Library in Alexandria

According to some stories i have heard there was a library in alexandris which contained works of ancient scholars such as Archemedes. I was wondering does any one know if these knowledge survived else where. Does anyone know if it managed to survive in arabic?

Even if works remain in other shapes and translations, how on earth would we know its from there? Its not like scrolls have "Copyright Library Of Alexendria" on them

Im probebly wrong because I am tired....but IS'NT this the Liberary that burned to the ground????
like in Cleopatras time????? Thats what came to mind the minute I saw this thread........I thought it was a historical fact that the Alexandria Liberary was destroyed?

Many believe that this library was destroyed by Julius Ceaser when he attacked the ships in the towns harbor setting off a fire that spread throughout the rest of the city. It would probably be impossible to find if any of the works survived, were moved, or were in any other languages.

Library of Alexandria

This site gives a couple of theories on it.

I always felt alot of the stuff was taken before burned.
You may find it in the Vatican. Just a guess.

The books we're talking about were stored in a museum and temple established by Ptolomy 1, a friend of Alexander the Great. The date of it's building was somewhere between 300 and 290 BCE. The works contained within included valuable books in every field of human endeavor.

There are conflicting stories about the burning of the library in Alexandria...
one has it that julius Ceasar partially burned it when he attacked the harbour in 47 BCE, setting fire to the area where the library was situated. This is not popular with historians because of the fact that it was not recorded (the Romans were very particular about recording everything they did)

Subsequent attacks were by Christians under the guidance of Emporer Aurelian in the 4rth century.

In 400, the books were in the Serapeum, which was ordered burnt to the ground by Theophilus, the bishop of Alexandria.

In 415, bishop Cyril, who had succeeded Theophilus, burned whatever remained of the 500,000 to 750,000 books and scrolls.



[edit on 23-12-2004 by masqua]

Apparently there were manuscripts and copies stored at the vatican with advanced geometry and other mathematics. so some did survive from alexandria although i was hoping to maybe find amention of Atlantis.

The early church burned what was left, as Masqua points out. There were philosophical papers, competing uncanonized books, competing gospels, technological marvels ( the library was also a patent office, containing working models of inventions).

After 326 AD, when Constantine ordered Christianity to be the state religion, there was a organized agenda to destroy anything that offered a different viewpoint than what the Church held. The sybilline books, (prophecies), hundreds of theological papers, inventions that would be recognized today as glass, acrylic, steam engines, analog computers ( differential gearing systems), and on and on.

this is what happens when religion gains political power.

The Library is burnt to the ground, and Vatican might as well be burnt to the ground.

Originally posted by Frosty
The Library is burnt to the ground, and Vatican might as well be burnt to the ground.

What? Sorry, not sure what you're saying. mind making it clearer for me? Sorry about my momentary idiocy, I hope it's only temporary.

Ooh, actually, I -think- you're saying that the library has been burned to the ground, and the Vatican might as well be, because it'll never let anyone else see the books? Right? Got it.

I wonder how one would go about getting into the vatican.

Originally posted by theRiverGoddess
I thought it was a historical fact that the Alexandria Liberary was destroyed?

Destroyed, yes, but by who? Its unknown. Caesar set fire to some Ptolomean warships when he was in Alexandria and it may have damaged the library. Other records supposedly suggest that it survived and was finally destroyed in the arab conquest.

Another good page on the Library of Alexandria (apparently there were several; not just one) is here:
www.kingtutshop.com...

Mention is also given to Hypatia, the librarian at the time of the destruction of the library.

What I found interesting is that the names of many of the librarians are recorded.

And many of the books survived -- Ptolomy III asked for COPIES of the books, and anything in the library would have been a copy of something. Original books in the library would probably have been copied elsewhere.

It was time-consuming to copy books (just start copying one book by hand for yourself; you'll see how tedious it gets) and over the years, scrolls have been lost or destroyed. But there's little doubt that copies of the works DID exist in many other places. Most were destroyed by that old thief, time.

In devotion to the memory of Hypatia, I took it upon myself to pen a little poem...

Lamentations for Hypatia

A rising sun revealed
impossibilities and miracles
as host to Hypatia and the clamshells.

Hypatia wanted her tea;
absent in the cupboard clutter
lost among the pekoes and green leaf,
fluttering amid spices of a distant thyme
and the schemes of Peter the Clerk
burning the library of Alexandria.

I saw dire omens of flying tiles
and a rendering apart of ancient wisdoms.

Impossible birds jewelled the roof
of the Caesarium at Lent,
strutting the rituals of mating: I see
carmine Cardinals turning 'round and 'round
as golden crested cockatoos
courted their bloody breasted girlfriends.

I ran from Hypatia then,
before the clamshells scraped her bones.
Accepting the fate, the rack
of the Dark Ages, my impoverished soul
flapping about my knobbly knees,
tied and re-tied to cover the naked truth,
disintegrating about my chilled loins
while I discussed the weather with passersby.

Anxious in my unseemliness
and a paupacy of pockets
I turned in my shame
seeing her smoke
rising from the Cinaron.


Masqua


[edit on 23-12-2004 by masqua]

[edit on 23-12-2004 by masqua]

Hypatia was more than a librarian...

daughter of Theon, a Platonic philosopher, she was a brilliant philosopher, astronomer and mathematician as well as the leading lecturer at the library and museum. She represented the highest standard of 'pagan' knowledge at the time and was a woman to boot...and for those reasons was sought out by the Christian mobs.

She was taken to a church called the Caesarium where she was stripped and stoned with roofing tiles, torn apart and had her bones scraped by oyster shells. After all that, what was left of her remains were burned in a spot called the Cinaron.

It is said that Bishop Cyril was jealous of her popularity.

There is not much to be found online about this but it is written about in Socrates Scholasitus (380-450) in his records 'Ecclesiastical History'.

The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church says that if bishop Cyril didn't order Hypatia's murder, it "was certainly the work of his supporters".

masqua

Some of they manuscripts are known to have made it to the vatican, however i suspect that if you check really old libraries in Constanople in turkey you may find some of the manuscripts survived in arabic. This is where the Piri Reis map was found and was allegedly taken from the library in Alexandria.

Correct Amarillo, why have such an extensive archive when no one is allowed but 10 feet within it 3 times a year?

If you have seen the move The Hidden Treasure (?) with Nicholos Cage, the female companion in the film while they are searching through the burried treasures that some of the scrolls "are from Alexandria". Pretty funny considering how fast it took her to identify their origin. That's Hollywood for ya.

That's "National Treasure" whence my wife and I just came, after watching it as a matinee today.

Great movie, nothing heavy, just light-hearted romance and excitement, although I am sure some of the more excitable here would consider it more of a true story than a fictional piece.

But I'd never heard of any of the stuff from the Library of Alexandria ending up in the Vatican. Is there any evidence or links for this, or is that just conjecture?