Learn more about history with this collection
The historical significance of urban centers
The impact of cultural and technological advances
The role of urban centers in shaping society
The Musaeum and Library of Alexandria
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.
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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,...
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Alexandria pioneered the universal library
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 si...
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The start of the city Alexandria
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 exe...
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Alexandria: A cosmopolitan city
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 cosmopol...
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The Library of Alexandria
- The ancient world's intellectual jewel was established by general Ptolemy I Soter after Alexander the Great's death in 323 B.C.
- At its peak, it may have included over 500,000 papyrus scrolls containing works of literature and texts on history, law, mathematics, and science. ...
The Imperial Library of Constantinople
- The library was built in the fourth century A.D. under Constantine the Great but stayed small until the fifth century.
- The collection increased to 120,000 scrolls and codices.
- The Imperial Library size continued to increase and shrink over the following centuries due to n...
The Library of Ashurbanipal
- 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.
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