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8 Legendary Ancient Libraries
The Libraries of Trajan’s Forum
- Around 112 A.D. the multi-use building complex was completed by Emperor Trajan in the city of Rome.
- It consisted of plazas, markets, and religious temples as well as a library.
- Two separate structures housed the library, one for works in Latin, and one for works in Greek and each included large central reading chambers and two levels of bookshelf-lined alcoves containing about 20,000 scrolls.
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SIMILAR ARTICLES & IDEAS:
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,...
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 executed Cleomenes and declared himself pharaoh. He started the Ptolemaic dynasty and made Alexandria his capital in 305 BCE.
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 cosmopolitan and diverse. It consisted of Greeks, Jew, and Egyptian Arabs.
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Key Ideas
Egyptian Senet
One of the earliest known board games, Senet was played in 3100 BC and loved by Queen Nefertari and the Pharaoh Tutankhamun.
Played using a longboard having three rows of ten squar...
The Royal Game Of Ur
- Also known as Twenty Squares, this 4500-year-old game, first unearthed in ancient Mesopotamia, is impressive in its complex rules and intricate design.
- The beautiful game board uses twenty squares and has a narrow bridge in the middle part, was played in Iraq, Israel, Egypt, Turkey and many other ancient civilizations.
- To finish the game as winners, players had to race their opponent to the opposite end of the board, moving pieces according to knucklebone dice rolls.
The Game of Mehen
- Named after the Egyptian serpentine deity, Mehen is also known as the Egyptian Snake Game and was played between 3100 to 2300 BC.
- Six players could simultaneously play this spiral board, each having a piece crafted in the shape of a lion or a sphere.
- The rules of this game are not very clear because it lost its popularity after the decline of Egypt’s Old Kingdom and is hardly found in archaeological records.
Historical Significance Of Florence, Italy
Known as the ‘Jewel Of Italian Renaissance’, the city of Florence has countless groundbreaking developments, seeing advances in politics, finance, business, engineering, philosophy, science, archit...
The Story Of Florence: The Renaissance City
Now a fashion city, Florence was initially well-known for woollen cloth, creating a central marketplace for the best-quality wool, cleaned to perfection.
The success of the fabric business made the Florentines rich, leading to new financial breakthroughs and innovations, like bank loan facilities, which further enhanced the city’s wealth.
Wealthiest City In Europe
Innovative banking practices like bills of exchange (to facilitate-out-of-city payments) and double-entry bookkeeping, along with the flourishing cloth industry made Florence the wealthiest city in Europe.
The city, flush with wealth, started to focus on art, humanism, creation, enjoyment of life’s pleasures, and intellectual pursuits. It framed itself as ‘The New Rome’ and was a true Renaissance city due to it’s elevated and classist thinking that offered freedom, prosperity and knowledge.