The Great Library of Alexandria, Egypt

One of my favorite stories about ancient Egypt is the legends surrounding the great library of Alexandria. The great library of Alexandria is said to have existed sometime between the third century BCE and the sixth century CE. Of course, like most of the marvels of the ancient world, it was destroyed due to human stupidity.

Can you imagine an ancient library so large that it contained over half a million volumes and scrolls? This is how large and monumentous the great library of Alexandria is said to have been. It is truly sad to think that we have lost much of this wealth of information from ancient times. Information that could really have shed some light on many aspects of world history during the ancient times. Not just Egyptian history, but Greek history and probably many other cultural aspects.

Alexander the Great founded the city of Alexandria in Egypt in the third century BCE. He had been crowned pharaoh by the Egyptians, as they were grateful to him for freeing them from the Persian empire's tyranny. Unfortunately though, Alexander the Great died prematurely and another ruler took his place as ruler of Egypt. That ruler was Ptolemy I.

Luckily, Ptolemy I shared an interest in obtaining knowledge, just as his predecessor had. The great library of Alexandria was then founded by Ptolemy I in the latter part of the third century BCE. No one knows the exact location of the great library of Alexandria, but scholars guess that it was probably sitting right on the coastline of the water (the Mediterranean Sea). Many students studied at the great library of Alexandria, reading and examining a predicted five hundred thousand scrolls and volumes of the written word.

But how did the great library of Alexandria acquire so many volumes of books at such an early time? Ptolemy ordered that any books or volumes of books brought into the city by foreigners or travelers were to be confiscated. Many of the times the people were paid or traded for their books, or the books were copied by the scribes of the great library of Alexandria and then the copies handed back to the owners.

While the exact structural design is unknown, the great library of Alexandria is known to have been made up of many rooms including - meeting rooms, reading rooms, lecture halls and gardens. It is believed that Aristotle's student, Demetrius of Phaleron, set the original design for the great library of Alexandria.

Another method of acquiring knowledge from all over the world to store in the library of Alexandria included trips to Athens and other cities in order to collect books off of incoming ships at the port. There is also a legend that Mark Antony gave Cleopatra two hundred thousand scrolls from the Library of Pergamum as a wedding gift, though this is denied by many scholars & historians.

As with many other ancient wonders, the great library of Alexandria crumbled at some point. Historians believe that four events might have destroyed the great library of Alexandria. Those could have been any or all of the following - a fire in the Alexandrian War (involving Julius Caesar), the attack of Aurelian, the decree of a pope, and/or the Muslim conquest in the sixth century CE.

Whatever event led to the ultimate destruction of the great library of Alexandria, we can be sure of this. With its loss, we have lost much ancient knowledge that we could have used today. Carl Sagan, in his special on the great library of Alexandria posted below, tells of one particular book made up of three volumes known as the "History of the World". Apparently it was written by Babilonius and took into account the origins of the world from "creation", to the great flood (said to hace been four hundred thousand years after the creation of the world), and up to the establishment of the great library of Alexandria. We do not have this book...it has been lost with the loss of the great library of Alexandria. Think of all that we might know about the history of the ancient world today, if stupidity hadn't prevailed.