SG
: 2255
SCOTT : 1829
MI :
1576
Library of
Alexandria
Artist´s rendition of the ancient
Library of Alexandria
This Latin inscription
regarding Tiberius
Claudius Balbilus of Rome (d.
c. AD 79) mentions the "ALEXANDRINA BYBLIOTHECE" (line
eight).
An
artist´s interpretation of the library being
burned.
The Royal
Library of Alexandria, or Ancient Library of Alexandria,
in Alexandria, Egypt, was one of
the largest and most significant libraries of
the ancient world. It
flourished under the patronage of the Ptolemaic dynasty
and functioned as a major center of
scholarship from its construction in the 3rd century BC until the
Roman conquest of Egypt in 30 BC. The library was conceived and
opened either during the reign of Ptolemy I Soter
(323–283 BC) or during the reign
of his son Ptolemy II
(283–246
BC).
The
Library is famous for having been burned, resulting in the loss of
many scrolls and books, and has become a symbol of "knowledge and
culture destroyed". Although there is a mythology of
the
burning of the Library at
Alexandria", the library may have suffered several fires or acts of
destruction, of varying degrees, over many years. Different
cultures may have "blamed" each other throughout history, or
distanced their ancestors from responsibility, and we are left with
at times conflicting, and certainly inconclusive fragments from
ancient sources on the exact details of the
destruction.
For example,
during Plutarch´s (AD
46–120) visit to Alexandria in 48 BC, he wrote
that Julius Caesar
had accidentally burned the library down
when he set fire to his own ships. However, Florus and Lucan note that
the flames Caesar set only burned the fleet and some "houses near
the sea". Years after Caesar´s campaign in Alexandria, the Greek
geographer Strabo worked in
the Alexandrian Library and described its two buildings as
"perfectly intact".
Four
possible occasions for the partial or complete destruction of the
Library include: Julius Caesar´s fire during the
Alexandrian War
in 48 BC; the attack of
Aurelian in AD 270
– 275; the decree of Coptic Pope
Theophilus in 391 AD;
and the Muslim conquest in (or after) AD
642.
After the
main library was fully destroyed, ancient scholars used a "daughter
library" in a temple known as the Serapeum, located in
another part of the city. According to Socrates of
Constantinople, Pope
Theophilus destroyed the Serapeum in 391
AD.
In 2002,
the Bibliotheca
Alexandrina was
inaugurated near the site of the ancient library, intended as a
commemoration and emulation of the Royal Library of
Alexandria.
Bibliotheca
Alexandrina
Bibliotheca
Alexandrina
Inside Bibliotheca
Alexandrina
The
Bibliotheca Alexandrina (English: Library of Alexandria) is a major
library and cultural center located on the shore of the
Mediterranean Sea in the Egyptian city of Alexandria. It is both a
commemoration of the Library of Alexandria that was lost in
antiquity, and an attempt to rekindle something of the brilliance
that this earlier center of study and erudition
represented.
History
The idea of reviving the old
library dates back to 1974, when a committee set up by Alexandria
University selected a plot of land for its new library, between the
campus and the seafront, close to where the ancient library once
stood. The notion of recreating the ancient library was soon
enthusiastically adopted by other individuals and agencies. One
leading supporter of the project was former Egyptian President
Hosni Mubarak; UNESCO was also quick to embrace the concept of
endowing the Mediterranean region with a center of cultural and
scientific excellence. An architectural design competition,
organized by UNESCO in 1988 to choose a design worthy of the site
and its heritage, was won by Snøhetta, a Norwegian architectural
office, from among more than 1,400 entries. At a conference held in
1990 in Aswan, the first pledges of funding for the project were
made: USD $65 million, mostly from the Arab states. Construction
work began in 1995 and, after some USD $220 million had been spent,
the complex was officially inaugurated on October 16,
2002.
The Bibliotheca Alexandrina
is trilingual, containing books in Arabic, English and French. In
2010, the library received a generous donation of 500,000 books
from the National Library of France, Bibliothèque nationale de
France (BnF). The gift makes the Bibliotheca Alexandrina the
sixth-largest Francophone library in the world. The BA also is now
the largest depository of French books in the Arab world,
surpassing those of Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco, in addition to
being the main French library in Africa.
Building and library
features
The dimensions of the
project are vast: the library has shelf space for eight million
books, with the main reading room covering 70,000 m² on eleven
cascading levels. The complex also houses a conference center;
specialized libraries for maps, multimedia, the blind and visually
impaired, young people, and for children; four museums; four art
galleries for temporary exhibitions; 15 permanent exhibitions; a
planetarium; and a manuscript restoration laboratory. The library´s
architecture is equally striking. The main reading room stands
beneath a 32-meter-high glass-panelled roof, tilted out toward the
sea like a sundial, and measuring some 160 m in diameter. The walls
are of gray Aswan granite, carved with characters from 120
different human scripts.
The collections at the
Bibliotheca Alexandrina were donated from all over the world. The
Spanish donated documents that detailed their period of Moorish
rule. The French also donated, giving the library documents dealing
with the building of the Suez Canal.
Bibliotheca Alexandrina
maintains the only copy and external backup of the Internet
Archive.
FROM
WIKIPEDIA
