Alexandria during the third and second centuries BCE
Alexandria, with its Great Library, was marked as the intellectual capital of the world.
During the third century BCE, the Musaeum, an educational and research institution, was built in Alexandria. The Great Library was one part of the Musaeum and may have held around 700,000 scrolls (equivalent to over 100,000 printed books.)
MORE IDEAS FROM THE ARTICLE
The idea of a universal library proved to be a game-changer. Alexandria inspired other cities to create rival "universal libraries," such as the Library of Pergamum in today's Turkey.
The Great Library's main structure was likely burned in 48BCE when Ptolemy XIII laid a siege against his wife and co-ruler Cleopatra and her lover, the Roman dictator Julius Caesar. The smaller library building in the Serapeum temple, which was added when the first library ran out of space, may have survived until the 4th century when the Byzantine Emperor Theodosius I ordered all pagan temples to be destroyed.
Alexandria was founded in 331BCE by the Macedonian leader Alexander the Great. Alexander left Egypt a few months later, leaving his viceroy Cleomenes in charge.
Alexander passed away in 323 BCE, and one of his deputies, Macedonian general Ptolemy Lagides, took control of Egypt. Ptolemy executed Cleomenes and declared himself pharaoh. He started the Ptolemaic dynasty and made Alexandria his capital in 305 BCE.
The city's population grew to around 300,000 people. It remained the capital of Ptolemaic Egypt, as well as Roman and Byzantine Egypt, for almost a thousand years.
Alexandria was designed by the architect Dinocrates of Rhodes, using a Hippodamian gridiron street plan. The city was cosmopolitan and diverse. It consisted of Greeks, Jew, and Egyptian Arabs.
The Musaeum, or "shrine of the Muses," from where we get the word museum, included a lengthy roofed walkway and a large communal dining hall, where scholars dined and shared ideas. The scholars were salaried employees, received free room and board, and paid no taxes.
The Musaeum contained exhibit halls, private study rooms, lecture halls, residential quarters for scholars, and theatres. The Great Library held shelves upon shelves of papyrus scrolls and was envisioned as a universal library that would contain all the world's written knowledge.
RELATED IDEAS
- In the mid-19th century, archaeologists found the ruins of the world's oldest known library in Nineveh (modern-day Iraq).
- It dates back to the 7th century B.C and includes 30,000 cuneiform tablets, mostly containing archival documents, religious incantations and scholarly texts.
- The Assyrian ruler Ashurbanipal compiled much of his library by looting works from Babylonia and other territories he conquered. The majority of its contents are now kept in the British Museum in London.
- The city-state of Athens (5th and 4th centuries BCE) valued intellectual pursuits and open inquiry. That lead to the development of philosophy (the love of wisdom).
- The ancient Athenians' focus on understanding themselves and the world around them provided an intellectual breakthrough in history. Debate and seeking the truth inspired thinkers and influenced the world we live in today.
- Athens likely was named after the Olympian goddess of wisdom, Athena, who was also the city's patron deity. Athena was also the goddess of war and peace, as well as the goddess of craftsmanship and weaving.
The Enlightenment was a movement that promoted values of reason, evidence-based knowledge, free inquiry, individual liberty, humanism, limited government, and the separation of church and state.
18th century Paris served as a place for intellectual discourse where philosophes birthed the Age of Enlightenment. Paris earned the nickname "the City of Light."
â€ïž Brainstash Inc.