Template:Sfn This marked the beginning of UNESCO and the international community's involvement in trying to bring the project to fruition.Template:Sfn Starting in 1988, UNESCO and the UNDP worked to support the international architectural competition to design the Library.Template:Sfn Egypt devoted four hectares of land for the building of the Library and established the National High Commission for the Library of Alexandria.Template:Sfn Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak took a personal interest in the project, which greatly contributed to its advancement.Template:Sfn An international architectural competition took place in 1989 with Norwegian architectural firm Snøhetta winning the competition.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Completed in 2002, the Bibliotheca Alexandrina now functions as a modern library and cultural center, commemorating the original Library of Alexandria.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> 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.Template:Sfn