Ancient Libraries

This is a list of ancient libraries, and a few early medieval ones, with information as available about each. They are classified according to region of the world. There are many more, but the information on them is not currently available for this site. The buildings of all of those listed (and the contents of some) have been destroyed by natural disaster, by invading armies, or by order of religious leaders. However, there have been remains of many found by archaeologists.

Americas

Mexico

* Mani (Yucatán)
About 100,000 Maya texts were ordered by Bishop Diego de Landa to be burned. They contained hundreds or thousands of years of written records. The information included genealogies, biographies, collections of songs, science books, history, prophecy, astrology, and ritual.
* Tenochtitlán
In 1528, the first archbishop of Mexico, Don Juan de Zumárraga, ordered every book, codex, and hieroglyph -- numbering about 700,000 -- to be burned.
* Texcoco
Libraries, including some with vast information on medicinal plants, and books found elsewhere were ordered by the Spanish to be burned.
* Surviving Ancient Books
a. Dresden Codex
It pertains mainly to the Maya cycles of time. It also includes descriptions of solar eclipses, stories of Quetzalcoatl, and Maya ceremonies.
b. Grolier Codex
It contains information on scientific and religious matters.
c. Madrid Codex
It contains a 70-page document and a 42-page document on scientific and religious matters.
d. Mendoza Codex
It is one of the oldest of ancient Mexico, covering the history of the Mixtec people from 692 CE. It is written on deerskin in book form and unfolds like an accordion. The writing contains pictographic, ideographic and rebus forms.
e. Paris Codex
It is an 11-page document containing an account of Maya history.
f. Popul Vuh
It is the prime source for the Maya cosmology, setting out the concept of the cycle of the Suns. This is not original book, but one written from memory.
g. Tro-Coretesianus Codex
It is a Maya codex in two parts and is an astrological work that was used by priests.

Africa

Carthage

* Thamugadi
Funds to build this library were provided by Quintianus Rogatianus. The plan was a square, with a forecourt surrounded by white limestone columns. In the walls were niches for cases that held rolls. Rooms on each side served as reading-rooms. The building was able to hold about 23,000 rolls. This was the only library in the Roman Empire west of Italy.
Egypt

* Abu Simbel Temple
Scribes were assigned as the keepers of the books in the library. The library consisted of theological works, technical writings, literature, history annals, and practical texts. Other temple libraries were similar to this one.
* Alexandria
The most famous library in antiquity was created some time after 297 BCE as part of a school or museum by Ptolemy II (Philadelphus). The staff was made up of scholars in various fields.They did research, editing of works of previous writers, and carried on experiments. Known as the Brucheion Library, it had copies of all known books in the city. Agents were sent throughout the known world to acquire other texts. Ships entering the harbour were forced to lend books aboard to be copied. According to tradition, seventy Hebrews translated the Scriptures into the Greek Septuagint here. Many outstanding figures served as head librarians or were associated with the library. The collection, estimated to be over 700,000 rolls, was classified by Callimachus. Alexandria was burned by Ptolemy VIII (Cacergetes) in a civil war in 89-88 BCE, causing many scholars to leave. The library was reconstituted, but it was never as great. It was again partly destroyed in 47 BCE. Later, 200,000 rolls taken from Pergamum were added. Some rolls were taken from Alexandria to Rome in the Christian era. Alexandria was burned in 273 CE by Roman Emperor Aurelian. More damage was done by Christian bishop Theophilus in 391 CE. Whatever was left was destroyed by Moslem conqueror Omar in 645 CE. A replacement for this famous library was finally opened in 2001.
* Edfu
It was known as the House of Papyrus. Over the entrance was a large carved palette. On the walls of the interior, there were texts and emblems of the instruments used by the scribes. A catalogue, in two parts, of hieratical books was graven on one wall. The first specified twelve coffers of works. The second specified twenty-two coffers. No remains of papyrus or parchment have been found.
* Heliopolis
In the Hall of Rolls of a temple was an early medical library, which contained long works with lists of diseases and cures.
* Hermopolis
In the temple of Thoth one of the largest papyri collections on medicine was found. There were six intact, plus fragments of many others. A scribe-priest was known as the keeper of the sacred books. His assistant, a woman, was known as the lady of letters, mistress of the house of books. There was also a medical school at the temple.
* Tell-El-Amarna
The Place of the Records of the palace of the King, the library of King Amenhotep IV, existed about 1350 BCE. The contents were clay tablets in Babylonian cuneiform. They were mainly correspondence between the king and vassal states and foreign rulers in Asia Minor. Within these letters is much social and economic information. Works that may have been written on media other than tablets have not survived.
* Thebes
The House of Writings, the collection of King Khufu, existed about 2600 BCE. There is no information available on this library.
* Thebes
The Healing Place of the Soul, the palace collection of King Ramesses II, existed about 1300 BCE. It contained about 20,000 rolls and was probably a religious or philosophic library. Amen-en-haut was one of the librarians.
Mauritania

* Chinguetti
This existing collection contains centuries-old manuscripts, among the oldest in Islam. These are documents of the village when it was a flourishing city along the ancient caravan route. They are being protected by today's villagers.

Asia

Armenia

* Edessa
This was a consolidation of the libraries of the temples at Nisibis and Sinope. The books were in Greek and Syriac.
Asia Minor

* Ephesus
The Library of Celsus was set up by the governor, Tiberius Julius Aquila Polemaeanus, who left money to purchase and to maintain the books. This was a donation to the city and a memorial to his father. It was completed by his heirs.
* Halicarnassus
It contained mostly Greek works, including those of Euripedes, Herodutus, Homer, and Longianus. It was open to the public so that young people could learn.
* Hattusas
This library was in operation from the 17th century BCE to the 13th century BCE. The mass of tablets from a royal palace was created by an unknown monarch. The tablets dealt with governmental activity, prosaic handbooks, Hittite renderings of Sumerian and Babylonian epics, religion, myths, legends, and historical annals. There were also detailed bibliographic entries and information on shelving.
* Pergamum
This library was founded by Attalus I about 200 BCE and lasted for several hundred years. It was located next to the temple of Athena. A listing of the holdings was drawn up. His son Eumenes II brought it to its peak. He strove to have the library to be equal to the one at Alexandria. This caused the Egyptians to halt the export of papyrus to Pergamium. As a result, the librarians developed a new form of parchment as a replacement. Eventually, the library declined and suffered loss of rolls to the Romans. These may have been returned by Augustus. Later, some volumes were taken to Samarkand.
* Rhodiapolis
This library contained mostly works in Greek. Included were those of a local physician, who was considered to be the Homer of medical poetry.
Assyria

* Ashur
This library, created by Tiglath-Pileser I, operated between 1115 BCE and 1077 BCE. This king was probably the first founder of a library. Some of the tablets were literary, but most of the writings were professional for use by scribes and priests. The greatest number dealt with omens determined by astrology, sacrificial animals, and natural events. The next largest group were the standardized handbooks of vocabulary lists, plants, trees, animals, gods, place names, multiplication tables, and astronomy. There were also some hymns and musical compositions.
* Dura
A unique set of parchments and papyri were found. They contained literary and religious texts, official and business documents, and military archives. They were written in Aramaic, Pahlavi, Greek, and Latin.
* Kalakh
This library existed in the 7th and 8th centuries B.C.E. The books included the reignal year of the king, and the month and the day that they were written. The catalogue entry includes the title of the work, the number of lines, the contents, and the opening words. There appears to have been some sort of classification of tyhe books.
* Nineveh, Assyria
One of the greatest libraries in the ancient world was a private collection of King Ashurbanipal and in use in the period from 1115 BCE to 1077 BCE. It contained about 1,500 titles, many of which were in multiple copies. The largest number of them were in technical literature of religion and magic. The next largest number was in scholarly texts, containing lists of cuneiform signs, words and names, and dictionaries for translating from Sumerian into Akkadian. There were such literary works as The Epic of Gilgamesh, The Epic of Creation, The Myth of Atrachasis, and The Epic of Irra. Tablets were taken from the temples of Babylon, from the library in Ashur, and from private collections to add to this library. Also, there were about 300 wooden boards containing written works. Theft of the holdings was a threat that caused security measures to be imposed. There were borrowing privileges with some of the collections of the day, particularly for specific professions.
Bithnya

* Heraclea
In about 365 BCE, the ruler Clearchus opened a library to the public.
China

* Hopei
This was a Buddhist Grotto Library. The texts were carved on stone, and are well preserved. Confuscian and Taoist works are included, but Buddhist scriptures constitute the largest collection.
* Loyang
Lao-tse, according to tradition, was the keeper of the imperial library located here. This was the most famous library in ancient China. It was built up during the Chou dynasty. However, during the succeeding dynasty, all books, except a few topics, were publicly burned.
* Tun Huang
This is a cave library containing a collection of 15,000 rolls and a few books. The writing, some dating at 400 CE, was on paper, which was well preserved. An early printed work in roll form is dated May 11, 868, CE.
Cyprus

* Citium
Writing was with red and black ink on marble tablets. One tablet contained a record of payments.
India

* Taxila
It is the oldest known library in India. It flourished more than one thousand years, up to the middle of the 5th century CE. It was located in a university centre.
Israel

* Caesarea
This was a Christian library founded by Origen in the 3rd century CE. It was passed on to Pamphilus. It survived the burning of the Christian libraries by Emperor Diocletian in 303 CE. This library was used by Eusebius in 30 CE and by Jerome in the 4th century CE. It survived until Palestine was captured by the Persians in 614 CE, when all Christian records were destroyed.
* Jerusalem
The books of the Law, the writings of Moses and the prophets, the book of Joshua, and sermons and exhortations of the prophets were preserved in the Hebrew temple. Most of the library was destroyed during the Babylonian captivity. However, much of it was restored by Nehemiah and Ezra after the return of the Israelites. Again, much of it was lost when Antiochus destroyed Jerusalem. It may have been re-established by Judas Maccabeus. There are several references to the collections in the Old Testament of the Bible.
* Khirbet Qumran
Remnants of more than 600 rolls of papyrus and thin sheet copper were found in several caves. This collection is known as the Dead Sea Scrolls. Included on the rolls are some books of the Old Testament of the Bible, a collection of hymns, a manual of discipline, and other religious works. Apparently, there was a type of master library maintained with a scriptorium. These are works of an Essene group, dating to about 125 BCE to 70 CE.
* Lachish
Lachish letters were found on eighteen inscribed potsherds. Also found was a clay seal having the marks of papyrus fibres.
* Taanach
It was operating in 1400 BCE. In one room was found a book-chest made of baked clay, which contained tablets in the Babylonian language.
* Types of Libraries in Israel
a. central library at Jerusalem
b. temple libraries
c. local public libraries, including a special Greek public library
d. synagogue libraries, the most used
e. monastic libraries of the Essenes
Korea

* Kyongu
The oldest known printed text, found here, was printed between 704 CE and 751 CE. It is a scroll which is twenty feet long. The printing was done with twelve wooden blocks. The paper scroll was made from fibres of the paper-mulberry tree. The scroll was located in the Pulguksa Temple.
Media

* Istakhr
It was called Diz-i-Nipisht. It held the original Avesta, the sacred book of the Zoroastrians.Mesopotamia

* Erach
This library in the Red Temple existed about 3000 BCE. It contained clay tablets in pictographic script.
* Nimrud
One room of this library contained treaties by an Assyrian king with neighbouring princes. One wing had records, including tablets concerning taxation and trade, and agriculture and administrative reports.
* Nippur
This library existed in the mid 3rd millenium BCE. An excavation uncovered a group of tablets dealing with the following: geographical names, a list of gods, a list of professions, a list of Sumerian works of literature, writing exercises, and a number of hymns. The owner of the collection is not known.
* Tello
This library existed about 2350 BCE. It is a collection of about 30,000 tablets in cuneiform.
* Ur
A Great House of Tablets, a building housing records, existed about 2100 BCE. It contained a well-organized law library or legal archive. One set of tablets contained a code of laws 300 years before Hammurabi. There were also the records of a national court for over a century.
Phoenicia

* Sidon
It was so capably kept that it became a byword. The historical writings were of great exactness and were preserved in archives. The library was readily accessible and open to the public.
* Tyre
The library had authentic records that were preserved in archives. Like the one at Sidon, it was readily accessible and open to the public.
Persia

* Nisibis
About 485 CE, the Nestorian Christians who fled from Syria built this library. It was a good source of Greek science and philosophy. Scholars from Greece were attracted here. By 750 CE, the Moslems, seeing the value of this library, translated many of the books into Arabic.
Syria

* Damascus
A royal library was established in the late 7th century CE under the Umayyid dynasty. In 690 CE, the archives were separated from the literary and religious works and placed into a House of Archives. The palace library was open for use by students and scholars. In it were copies of books obtained from all parts of the known world. They included works on alchemy, medicine, astrology, literature, history, philosophy, and the Moslem religion.
* Ebla
It is dated to 2300 BCE to 2250 BCE. A collection of about 2,000 clay tablets was found in an archive room in a buried royal palace. They contained the following: administrative records dealing with the distribution of textiles and metals; cereals, olive oil, agricultural land, and breeding of animals; names of professions, geographical locations, birds, and fish; incantations; and the text of a Sumerian myth. The writing on the tablets was in Sumerian and Eblaite.
* Palmyra
There were hundreds of inscriptions, dealing with fixed tariffs, Queen Zenobia, the priesthood, and wine consumption.
* Ugarit
A library in the royal palace of King Nigmed existed about the 13th century BCE. The clay tablets included diplomatic correspondence, treaties, laws, some history, some commercial texts, and a dictionary of Ugartic and Sumerian. Also at the same time was one in the home of the high priest. It was mainly theological; but there were also some epic poetyry, magic lore, history, scientific dictionaries (unilingual and bilingual). There were also genealogical lists of kings and priests.
Turkey

* Boghaz Kui
It contained over 10,000 clay tablets in two sections. One set was on black and grey clay. The other was on yellow and brown clay.
* Debir
The community was known as "booktown." The library held Hittite books.

Europe

Byzantium

* Constantinople
The imperial library was established by Emperor Constantine between 330 CE and 336 CE. He sent agents throughout the Roman Empire to search for Christian books for it. His collection included many writings of Greek and Latin secular authors. There were only about 7,000 books at the time of his death.
* Constantinople
The library of the Academy, a school of philosophy, was founded by Theodosius II in the 5th century CE. In the early 8th century CE, books containing religious pictures were sometimes destroyed as they were considered as heathen by the iconoclasts. The library flourished until the end of that century.
Greece

* Athens
There is some uncertainty about the accuracy of this one, which is said to have existed about 560 BCE. A collection was given to the city by the tyrant Pisistratus. The city opened it to the public and added to it and took care of it. It is reported to have been taken by Xerxes to Persia when he conquered by Athens. When King Seleucus conquered Persia, he returned the books to Athens.
* Athens
Plato was one of the first Greeks to own a library. Part of it was composed of a purchase of the library of Philolaus of Tarentum. Another part was obtained in Syracuse.
* Athens
Late in the 4th century BCE, Aristotle owned a library at his Peripatetic school. It included several hundred volumes, large for the time, that had been acquired by purchase and by gift. It contained his own writings and was well-rounded in the subject areas. He made it available to his pupils and friends.
* Athens
In this library of the 4th century BCE were official copies of plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripedes. These were to ensure that only authentic versions of the plays were produced. The books could be read and copied, but they could not be removed.
* Athens
This library was located in the Ptolemain secondary school. Students presented one hundred books to the school annually as a graduation gift.
* Athens
A library was established by Emperor Hadrian in the early 2nd century BCE. The library was a square enclosed by a colonnade of 120 columns. There were spacious rooms of alabaster and gold, filled with paintings and statuary.There were rooms for reading and lectures. There was, also, a central area from which books may have been delivered to readers. Nothing is known about the types of books in the library.
* Cos
In the period of about 200-175 B.C.E., well-to-do citizens subscribed to the erection of a library building. They contributed to a book-purchase fund or they donated books.
* Rhodes
This library existed during the 2nd and 1st centuries B.C.E., possibly at the university. There was a subject catalogue that was arranged alphabetically.
Italy

* Como
It was established in the late 1st century B.C.E. by Pliny the Younger in this, his home town. He endowed it with a million sesterces (the common unit of computation of Roman money).
* Herculaneum
This was the private library of L. Calpurnius Piso, a collection of about 3,000 rolls, encased in wooden boxes. The majority of the rolls were philosophic works of the Sophis school. There were some works of medicine, literary criticism, and general literature. Most of them were in Greek, but there were some in Latin. The library was destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.
* Rome and Atrium
This collection of Cicero was maintained both in the city and in country villas. A specialist was used in setting up the libraries. Highly trained Greek slaves served as library personel. Copying was a major work, but reshelving, repairing, and keeping the catalogue up-to-date were functions that they performed. Parchment was used to place the author's name on the end of each roll. There was also the problem of theft that had to be handled. This library was used primarily by researchers.
* Rome
This private collection of Lucullus existed after 66 BCE. It was collected in Asia Minor as booty. The layout of the building was based on the library at Pergamum. In a room about three meters by three meters, the walls were lined with shelves with rolls piled high. The books were in Greek; but later, some in Latin were added. The library was open to friends and relatives of Lucullus, but also to Greeks living in Rome. Patrons from Greek states in Asia Minor came to use the library.
* Rome
The first-known public library, the Atrium Libertatis, located on the Aventine Hill, was opened about 37 BCE. The founder was G. Asinius Pollio, who, with his own wealth, consolidated several collections and reorganized the public archives there. The interior was adorned with the busts of the great writers. The collection was made up of Greek and Latin literature.
* Rome
Emperor Augustus built this library during the period of 36 BCE and 28 BCE, locating it in the temple of Apollo, on the Palatine Hill. It was divided into Greek and Latin sections. The first librarian was Pompeius Macer, and a later librarian was Julius Hyginus. The library was enlarged by Emperors Tiberius and Caligula. Although damaged by fire twice, it lasted into the 4th century CE.
* Rome
There was a library located in the Porticus Octaviae, which was believed to have been founded by Octavia, sister of Augustus. The first librarian was Caius Melissus. The library was damaged by fire about 80 CE, but it survived into the 2nd century CE.
* Rome
Emperor Vespasian established a library in 76 CE. It included books taken from Jerusalem when that city was captured by the Romans. According to Josephus, the Jewish historian, it contained copies of the books of Moses. The library was damaged by fire about 190 CE, but it was restored and lasted into the 4th century CE.
* Rome
The Ulpian Library, the greatest of the Roman libraries, was founded in 114 CE by Emperor Trajan. It may have been based on the private library of Epaphrodites of Cherones. The collection included about 20,000 rolls, which was divided into Greek and Latin sections. Early in the 4th century BCE, it was moved to the Baths of Diocletian. However, it was later returned to its original site. It was still in existence in 455 CE.
* Rome
A library was begun at the Baths of Caracalla in 212 CE and completed ten or more years later. There were two rectangular chambers set into the enclosure wall, opening at the front to the colonnade. Along the short walls were niches for bookcases.
* Rome
In the latter half of the 4th century CE, Pope Damasus I established a library in the church of San Lorenzo. At first, it was only an archive. Later, this was transferred to the lateran Palace. Eventually, the library included not only Bibles but also various Christian theologcal writings. It did not include non-Christian writings for a long time because of the official attitude toward those.
* Squillace
In the mid 6th century, Cassiodorus established a library at his monastery, Vivarium. He purchased books for it in northern Africa. Included in his library were works of major pagan Greek and Latin writers. His scriptorium produced many copies of Christian writings.
Spain

* Granada
About 1510, all Arabic manuscripts ordered by Cardinal Ximenes were ordered to be burned.

4. The faculty on dissemination and conservation of knowledge. This group organized and directed the purely educational endeavors of those early ages. It was presided over by Fad. The educational methods of Fad consisted in supervision of employment accompanied by instruction in improved methods of labor. Fad formulated the first alphabet and introduced a writing system. This alphabet contained twenty-five characters. For writing material these early peoples utilized tree barks, clay tablets, stone slabs, a form of parchment made of hammered hides, and a crude form of paperlike material made from wasps' nests. The Dalamatia library, destroyed soon after the Caligastia disaffection, comprised more than two million separate records and was known as the "house of Fad."

The blue man (Cro-Magnon) was partial to alphabet writing and made the greatest progress along such lines. The red man preferred pictorial writing, while the yellow races drifted into the use of symbols for words and ideas, much like those they now employ. But the alphabet and much more was subsequently lost to the world.
(The headquarters of the Planetary Prince was situated in the Persian Gulf region of those days, in the district corresponding to later Mesopotamia.)
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5. THE CUSTODIANS OF KNOWLEDGE

The superaphic custodians of knowledge are the higher "living epistles" known and read by all who dwell on Paradise. They are the divine records of truth, the living books of real knowledge. You have heard about records in the "book of life." The custodians of knowledge are just such living books, records of perfection imprinted upon the eternal tablets of divine life and supreme
surety. They are in reality living, automatic libraries. The facts of the universes are inherent in these primary supernaphim, actually recorded in these angels; and it is also inherently impossible for an untruth to gain lodgment in the minds of these perfect and replete repositories of the truth of eternity and the intelligence of time.

These custodians conduct informal courses of instruction for the residents of the eternal Isle, but their chief function is that of reference and verification. Any sojourner on Paradise may at will have by his side the living repository of the particular fact or truth he may wish to know. At the northern extremity of the Isle there are available the living finders of knowledge, who will designate the director of the group holding the information sought, and forthwith will appear the brilliant beings who are the very thing you wish to know. No longer must you seek enlightenment from engrossed pages; you now commune with living intelligence face to face. Supreme knowledge you thus obtain from the living beings who are its final custodians.

When you locate that supernaphim who is exactly what you desire to verify, you will find available all the known facts of all universes, for these custodians of knowledge are the final and living summaries of the vast network of the recording angels, ranging from the seraphim and seconaphim of the local and superuniverses to the chief recorders of the tertiary supernaphim in Havona. And this living accumulation of knowledge is distinct from the formal records of Paradise, the cumulative summary of universal history.

The wisdom of truth takes origin in the divinity of the central universe, but knowledge, experiential knowledge, largely has its beginnings in the domains of time and space--therefore the necessity for the maintenance of the far-flung superuniverse organizations of the recording seraphim and supernaphim sponsored by the Celestial Recorders.

These primary supernaphim who are inherently in possession of universe knowledge are also responsible for its organization and classification. In constituting themselves the living reference library of the universe of universes, they have classified knowledge into seven grand orders, each having about one million subdivisions. The facility with which the residents of Paradise can consult this vast store of knowledge is solely due to the voluntary and wise efforts of the custodians of knowledge. The custodians are also the exalted teachers of the central universe, freely giving out their living treasures to all beings on any of the Havona circuits, and they are extensively, though indirectly, utilized by the courts of the Ancients of Days. But this living library, which is available to the central and superuniverses, is not accessible to the local creations. Only by indirection and reflectively are the benefits of Paradise knowledge secured in the local universes.
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5. THE CUSTODIANS OF RECORDS ON PARADISE

From among the tertiary supernaphim in Havona, certain of the senior chief recorders are chosen as Custodians of Records, as keepers of the formal archives of the Isle of Light, those archives which stand in contrast to the living records of registry in the minds of the custodians of knowledge, sometimes designated the "living library of Paradise."

The recording angels of the inhabited planets are the source of all individual records. Throughout the universes other recorders function regarding both formal records and living records. From Urantia to Paradise, both recordings are encountered: in a local universe, more of the written records and less of the living; on Paradise, more of the living and less of the formal; on Uversa, both are equally available.

Every occurrence of significance in the organized and inhabited creation is a matter of record. While events of no more than local importance find only a local recording, those of wider significance are dealt with accordingly. From the planets, systems, and constellations of Nebadon, everything of universe import is posted on Salvington; and from such universe capitals those episodes are advanced to higher recording which pertain to the affairs of the sector and supergovernments. Paradise also has a relevant summary of superuniverse and Havona data; and this historic and cumulative story of the universe of universes is in the custody of these exalted tertiary supernaphim.

While certain of these beings have been dispatched to the superuniverses to serve as Chiefs of Records directing the activities of the Celestial Recorders, not one has ever been transferred from the permanent roll call of their order.

6. THE CELESTIAL RECORDERS

These are the recorders who execute all records in duplicate, making an original spirit recording and a semimaterial counterpart--what might be called a carbon copy. This they can do because of their peculiar ability simultaneously to manipulate both spiritual and material energy. Celestial Recorders are not created as such; they are ascendant seraphim from the local universes. They are received, classified, and assigned to their spheres of work by the councils of the Chiefs of Records on the headquarters of the seven superuniverses. There also are located the schools for training Celestial Recorders. The school on Uversa is conducted by the Perfectors of Wisdom and the Divine Counselors.

As the recorders advance in universe service, they continue their system of dual recording, thus making their records always available to all classes of beings, from those of the material order to the high spirits of light. In your transition experience, as you ascend from this material world, you will always be able
to consult the records of, and to be otherwise conversant with, the history and traditions of your status sphere.

The recorders are a tested and tried corps. Never have I known of the defection of a Celestial Recorder, and never has there been discovered a falsification in their records. They are subjected to a dual inspection, their records being scrutinized by their exalted fellows from Uversa and by the Mighty Messengers, who certify to the correctness of the quasi-physical duplicates of the original spirit records.

While the advancing recorders stationed on the subordinate spheres of record in the Orvonton universes number trillions upon trillions, those of attained status on Uversa are not quite eight million in number. These senior or graduate recorders are the superuniverse custodians and forwarders of the sponsored records of time and space. Their permanent headquarters are in the circular abodes surrounding the area of records on Uversa. They never leave the custody of these records to others; as individuals they may be absent, but never in large numbers.

Like those supernaphim who have become Custodians of Records, the corps of Celestial Recorders is of permanent assignment. Once seraphim and supernaphim are mustered into these services, they will respectively remain Celestial Recorders and Custodians of Records until the day of the new and modified administration of the full personalization of God the Supreme.

On Uversa these senior Celestial Recorders can show the records of everything of cosmic import in all Orvonton since the far-distant times of the arrival of the Ancients of Days, while on the eternal Isle the Custodians of Records guard the archives of that realm which testify to the transactions of Paradise since the times of the personification of the Infinite Spirit.

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4. THE THOUGHT RECORDERS

These artisans are devoted to the preservation and reproduction of the superior thought of the realms, and they function in seven groups:

1. Thought preservers. These are the artisans dedicated to the preservation of the higher thought of the realms. On the morontia worlds they truly treasure the gems of mentation. Before first coming to Urantia, I saw records and heard broadcasts of the ideation of some of the great minds of this planet. Thought recorders preserve such noble ideas in the tongue of Uversa.

Each superuniverse has its own language, a tongue spoken by its personalities and prevailing throughout its sectors. This is known as the tongue of Uversa in our superuniverse. Each local universe also has its own language. All of the higher orders of Nebadon are bilingual, speaking both the language of Nebadon and the tongue of Uversa. When two individuals from different local universes meet, they communicate in the tongue of Uversa; if, however, one of them hails from another superuniverse, they must have recourse to a translator. In the central universe there is little need of a language; there exists perfect and well-nigh complete understanding; there, only the Gods are not fully comprehended. We are taught that a chance meeting on Paradise reveals more of mutual understanding than could be communicated by a mortal language in a thousand years. Even on Salvington we "know as we are known."

The ability to translate thought into language in the morontia and spirit spheres is beyond mortal comprehension. Our rate of reducing thought to a permanent record can be so speeded up by the expert recorders that the equivalent of over half a million words, or thought symbols, can be registered in one minute of Urantia time. These universe languages are far more replete than the speech of the evolving worlds. The concept symbols of Uversa embrace more than a billion characters, although the basic alphabet contains only seventy symbols. The language of Nebadon is not quite so elaborate, the basic symbols, or alphabet, being forty-eight in number.

2. Concept recorders. This second group of recorders are concerned with the preservation of concept pictures, idea patterns. This is a form of permanent recording unknown on the material realms, and by this method I could gain more knowledge in one hour of your time than you could gain in one hundred years of perusing ordinary written language.

3. Ideograph recorders. We have the equivalent of both your written and spoken word, but in preserving thought, we usually employ concept picturization and ideograph techniques. Those who preserve ideographs are able to improve one thousandfold upon the work of the concept recorders.

4. Promoters of oratory. This group of recorders are occupied with the task of preserving thought for reproduction by oratory. But in the language of Nebadon we could, in a half hour's address, cover the subject matter of the entire lifetime of a Urantia mortal. Your only hope of comprehending these transactions is to pause and consider the technique of your disordered and garbled dream life--how you can in a few seconds traverse years of experience in these fantasies of the night season.

The oratory of the spirit world is one of the rare treats which await you who have heard only the crude and stumbling orations of Urantia. There is harmony
of music and euphony of expression in the orations of Salvington and Edentia which are inspiring beyond description. These burning concepts are like gems of beauty in diadems of glory. But I cannot do it! I cannot convey to the human mind the breadth and depth of these realities of another world!

5. The broadcast directors. The broadcasts of Paradise, the superuniverses, and the local universes are under the general supervision of this group of thought conservers. They serve as censors and editors as well as co-ordinators of the broadcast material, making a superuniverse adaptation of all Paradise broadcasts and adapting and translating the broadcasts of the Ancients of Days into the individual tongues of the local universes.

The local universe broadcasts must also be modified for reception by the systems and the individual planets. The transmittal of these space reports is carefully supervised, and there is always a back registry to insure the proper reception of every report on every world in a given circuit. These broadcast directors are technically expert in the utilization of the currents of space for all purposes of intelligence communication.

6. The rhythm recorders. Urantians would undoubtedly denominate these artisans poets, although their work is very different from, and almost infinitely transcends, your poetic productions. Rhythm is less exhausting to both morontia and spirit beings, and so an effort is frequently made to increase efficiency, as well as to augment pleasure, by executing numerous functions in rhythmic form. I only wish you might be privileged to hear some of the poetic broadcasts of the Edentia assemblies and to enjoy the richness of the color and tone of the constellation geniuses who are masters of this exquisite form of self-expression and social harmonization.

7. The morontia recorders. I am at a loss to know how to depict to the material mind the function of this important group of thought recorders assigned to the work of preserving the ensemble pictures of the various groupings of morontia affairs and spirit transactions; crudely illustrated, they are the group photographers of the transition worlds. They save for the future the vital scenes and associations of these progressive epochs, preserving them in the archives of the morontia halls of records.

http://www.urantia.com/cgi-bin/webglimpse/mfs/usr/local/www/data/papers?link=http://mercy.urantia.org/papers/paper44.html&file=/usr/local/www/data/papers/paper44.html&line=135#mfs

To repeat my last entry on the subject:

"The only other thing was rather squirrelly: That when the Library at Alexandria burned, there were those who were relieved that there still remained the one in the North....Who knows?

To repeat my original question: (7/26)

I remember hearing years ago that the other "Great Library" (University) of the time was in Scotland and that many great families of the Mediterranean area sent their sons all the way up there to be educated."

They say that Jesus of Nazareth went to Britain along with his maternal uncle Joseph of Arimethea who had mining holdings (tin, etc). I wonder if .....

You did prove with your material that Jesus spent some time in Egypt!

Rockessence,

Actually, I heard that the Druids kept no written records, was it another people contemporary with them? This isn't what you're talking about, but I thought it was interesting as the author proposes that the megaliths themselves are part of a narrative:
http://www.morien-institute.org/maesoglan.html

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The Sacred Druid Library - Ynys Môn

Owen Morgan's efforts at disentangling the 'oral traditions' of both Morganwg, and of Wales generally, have been ridiculed by orthodox historians who condemned him for his methodology in decoding the druidic library written in the landscape, and for his adoption of the druidic title, Morien, upon his succession as Archdruid of the Chair of Morganwg following the death of Myfyr Morganwg.

But these condemnations, which continue today, are invariably made by so-called 'experts' and 'scholars' who fail miserably to grasp the very simple concept of the 'landscape as narrative', who have never even attempted to read it, and who have never experienced the rising of the new-born sun at the sacred places of the ancient Welsh druids.

May their eyes be opened, before the the last vestiges of the Druidic Heritage of ancient Cymru (Wales) is lost forever amidst the rantings of those who can only condemn what they fail to understand ...

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What a great site! Thanks so much for the tip....Notice paragraph 3:

"The mystery of the origins of the red dragon symbol, now on the flag of Wales, has perplexed many historians, writers and romanticists, and the archæological community generally has refrained from commenting on this most unusual emblem, claiming it does not concern them. In the ancient Welsh language it is known as 'Draig Goch' - 'red dragon', and in "Y Geiriadur Cymraeg Prifysgol Cymru", the "University of Wales Welsh Dictionary", (Cardiff, University of Wales Press, 1967, p. 1082) there are translations for the various uses of the Welsh word 'draig'. Amongst them are common uses of the word, which is today taken just to mean a 'dragon', but in times past it has also been used to refer to 'Mellt Distaw' - (sheet lightning), and also 'Mellt Didaranau' - (lightning unaccompanied by thunder).

But the most interesting common usage of the word in earlier times, according to this authoritative dictionary, is 'Maen Mellt' the word used to refer to a 'meteorite'. And this makes sense, as the Welsh word 'maen' translates as 'stone', while the Welsh word 'mellt' translates as 'lightning' - so literally a 'lightning-stone'. That the ancient language of the Welsh druids has words still in use today that have in the past been used to describe both a dragon and also a meteorite, is something that greatly helps us to follow the destructive 'trail of the dragon' as it was described in early Welsh 'riddle-poems'. This is especially true of the "Hanes Taliesin", a riddle-poem that is so full of astronomical terms it is obvious that they were deliberately used by the composer - but to what end?

Could they have been used to encode druidic astro-mythology that was accessible only to 'initiates'? In the mid 6th. century A.D. the ancient Cymric empire, that at one time had stretched from Cornwall in the south to Strathclyde in the north, was rapidly diminishing. And it was at this time that the bard who called himself Taliesin (radiant brow) first read his riddle-poem, "Hanes Taliesin" ("The History of Taliesin"), to King Maelgwn Gwynedd, who, like the bard, had been a student of St Illtud at the ancient druid college, later called Llanilltud Fawr, in Morganwg. Was King Maelgwn Gwynedd the only one in his 6th century Conwy Eisteddfod who was meant to understand the riddle-poem?."
http://www.morien-institute.org/darkages.html

I don't know! Who cares! This is a blast....

Definition of the polis
Origin Of the polis
Subdivisions of the city state
Political factions within the city state
Monarchy
Aristocracy
Oligarchy
Timocracy
Tyranny
Democracy
Leagues
Amphictyonies
Cultural History
Philosophy
Presocratic philosophy

Eleatics: Xenophanes of Colophon- gave currency to the antithesis of the One and the Many. Emphasized the distinction between knowledge and opinion - Parmenides of Elea - Zeno of Elea

Thales of Miletus (624-546) -celebrated for his mathematical attainments, as well as for a theory of the material cause of the universe- 'all things are water'

Anaximander of Miletus (611-547)
Anaximenes of Miletus
Heracleitus of Ephesus- 'fire is principal; all things are in flux'

Pythagoras- originally of Samos, afterwards of Croton, a mathematician, vegetarian, and social reformer (Diodorus Siculus X.3-10)

Physicists- Anaxagoras of Clazomenae (500-428); Leucippus of Abdera; Empedocles (495-435): Four elements- love and hate
Democritus (460-351)- atomic theory

Gorgias of Leontini (483-376)

Protagoras of Abdera (481-411) 'man is the measure of all things'

Sophists- flourished from about the middle of the fifth to the middle of the fourth century --Sophistry of literature: Protagoras>Evenus of Paros>Polymathic sophistry professed by Hippias of Elis> eristic sophistry: Euthydemus and Dionysodorus; sophistry of forensic rhetoric: Tisias of Syracuse brought to central Greece by Gorgias in 427> Political rhetoric: Isocrates (436-338)
Cynics- Antisthenes of Athens-'virtue is the supreme end of human life'; Diogenes of Sinope

Aristippus of Cyrene and the Cyrenaic School

Socrates (469-399) of Athens, bred as a sculptor. He served with distinction at Potidaea in 432-429, at Delium in 424, and at Amphipolis in 422. Brought to trial and condemned to death in 399 by the restored democrats

Plato (427-347)
The Academy- Speusippus (347) , Xenocrates (339), Polemo (314), Crates(270)

Aristotle (384-270)
The School of the Peripatetics- The Lyceum:

Theophrastus (323-288), Eudemus, Strato of Lampsacus

Epicurus (341-270)
Stoics

The Seven Wise Men: ****** Solon, Myson, Chilon, Pittacus, Bias (Diodorus Siculus IX.1-

Historians
Hecataeus of Miletus: one of the founders of geographical science; wrote in prose:Genealogies

Herodotus (484-430)
Thucydides (c. 460-400)
Xenophon (445-355): Anabasis, Hellenica :Philo-Laconian and anti-Theban
Manetho (c. 350-300) was a high priest of Heliopolis in Egypt who wrote in Greek a history of Egypt from the oldest times down to Alexander's conquests
Cleitarchus

Polybius of Megalopolis (c. 200-118 BCE)
Poseidonius of Apamea 235-151 bce- a pupil of the stoic Panaetius. Taught in Rhodes where Cicero heard his lectures. A friend of Pompeius: his historical work beginning in 144 BCE where Polybius ended, appears to have come down to 82 BCE This work was a basic source for Livy, Diodorus, Appian,

Plutarch and Josephus
Eratosthenes
Apollodorus
Diodorus Siculus, Greek historian of Agyrium in Sicily, c. 80-20 BCE, wrote forty books of world history in three parts- 1]a mythical history of peoples Greek and nonGreek up until the Trojan war; 2] a history up until Alexander's death (323 BCE); and a history up until 54 BCE
Dionysius of Halicarnassus
Plutarch of Chaeronea (2nd half of 1st century CE- early 2nd century)
Arrian of Nicomedia (2nd century CE)
Appian

Quintus Curtius (wrote in Latin) - 1st century CE wrote a history of Alexander in ten books, the first two of which are lost.

Tragic historians
Historians no longer extant
Aristobolous of Cassandreia FGrH 139 a contemporary of Alexander and a source for Arrian

Charon of Lampsacus: composed a history of Persia: published after 465 BCE
Dionysius of Miletus wrote a history of Persia down to the death of Darius and included the defeat at Marathon
Scylax of Caryanda: a Carian Greek employed by Darius to survey the course of the Indus who published an account of his expedition; he also wrote a work of contemporary history which centered around his fellowcountryman Heracleides of Mylasae, who deserted the Persians and helped the Greeks against the invasion of Xerxes.
Antiochus of Syracuse: composed a history of the western Greeks: the early history of Sicily and Italy and the early Greek colonies

Cratippus : a leading historian of Athens after Thucydides

Theopompus- continued the work of

Thucydides in his Hellenica which covered the same period as Cratippus
Philistus of Syracuse: history of Sicily
Hellanicus of Lesbos: he wrote about the history of Persia, customs of barbarians, on the mythical period of Greece, on the origins of Greek cities in Asia, on the history of Athens: 683-682>411 BCE; construction of a systematic chronology> Hellanicus sought to reconstruct a complete chronicle of Greek history, from genealogies, mythographers, logographers, archon lists, oriental dating and inscriptionary evidence such as the list of Argive priestesses of Hera
Zoilos 'the scourge of Homer'
Anaximenes one of the teachers of Alexander

Ephoros - born c. 400 bce at Cyme in Asia Minor, died 356. He was a pupil of Isocrates. He was the author of the first 'universal history', beginning with the mythical origins of Greece up until 356 BCE in 29 books However this was distinctly a history of Greece not a history of the world; called 'universal' as it was PanHellenic. He almost certainly depended upon Hellanicus of Lesbos for the period of the Fifty years

Eumenes of Cardia
Diyllus the Athenian historian compiled a universal history in twenty six books covering years 357-297 [Jacoby FGH no. 73]
Psaon of Plataea wrote a continuation of Diyllus' work in thirty books [Jacoby, FGH #78]

Hegesias:wrote a history of Alexander
Agartharcides
Philistus
Ptolemy FgrH 138

Callius of Syracuse FGH, no. 564
Timaeus (340-256 bce) of Tauremenium FGrH 566 illustrates the translation from Attic to Hellenistic literature; exiled from Sicily 317 BCE Polybius devotes nearly the whole of book xii to an attack on Timaeus Diod. xxi.17; ' his hatred of the Sicilian tyrants and particularly Agathocles has colored the surviving historical tradition' (Austin p.52 n. 7)

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The Legend of the Library

"And concerning the number of books, the establishment of libraries, and the collection in the
Hall of the the Muses, why need I even speak, since they are all in men's memories?"

-- Athenaeus [1]

The library of Alexandria is a legend. Not a myth, but a legend. The destruction of the library of the ancient world has been retold many times
and attributed to just as many different factions and rulers, not for the purpose of chronicling that ediface of education, but as political slander.
Much ink has been spilled, ancient and modern, over the 40,000 volumes housed in grain depots near the harbor, which were supposedly
incinerated when Julius Caesar torched the fleet of Cleopatra's brother and rival monarch. So says Livy, apparently, in one of his lost books,
which Seneca quotes.[2] The figure of Hypatia, a fifth-century scholar and mathematician of Alexandria, being dragged from her chariot from
an angry Pagan-hating mob of monks who flayed her alive then burned her upon the remnants of the old Library, has found her way into
legend as well, thanks to a few contemporary sources which survived.[3] Yet while we know of many rumors of the destruction of "The
Library" (in fact, there were at least three different libraries coexisting in the city), and know of whole schools of Alexandrian scholars and
scholarship, there is scant data about the whereabouts, layout, holdings, organization, administration, and physical structure of the place.

Foundation

Demetrius of Phaleron

The first mention we have of the library is in The Letter of Aristeas (ca. 180-145 B.C.E.), a Jewish scholar housed at the Library
chronicling the translation of the Septuagint into Greek by seventy-two rabbis. This massive production was commissioned by the Athenian
exile Demetrius of Phaleron under his patron, Ptolemy I, Ptolemy Soter.[4] Demetrius himself was a former ruler, no less than a ten-year
tyrant of Athens, and a first-generation Peripatetic scholar. That is, he was one of the students of Aristotle along with Theophrastus and
Alexander the Great. Demetrius, helped into power in Athens by Alexander's successor Cassander, provided backing for Theophrastus to
found a Lyceum devoted to his master's studies and modelled after Plato's Academy. [5] After Ptolemy I Soter, on of Alexander's successful
generals, secured the kingship for himself of conquered Egypt, Theophrastus turned down the Pharoah's invitation in 297 B.C.E to tutor
Ptolemy's heir, and instead recommended Demetrius, who had recently been driven out from Athens as a result of political fallout from the
conflicts of Alexander's successors [Diog. Laert. 5.37].[6]

Precedents for the Museum

According to Aristeas, Demetrius recommended Ptolemy gather a collection of books on kingship and ruling in the style of Plato's
philosopher-kings, and furthermore to gather books of all the world's people that he might better understand subjects and trade partners.
Demetrius must also have helped inspire the founding of a Museum in Ptolemy's capital, Alexandria, a temple dedicated to the Muses. This
was not the first such temple dedicated to the divine patrons of arts and sciences. However, coming as it did in the half-century after the
establishment of Plato's Academy, Aristotle's Lyceum, Zeno's Stoa and the school of Epicurus,[7] and located in a rich center of international
trade and cultural exchange, the place and time were ripe for such an institution to flower. Scholars were invited there to carry out the
Peripatetic activities of observation and deduction in math, medicine, astronomy, and geometry; and most of the western world's discoveries
were recorded and debated there for the next 500 years.[8]

The Museum

Archaeologists have not uncovered the foundations of the Museum, although they have excavated portions of the "daughter Library" in the
nearby temple of Serapis. From scattered primary sources this much seems relatively clear: it was in the Bruc****m (northeast) sector of the
city, probably in or adjacent to the palace grounds. It was surrounded by courts, gardens, and a zoological park containing exotic animals
from far-flung parts of the Alexandrian empire. According to Strabo [17.1.8], at its heart was a Great Hall and a circular domed dining hall
(perhaps Roman?) with an observatory in its upper terrace; classrooms surrounded it. This is very similar to the layout of the Serapeum,
which was begun by Ptolemy II Philadelphus and completed by his son.[9] An estimated 30-50 scholars were probably permanently housed
there, probably fed and funded first by the royal family, and later, according to an early Roman papyrus, by public money.[10]

The Stacks

The physical shelves of the Library may have been in one of the outlying lecture halls or in the garden, or it may have been housed in the
Great Hall. They consisted of pigeonholes or racks for the scrolls, the best of which were wrapped in linen or leather jackets. Parchment
skins--vellum-- came into vogue after Alexandria stopped exporting papyrus in an attempt to strangle its younger rival library, set up by the
Seleucids in Pergamon. In Roman times, manuscripts started to be written in codex (book) form, and began to be stored in wooden chests
called armaria .[11]

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Development of the Library

The Septuagint

Aristeas, writing 100 years after the library's inception, records that Ptolemy I handed over to Demetrius the job of gathering books and
scrolls, as well as letting him supervise a massive effort to translate other cultures' works into Greek. This process began with the translation
of the Septuagint, the Old Testament, into Greek, for which project Ptolemy hired and housed 72 rabbis at Demetrius' suggestion. [Letter of
Aristeas 9-10]. [12]

Acquisition of Books

At the time of Demetrius, Greek libraries were usually collections of manuscripts by private individuals, such as Aristotle's library of his own
and other works. Egypt's temples often had shelves containing an assortment of religious and official texts, as did certain Museums in the
Greek world. It was Ptolemy I's great ambition to possess all known world literature[13] that pushed these idiosyncratic collections-- the
web sites of the ancient world-- into the realm of a true library. John Tzetzes records several centuries later that Callimachus cataloged
400,000 "mixed" scrolls (probably those that contained more than one chapter, work, or even author, see example in Vatican) and 90,000
"unmixed", plus an additional 42,000 in the Serapeum.[14] Ptolemy's successors' methods for achieving his goal were certainly unique.
Ptolemy III wrote a letter "to all the world's sovereigns" asking to borrow their books [Galen 17.1 Kühn p. 601ff][15], When Athens lent
him the texts to Euripides, Aeschylus, and Sophocles, he had them copied, returned the copies, and kept the originals. Supposedly, all ships
that stopped in the port of Alexandria were searched for books which were given them same treatment, thus the term "ship libraries" for the
collection housed in the Museum. This unorthodox procedure did at least inspire the first systematic work in emendation and collation of
classical texts without which none of the authors would have survived.

The First Librarians

While Demetrius was a convert of Serapis[16] and thus probably an official of the new Greco-Egyptian cult invented by Ptolemy, the
Serapeum was not yet built at his death and he is remembered neither as librarian of that institution nor at the Museum. The first recorded
Librarian was Zenodotus of Ephesus, holding that post from the end of Ptolemy I's reign until 245 B.C.E. His successor Callimachus of
Cyrene was perhaps Alexandria's most famous librarian, creating for the first time a subject catalog in 120,000 scrolls of the Library's
holdings, called the Pinakes or Tables.[17] It was by no means comprehensive, but was more like a good subject index on the web.
Apollonius of Rhodes, his younger rival and the writer of the notoriously meticulous epic, Argonautica, seems to have been Callimachus'
replacement.[18] Eratosthenes of Cyrene, Stoic geographer and mathematician, succeeded him in 235, and compiled his "tetagmenos epi
teis megaleis bibliothekeis", the "scheme of the great bookshelves". In 195 Aristophanes, a Homeric scholar of no relation to the comic
playwright, took up the position, and updated Callimachus' Pinakes. The last recorded librarian was Aristarchus of Samothrace, the
astronomer, who took up the position in 180 B.C.E. and was driven out during dynastic struggles between two Ptolemies. While the library
and Museum persisted for many centuries afterwards, from that time onward scholars are simply recorded as Alexandrian, and no Librarians
are mentioned by name.[19]

Organization

While it is doubtful the library had a perfectly systematic organization, but rather tended to house new chests and shelves of papyri in the
groups in which they were acquired, the Alexandrians from Callimachus onwards tried to keep track of their holdings via a subject catalog. In
this they followed Aristotle's divisions of knowledge, or at least his style of breaking up what had previously fallen under the umbrella of
"philosophy" into subdivisions of observational and deductive sciences. Since this paper is an overview of the work and scholarship carried
out at Alexandria, I will adhere to the subject divisions first set forth by Callimachus in his Pinakes, of mathematics, medicine, astronomy,
and geometry, as well as philology. I have added the Aristotelian category of mechanics for some of the applied science which grew out of
Alexandrian studies.

Mathematics

Alexandrian mathematicians concerned themselves for the most part with geometry, but we know of some researches specific to number
theory. Prime numbers were a source of fascination from the time of the Pythagoreans onwards. Eratosthenes the Librarian dabbled in
numbers along with everything else, and is reported to have invented the "sieve", a method for finding new ones.[20] Euclid also was known
to have studied this tricky subject.

Eudoxis of Cnidus (see biography), Euclid's pupil, probably worked out of Alexandria, and is known for developing an early method of
integration, studied the uses of proportions for problem solving, and contributed various formulas for measuring three dimensional figures.
Pappus (See biography), a fourth century A.D. scholar, was one of the last of the Greek mathematicians and concentrated on large numbers
and constructions in semicircles (See Vatican manuscript), and he was also an important transmitter into European culture of astrology
gleaned from eastern sources.[21] Theon and his daughter Hypatia also continued work in astronomy, geometry, and mathematics,
commenting on their predecessors, but none of their works survive.

Astronomy

Astronomy was not merely the projection of three-dimensional geometry into a fourth, time, although this is how many Greek scientists
classified it. The movements of the stars and sun were essential for determining terrestrial positions, since they provided universal points of
reference. In Egypt, this was particularly vital for property rights, because the yearly inundation often altered physical landmarks and
boundaries between fields. For Alexandria, whose lifeblood was export of grain and papyrus to the rest of the Mediterranean, developments
in astronomy allowed sailors to do away with consultation of oracles, and to risk year-round navigation out of sight of the coast.[22] Earlier
Greek astronomers had concentrated on theoretical models of the universe; Alexandrians now took up the task of detailed observations and
mathematical systems to develop and buttress existing ideas.

Maps of Heaven

Eratosthenes, the versatile third librarian, amassed a poetic catalog of 44 constellations complete with background myths, as well as a list of
475 fixed stars.[23] Hipparchus was credited with inventing longitude and latitude, importing the 360-degree circular system from Babylonia,
calculating the length of a year within six minutes accuracy, amassing sky-chart of constellations and stars, and speculated that stars might
have both births and deaths.[24]

Schemes of the Universe

Aristarchus applied Alexandrian trigonometry to estimate the distances and sizes of the sun and moon, and also postulated a heliocentric
universe (biography). A fellow Museum scholar, the Stoic Cleanthus, accused him of blatant impiety.[25] Hipparchus of Bithynia, during the
reign of Ptolemy VII, discovered and measured the procession of the equinoxes, the size and trajectory of the sun, and the moon's path.[26]
300 years later Ptolemy (no known relation to royalty, see biography) worked out mathematically his elegant system of epicycles to support
the geocentric, Aristotelian view,[27] and wrote a treatise on astrology, both of which were to become the medieval paradigm.[28] (See
Vatican manuscript on astronomy and exhibit on geography.)

Geometry

The Alexandrians compiled and set down many of the geometric principles of earlier Greek mathematicians, and also had access to
Babylonian and Egyptian knowledge on that subject. This is one of the areas in which the Museum excelled, producing its share of great
geometers, right from its inception. Demetrius of Phaleron is said to have invited the scholar Euclid (biography) to Alexandria, and his
Elements are well-known to be the foundation of geometry for many centuries. [29] His successors, notably Apollonius of the second
century B.C.E., carried on his research in conics (Vatican manuscript, biography), as did Hipparchus in the second century A.D. Archimedes
(biography)is credited with the discovery of pi.[30]

Eratosthenes and Spherical Geometry: Calculating the Earth's circumference

The third librarian of Alexandria, Eratosthenes (275-194 B.C.E), calculated the circumference of the earth to within 1%, based on the
measured distance from Aswan to Alexandria and the fraction of the whole arc determined by differing shadow-lengths at noon in those two
locations. He further suggested that the seas were connected, that Africa might be circumnavigated, and that "India could be reached by
sailing westward from Spain." Finally, probably drawing on Egyptian and Near Eastern observations, he deduced the length of the year to
365 1/4 days and first suggested the idea of adding a "leap day" every four years.[31]

Mechanics: Applied Science

Archimedes (see biography) was one of the early Alexandria-affiliated scholars to apply geometers' and astronomers' theories of motion to
mechanical devices. Among his discoveries were the lever and-- as an extension of the same principle-- the "Archimedes screw," a
handcranked device for lifting water.[32] He also figures in the tale of the scientist arising from his tub with the cry of "Eureka" after
discovering that water is displaced by physical objects immersed in it.[33]

Hydraulics was an Alexandria-born science which was the principle behind Hero's Pneumatics, a long work detailing many machines and
"robots" simulating human actions. The distinction between practical and fanciful probably did not occur to him in his thought-experiments,
which included statues that poured libations, mixed drinks, drank, and sang (via compressed air). He also invented a windmill-driven pipe
organ, a steam boiler which was later adapted for Roman baths, a self-trimming lamp, and the candelaria, in which the heat of candle-flames
caused a hoop from which were suspended small figures to spin.[34] His sometimes whimsical application of the infant sciences are
reminiscent of the modern Rube Goldberg's "inventions" during the technological revolution of this century.

Medicine

The study of anatomy, tracing its roots to Aristotle (see Andrea's case study on Aristotelian anatomy), was conducted extensively by many
Alexandrians, who may have taken advantage both of the zoological gardens for animal specimens, and Egyptian burial practices and craft
for human anatomy. One of its first scholars, Herophilus, both collected and compiled the Hippocratic corpus, and embarked on studies of
his own. He first distinguished the brain and nervous system as a unit, as well as the function of the heart, the circulation of blood, and
probably several other anatomical features. His successor Eristratos concentrated on the digestive system and the effects of nutrition, and
postulated that nutrition as well as nerves and brain influenced mental diseases. Finally, in the second century A.D., Galen drew upon
Alexandria's vast researches and his own investigations to compile fifteen books on anatomy and the art of medicine.[35] (See Vatican
manuscript).

Conclusion

The Museum of Alexandria was founded at a unique place and time which allowed its scholars to draw on the deductive techniques of
Aristotle and Greek thought, in order to apply these methods to the knowledges of Greece, Egypt, Macedonia, Babylonia, and beyond. The
location of Alexandria as a center of trade, and in particular as the major exporter of writing material, offered vast opportunities for the
amassing of information from different cultures and schools of thought. Its scholars' deliberate efforts to compile and critically analyze the
knowledge of their day allowed for the first systematic, long-term research by dedicated specialists in the new fields of science suggested by
Aristotle and Callimachus. Whole new disciplines, such as grammar, manuscript preservation, and trigonometry were established. Moreover,
the fortuitious collection of documents in an Egyptian city allowed the transmission and translation of vital classical texts into Arabic and
Hebrew, where they might be preserved long after copies were lost during the Middle Ages in Europe. Alexandria and its cousins, the
Lyceum, Academy, and the younger Pergamon library, were probably the prototypes both for the medieval monastery and universities.
While modern scholars often lament the amount of information lost through the centuries since the Museum's fall, an amazing number of
Alexandrian discoveries and theories, especially in mathematics and geometry, still provide the groundwork for modern research in these
fields. Finally, the methods of research, study, and information storage and organization developed in the Library are much the same as those
used today, but just as the medium of linear scrolls gave way to books in its halls, we now are watching the transformation from books to
multilayered documents in the electronic medium.

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Bibliography

Bevan, Edwyn. The House of Ptolemy. Argonaut Inc. Chicago: 1968.

Canfora, Luciano. The Vanished Library. trans. Martin Ryle. University of California Press. Berkely: 1989.

Ellis, Ptolemy of Egypt. Routledge. New York: 1994.

Fraser, P. M. Ptolemaic Alexandria. Volume I of III. Oxford University Press. Oxford: 1972.

Johnson, Emer D. History of Libraries in the Western World. Scarecrow Press, Inc. Metuchen: 1970.

Marlowe, John. The Golden Age of Alexandria. Trinity Press. London: 1971.

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/GreekScience/Students/Ellen/Museum.html

quote:

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The Mysterious Fate of the Great Library of Alexandria

Introduction

What happened to the Royal Library of Alexandria? We can be certain it was there once, founded by Ptolomy II Soter, and we can be
equally certain it is not there now. It formed part of the Museum which was located in the Bruchion or palace quarter of the city of
Alexandria. This great ancient city, occupying a spit of land on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea, had been founded by Alexander the
Great in his flying visit to Egypt and became the capital of the last dynasty of Pharaohs descended from Alexander's general Ptolemy. The
Great or more properly Royal Library formed a part of the Museum but whether or not it was a separate building is unclear.

Stories about its demise have been circulating for centuries and date back to at least the first century AD. These stories continue to be told
and embellished today by those who wish to make a moral attack against the alleged vandals. We find that three parties are blamed for the
destruction and they correspond to the three occupying powers that ruled Alexandria after it had been lost by the Greeks. Let me first tell
those stories as we hear them today - without references, largely inaccurate and used as polemic. Then I will try and establish what, if
anything we can know before finally and rather indulgently making my own suggestions.

The suspects respectively are a Roman, a Christian and a Moslem - Julius Caesar, Patriarch Theophilus of Alexandria and Caliph Omar of
Damascus. It is clear that the Royal Library could not have been burnt down or otherwise destroyed by all three of these characters and so
we find we have too many sources for the event of the destruction rather than a paucity. As scholars of the Gospels will vouch, this too can
be an embarrassment. How we decide to reconcile the stories will depend almost entirely on how we criticise the sources and which of them
we choose to consider most reliable.

Archaeology can be a help with ancient history although it tends to be silent about the things in which we are most interested leading the more
foolish archaeologists to claim they never happened. In the case of Alexandria a series of earthquakes and floods in the middle ages mean
that the entire palace quarter in the North East of the city is now underwater and largely inaccessible. Recent work in underwater
archaeology has revealed more but we will probably never be able to dig around in the foundations of the Museum. The Great Temple of
Serapis, to which we will later return, was in the south-western quarter and parts of its foundations have been excavated.

Julius Caesar

First, let us read the legendary account:

It is often said that the Romans were civilised but their most famous general was responsible for the greatest act of
vandalism during antiquity. Julius Caesar was attacking Alexandria in pursuit of his archrival Pompey when he found
himself about to be cut off by the Egyptian fleet. Realising that this would leave him in a desperate predicament, he
took decisive action and sent fire ships into the harbour. His plan was a success and the enemy fleet was quickly
aflame. But the fire did not stop these and jumped onto the dockside which was laden with flammable materials ready
for export. Next it spread in land and before anyone could stop it, the Great Library itself was blazing brightly as
400,000 priceless scrolls were reduced to ashes. As for Caesar himself, did not think it important enough to
mention in his memoirs.

The accused was indeed in Alexandria in 47 - 48 BC after arriving in pursuit of his rival Pompey. Caesar was able to occupy the city without
any trouble after destroying the Egyptian fleet and was residing in the palace with Cleopatra when more trouble started. Some henchmen of
the Pharaoh attacked with a sizable force and Caesar suddenly found himself stuck in a hostile city with very few forces. That he still won out
is a tribute to his luck and powers of leadership. This much is uncontested but to unravel the fate of the Royal Library we must examine the
ancient sources.

Julius Caesar - The Civil Wars

The earliest account we have of this these events is in The Civil Wars penned by Caesar (died 44BC) himself. In it he explains how he had
to set the dockyards and Alexandrine fleet alight for his own safety as he was in dire straits. As to whether the fire spread away from the
shore and also damaged the Royal Library, he is silent. The narrative in The Civil Wars break off at the start of the campaign in Egypt and the
story is taken up by one of his lieutenant's called Hirtius (died 43BC) in The Alexandrine War. It does not include any mention of setting
fire to Alexandria but instead states that in fact the city would not burn as it was made purely of stone.

We can log this as a Not Guilty plea by the accused but note that a reason he might have mentioned that Alexandria does not burn would be
to hide his own action of burning it. Future history demonstrated many times that Alexandria burns just as well as any other city. The fire is
also not mentioned by Cicero in his philippics against Caesar's ally Mark Anthony. This is a valuable witness for the defence, as Cicero did
not like Caesar at all. Unfortunately it is also an argument from silence and it is very possible that Cicero either did not know about everything
that happened, saw no need to mention this particular event or mentioned it in the quarter of his works no longer extant.

Strabo - Geography

The great scholar, Strabo (died after 24AD) was in Alexandria in 20BC and in all his detailed description of the palace and Museum does
not mention the library at all. This omission is often explained by scholars claiming that the library was inside the Museum or annexed to it.
But even so, not breathing a word about this famous institution is very suspicious. Can we conclude that the library was no longer there but
that political constraints meant that its fate still could not be mentioned?

Modern writer, Mostafa El-Abbadi, comes up with a more subtle point. He shows how Strabo mentions the body of research available to
one of the earlier librarians was much greater than Strabo himself had access to. He concludes that this shows that Strabo did not have
access to the wisdom of the Royal Library that his illustrious predecessor had. The point is small but potentially significant.

Livy and Florus - Epitome of the History of Rome

The first mention of the fire at Alexandria would seem to come from Livy (died 17AD) in his History of Rome. The book that it was included
in is lost and the surviving Summaries are too brief to include it. However, a second century Epitome written by Florus survives and it says
that the fire was started by Caesar to clear the area around his position so the enemy had no cover from which to fire arrows. The library
itself is not mentioned by Florus although it was in the same area of the city as Caesar who was occupying the palace at the time.

The Younger Seneca - On Tranquillity of the Mind

In fact we do know that the Royal Library is mentioned by Livy because he is later quoted by Seneca (died 65AD) in his dialogue On the
Tranquillity of the Mind where he also says that a great number of books were destroyed. It has been asserted that Seneca must have got
his knowledge about the destruction of the books from Livy but a close reading of the dialogue does not bear this out. Seneca actually only
states that Livy thought the library was "the most distinguished achievement of the good taste and solicitude of kings" and then only so as he
can disagree.

The actual number of books destroyed that Seneca gives is matter of some controversy that we will need to briefly address. In ancient
manuscripts it is common for large numbers to be expressed as a dot placed above the numeral for each power of ten. Clearly in copying it is
easy to make a mistake with the number of dots and errors by a factor of ten are frequent. That may have happened in the case of On the
Tranquillity of the Mind. The manuscript from Monte Cassino actually reads 40,000 books but this is usually corrected to 400,000 by editors
as other sources such as Orosius give this figure for the number of scrolls destroyed. I have not seen the manuscript, of course, so do not
know if this way the number is expressed. However, even if it was given in words the difference between 40,000 and 400,000 is also pretty
small. I propose therefore that the number given by Seneca, and indeed all other ancient sources, should be ruled as inadmissible as evidence
because we cannot be sure of what it was originally.

Plutarch and Dio Cassius - Life of Caesar and Roman History

After this, the references become more explicit. Plutarch (died 120AD), in his Life of Caesar throws in a reference to the destruction of the
library almost casually. Now Plutarch does not seem to carry a brief against Caesar, although he is happy to criticise him, so we should take
this reference seriously. Additionally, he had visited Alexandria and presumably might have noticed if the library was still in existence. Dio
Cassius (died 235AD) tells us that warehouses of books near the docks were accidentally burnt by Caesar's men. His words are difficult to
pin down and have led some scholars to suggest that only books waiting for export were destroyed. This reads far more into the text than it
allows and I do not think that Dio saying that the books 'happened' to be in the path of the flames means that usually they were kept
somewhere else.

Aulus Gellius - Attic Nights

Gellius (died 180 AD) included in his Attic Nights contain a brief passage about libraries where the destruction of the Royal Library is
mentioned as taking place by accident during our first war against Alexandria when auxiliary soldiers started a fire. This first war was
Caesar's campaign and the second was when Octavian took Egypt from Mark Anthony and Cleopatra. In The Vanished Library, Luciano
Canfora claims that this passage is an interpolation on the strength that the introduction does not mention it but again the evidence for this
seems flimsy. Gellius claims 700,000 books went up in smoke.

Ammianus Marcellinus and Orosius - Roman History and History against the Pagans

One of the final pagan Roman historians, Ammianus Marcellinus (died 395AD), tells us about the fate of the library during an aside about the
city of Alexandria in his Roman History. He relates the story of the fire started by Julius Caesar is 'the unanimous belief of the ancient
authors' but confuses the library building with the Serapeum and increases the number of scrolls destroyed to 700,000 (perhaps Gellius is his
source). The story is repeated with the figure of 400,000 scrolls destroyed by Orosius (died after 415AD), an early Christian historian, in his
History against the Pagans. Both these writers are far too late to be accurate sources on their own but they do tell us that by the fourth
century the Royal Library was widely believed to have been destroyed by Julius Caesar. We will be discussing them further below with
regard to the destruction of the Serapeum which occurred in their own time.

The verdict on Caesar

Taken together we can conclude a number of things from these sources:

The earliest descriptions of the Alexandrine War, written by Caesar or his crony, deliberately cover up anything that reflects badly on
the great man. Their silence about burning down the world's greatest library, even by accident, is not surprising.
The library as a separate building did not exist by the time of Strabo's visit in 20BC.
The belief that Caesar had destroyed the library was widespread by the time his family no longer occupied the throne of the emperors
in the late first century AD. Plutarch, Gellius and Seneca are all evidence for this. We must therefore assume that the library did not
exist at this time. Plutarch, a Greek, would certainly have known if it did.

Although we cannot prove his guilt with first hand evidence, it seems justified to claim that the book stacks of the Royal Library were burnt
down by Julius Caesar. Perhaps the reading rooms, which in any case were part of the Museum, survived but, as Seneca and all the other
sources tell us, the books themselves perished. That scholarship continued in Alexandria after this time cannot be doubted but I can find no
explicit mention of the Royal Library after Caesar's ill-fated visit. Indeed as Athenaeus of Naucratis (died after 200AD) mournfully wrote in
the Deipnosophistai "And concerning the number of books and the establishment of libraries and the collection in the Museum, why need I
even speak when they are all the the memory of men."

Theophilus

Again, the legendary story first:

Theophilus, Patriarch of Alexandria, is also the patron saint of arsonists. As Christianity slowly strangled the life
out of classical culture in the forth century it became more and more difficult to be a pagan. There stood in
Alexandria the great temple of Serapis called the Serapeum and attached to it was the Great Library of
Alexandria where all the wisdom of the ancients was preserved. Now Theophilus knew that as long as this
knowledge existed people would be less inclined to believe the bible so he set about destroying the pagan temples.
But the Serapeum was a huge structure, high on a mound and beyond the abilities of the raging Christian fanatics
to assault. Faced with this edifice, the Patriarch sent word to Rome. There the Emperor Theodosius the Great,
who had ordered that paganism be annihilated, gave his permission for the destruction of the Serapeum. Realising
they had no chance, the priests and priestesses fled their temple and the mob moved in. The vast structure was razed
to it foundations and the scrolls from the library were burnt in huge pyres in the streets of Alexandria.

Theophilus was indeed the Patriarch of Alexandria at the time that the Serapeum was converted in a Christian church although he has never
been made a saint! The date for the events recorded is usually given as 391AD when Theodosius was emperor and energetically converting
all his subjects to Christianity. The contention made is that there was another library in the Serapeum temple that a Christian mob destroyed
during their sacking of the temple. We need to establish if there really was a library there and also if Theophilus destroyed it.

The intervening years

About the library the sources are reasonably silent but this is not a surprise because we know already that we cannot be talking about the
Royal Library itself. However, Alexandria remained a centre of scholarship and other libraries existed. The Emperor Claudius set up the
eponymous named Claudian to be a centre for the study of history and Hadrian founded a library at the Caesarean temple during his visit.
Less reliably, Plutarch informs us that Mark Anthony gave Cleopatra the entire contents - some 200,000 rolls - of the Pergamon library as a
gift.

The 12th century Byzantine scholar, John Tzetzes, in his Prolegomena to Aristophanes preserves some details about the catalogue of the poet
Callimachus (died after 250BC) who said there were nearly 500,000 scrolls in the Royal Library and another 42,000 odd in the outer or
public library. Note that Callimachus is not known to have referred to the Serapeum Library although he is often assumed to be doing so.
The fourth century Bishop Epiphanius of Cyprus (died 402AD) in his Weights and Measures (actually a biblical commentary!) says that
there were over 50,000 volumes in the 'daughter' library that he places in the Serapeum. Our previous observations about numbers fully
apply here even if it seems fair to say that there were many fewer scrolls in the daughter than in the Royal Library. Epiphanius also tells us that
by his day the entire Bruchion quarter of Alexandria was laid waste, no doubt doe the the actions of Aurelian or Diocletian. There is a
detailed report of the acropolis of Alexandria in a Progymnasmata by Aphthonius of Ephesus (died after 400AD) which he presents as an
example of how to give a description. He speaks of book repositories open to the public and we can assume this refers to the Serapeum.
Unfortunately the date of the description is impossible to determine and nor can we tell if it is an eyewitness account. However, we do have
enough evidence in total to assert that there was once a library at the Serapeum even if it is not the same as the 'outer library' attached to the
Royal Library.

Despite the continuation of academic activity, Alexandria suffered much in the years up to 391AD. Augustus reduced it, Caracalla massacred
many of its citizens over a perceived insult and Aurelian also sacked the city and the palace quarter in which the Museum was situated.
Finally, the city was taken with great destruction by Diocletian at the start of the fourth century.

Ammianus Marcellinus - Roman History

In the Roman History, Ammianus waxes lyrical about the Serapeum but he then gets a bit confused and says that the libraries it held were
those burnt by Caesar in the Alexandrine War. The point is perhaps vital though because he had visited Alexandria and yet says of the
Serapeum "in it have been valuable libraries" in the perfect tense. This was before 391AD when Theophilus and his gang set to work and
very strongly suggests there were no books present in the temple at the time of its destruction.

Rufinus Tyrannius - Ecclesiastical History

The earliest description of the sack of the Serapeum was almost certainly one by Sophronius, a Christian scholar, called On the Overthrow
of Serapis and now lost. Rufinus (died 410AD) was an orthodox Latin Christian who spent many years of his life in Alexandria. He arrived in
372AD and whether or not he was actually present when the Serapeum was demolished, he was certainly there at around the same time. He
rather freely translated Eusebius's History of the Church into Latin and then added his own books X and XI taking the narrative up to his
own time. It is in book XI that we find the best source for the events at the Serapeum which he describes in detail. His account largely agrees
with the one given above except that he makes no mention of any library or books at all. He seems to regret the passing of the Serapeum but
puts the blame squarely on the local pagans for inciting the Christian mob. The only English translation of his work is still very much in
copyright so until I have produced another myself the reader will just have to take my word for it.

Eunapius - Lives of the Philosophers

The pagan writer Eunapius of Antioch (died after 400AD) included an account of the sack of the Serapeum in his Life of Antonius who,
before he died in 390AD, had prophesied that all the pagan temples in Alexandria would be destroyed (not a desperately surprising
contingency at the time). Eunapius wants to show how right he was. As well as being a pagan, Eunapius is vehemently anti-Christian and
spares no effort in making Theophilus and his followers look as foolish as possible. His narrative is laced with venom and sarcasm as he
describes the sack of the temple as a battle without an enemy. If a great library had been destroyed then Eunapius, the pagan scholar, would
surely have mentioned it. He does not.

Socrates Scholasticus, Hermias Sozomen and Theodoret

Socrates (died after 450AD) also wrote a History of the Church that continued on from that of Eusebius. His was more detailed and in
Greek rather than Latin. It contains a chapter about the destruction of the Serapeum which acknowledges that the deed was ordered by the
Emperor, that the building was demolished and that it was later converted to a church. Again, no mention is made of any books that might
have been in the Serapeum or what could have happened to them. His passage about the cross-shaped hieroglyphics found in the temple
gives us some idea of how Christianity turned various pagan symbols to its advantage.

The histories of Sozomen (died 443AD) and Theodoret (died after 457AD) cover a similar period. Despite being pleased to report in detail
the Serapeum's destruction they also make mention no books at all although Theodoret says that the wooden idols of Serapis were burnt.
Both of these histories are heavily dependent on Socrates but do include details from other sources.

Paulus Orosius - History against the Pagans

Orosius (died after 415AD) was a friend of Saint Augustine who wrote a History against the Pagans that was fully intended to paint all
non-Christians in a bad light. So as a historian he is useless but when he says something that suggests that his fellow Christians were not
whiter than white, that is to say, against the grain of his usual bias, we have to take it seriously. In his aside on the Great Library, he says
something of significance which is both an eyewitness detail and suggests that his fellow Christians are in the wrong. He says "…there exist in
temples book chests which we ourselves have seen and when these temples were plundered these, we are told, were emptied by our own
men in our own time." His statement that there was no other major library in Alexandria at the time of Caesar's expedition is interesting and
would seem to count against there being a Serapeum library at that time. However, Orosius is too late a source to carry much weight in this
matter.

From Orosius we can deduce that Christians did empty some temples of books but we cannot go much further. We cannot say the books
were destroyed as this is not stated nor can we say which temples he is talking about or who was responsible. However, we can be sure he
was not talking about the Serapeum as all sources agree it was razed to the ground and the temples Orosius visited are not only still standing
but even have their internal furninshings. The most likely explanation is that the books were removed to Christian libraries or sold.

The verdict on Theophilus

It is hard enough to establish beyond doubt that there was a library in the Serapeum at all but if there was, Ammianus makes clear that it was
no longer there by the mid fourth century. This is confirmed by the silence of all the sources, including one that would be keen to report
Christian atrocities, for the destruction of the temple in 391AD. Note that this is not an 'argument from silence' because there is no reason at
all to expect a mention of books in the Serapeum when it was demolished. An invalid 'argument from silence' is when we claim something that
is not mentioned did not happen, even though other evidence suggests it did. There is no positive evidence for the existence of the library and
instead near conclusive eye witness evidence against.

The story that Theophilus destroyed a library is clearly a fiction that we can very precisely lay at the door of Edward Gibbon. It is in his
monumental Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire that we first find the allegation made. Gibbon seems mainly concerned to clear the Arabs
of the responsibility of destroying the library and allows his marked anti-Christian prejudice to cloud his better judgement. His excellent
footnotes show he had exactly the same sources as we do but drew the wrong conclusions. The story has recently been popularised by Carl
Sagan who includes it in Cosmos. He spices the story up with a role for the murdered philosopher Hypatia, even though there is no evidence
connecting her to the library at all.

Caliph Omar

First the legendary account:

The Moslems invaded Egypt during the seventh century as their fanaticism carried them on conquests that would
take form an empire stretching from Spain to India. There was not much of a struggle in Egypt and the locals found
the rule of the Caliph to be more tolerant than that of the Byzantines before them. However, when a Christian
called John informed the local Arab general that there existed in Alexandria a great Library preserving all the
knowledge in the world he was perturbed. Eventually he sent word to Damascus where Caliph Omar ordered that
all the books in the library should be destroyed because, as he said "they will either contradict the Koran, in which
case they are heresy, or they will agree with it, so they are superfluous." Therefore, the books and scrolls were taken
out of the library and distributed as fuel to the many bathhouses of the city. So enormous was the volume of
literature that it took six months for it all to be burnt to ashes heating the saunas of the conquerors.

The leader of the Moslem forces that took Egypt in 640AD was called 'Amr and it was he who was supposed to have asked Omar what to
do about the fabled library that he found himself in control of.

There are only a few sources that we need to examine. They are very late The first of the two late sources dates from the 12th century and is
written by Abd al Latif (died 1231) who, in his Account of Egypt while describing Alexandria, mentions of the ruins of the Serapeum. The
problems with this as historical evidence are enormous and insurmountable. He admits that the source of his information was rumour and the
fantasy about Aristotle does not bode well for the veracity of the rest of the piece.

In the thirteenth century the great Jacobite Christian Bishop Gregory Bar Hebræus (died 1286), called Abû 'l Faraj in Arabic, fleshes the
story out and includes the famous epigram about the Koran. Again there is no clue as to where he found the story but it seems to have been
one doing the rounds among Christians living under the dominion of the Moslems. Gregory is happy to record plenty of far fetched tales
about omens and monstrosities so we must treat this story with the greatest suspicion. As it is not even included in the original version of his
history but only in the Arabic version that he translated and abridged himself very late in life, he may not have known the story when he first
put pen to parchment. In The Vanished Library, Canfora mentions a Syriac manuscript published in Paris at the end of the nineteenth century
by François Nau. It was written by a Christian monk in the ninth century and details the conversation between John and Caliph Omar. After
help from email correspondents, I have finally been able to find this elusive document in its French translation and ascertained that it makes no
mention of any library and appears to be an example of a theological dialogue between two representative individuals. In other words it is not
historical and has no pretensions to be.

The verdict on Omar

The errors in the sources are obvious and the story itself is almost wholly incredible. In the first place, Gregory Bar Hebræus represents the
Christian in his story as being one John of Byzantium and that John was certainly dead by the time of the Moslem invasion of Egypt. Also, the
prospect of the library taking six months to burn is simply fantastic and just the sort of exaggeration one might expect to find in Arab legends
such as the Arabian Nights. However Alfred Butler's famous observation that the books of the library were made of vellum which does not
burn is not true. The very late dates of the source material are also suspect as there is no hint of this atrocity in any early literature - even in
the Coptic Christian chronicle of John of Nikiou (died after 640AD) who detailed the Arab invasion. Finally, the story comes from the hand
of a Christian intellectual who would have been more than happy to show the religion of his rulers in a bad light. Agreeing with Gibbon this
time, we can dismiss it as a legend.

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Christianity and Pagan Literature

Introduction

One thing that everyone thinks they know about early Christians is that they went around and burnt down libraries and anything else they felt
threatened by. For a 'fact' that is so widely believed, there is remarkably little evidence around. When challenged the best that most people
can do is mention the Christians who destroyed the Great Library of Alexandria but as I have established in this article, that is itself a myth.
That has not stopped authors like Carl Sagan in Cosmos and others who really ought to know better, from recycling it to make anti-Christian
points.

After finding the example most commonly given was untrue, I decided to launch an in-depth inquiry into the two related questions of what has
happened to the majority of the corpus of ancient writing and whether the Christian contribution to their preservation has been positive or
negative. This survey only covers the early church and the period through the Dark Ages so it does not examine the work of medieval
inquisitors or later church authorities. I hope to look at these areas at a later date but for the moment my conclusions are as follows:

Indiscriminate destruction of ancient literature by institutional Christianity never occurred;

There was no attempt to suppress pagan writing per se;

On a few occasions, pagan tracts specifically targeted against Christianity were condemned but others have been preserved;

Suppression of heretical Christian writing was widespread;

Magical and esoteric works were treated in exactly the same way as they were under the pagan Emperors which was not very
sympathetic;

With some exceptions, respect for pagan learning was widespread among Christians;

Survival of classical literature is almost entirely due to the efforts of Christian monks laboriously copying out texts by hand.

Burning down libraries

The idea of deliberating setting fire to a repository of knowledge appals us in a way that few other crimes can do. As demonstrated by the
astronomical sums paid at auction, we value art far more than human life. Tens of thousands of Afghans could die in war without anyone in
the West caring very much but, as the BBC reported, when the Taleban demolish a couple of ancient statues, there is world wide horror and
condemnation.

This attitude has meant that the false accusation that Edward Gibbon laid at the door of the Patriarch Theophilus in chapter 28 of his Decline
and Fall of the Roman Empire regarding the Great Library of Alexandria has been tremendously damaging to Christianity and is repeated
by every author with a bone to pick. But although we can establish that this library was not destroyed by a Christian mob, were there not
other ancient libraries that did suffer exactly that fate? The saying that there is no smoke without fire would seem to be exceedingly
appropriate in this case. I do not for a second claim to have analysed every ancient source but I have read a good deal and have only located
one example of deliberate destruction of an entire library recorded by the chroniclers.

The chronicler in question is John of Antioch about whom we know almost nothing. He was a Greek speaking Christian historian who may
have lived between the sixth and tenth centuries. All his works are lost and only fragments of his chronicle remain preserved in other places.
Among them is following passage from the great Byzantine encyclopaedia called the Suda in the article on the Emperor Jovian:

Emperor Hadrian had built a beautiful temple for the worship of his father Trajan which, on the orders of Emperor Julian, the
eunuch Theophilus had made into a library. Jovian, at the urging of his wife, burned the temple with all the books in it with his
concubines laughing and setting the fire.

Scholars believe that it is John of Antioch is being quoted. The Suda itself is full of snippets of information but it is treated with justifiable
caution by the scholars who have studied it. Certainly, it is very often wrong but usually not deliberately. Instead it just quotes earlier authors
uncritically and repeats their mistakes.

In favour of the verity of this story, John was from the city of Antioch where the alleged event happened and Jovian did visit there during the
few months of his reign. On the other hand, the problems with its credibility are extremely wide ranging.

1.The pagan historian Ammianus Marcellinus was actually with Jovian in Antioch and does not breath a word about any libraries (We
complains about their closure at other points in his narrative so was not uninterested in the question. We will return to other these
libraries later).
2.Although Jovian was a Christian he is recorded by the rhetor Themistius to have insisted on tolerance towards pagans.
3.The great pagan orator Libanius who lived in Antioch at the time and from whom we have speeches, lectures and no less than 1,500
letters, makes no mention of the library's destruction.
4.We have no other record of there being a temple of Trajan built by Hadrian in Antioch.
5.John was writing several hundred years after the library burning is supposed to have taken place but no one else mentions it. No
source for his story is given although some scholars like RC Blockley believe it may have come from Eunapius of Sardis who was a
near contemporary of Jovian and whom John of Antioch used as a source.

All the counter arguments depend on silence which demonstrates just how hard it is to prove a negative. On a personal note, the involvement
of Jovian's wife and concubines makes me feel the story is less convincing although the women could be later accretions. If we knew that
burning down libraries was the sort of thing that Jovian or other Christians actually did, we might have a case for believing it happened here
but as it is a single example it cannot be allowed to simply reinforce our prejudices. Still, this remains the only possible record of a library
being deliberately destroyed that I have been able to find in the sources and those who with an anti-Christian axe to grind should use this case
rather than Alexandria. Furthermore, it does illustrate that Christian writers were happy to report such things and repeat them from other
sources. Contrary to the allegations of many sceptics, the Christian scribes made no effort to censor this alleged misdeed of Jovian even
though he was a Christian emperor.

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Magical and Prophetic Texts

That is not to say that many texts were not destroyed by the Christian Roman Emperors. We find that in fact they were, but often for reasons
completely divorced from theology and as a continuation of exactly the policy that had been followed by their pagan antecedents.

The relationship between the state and soothsayers in the Roman Empire was always ambiguous. Although some educated Romans like
Cicero viewed the practices of these people as so much hokum, many thought that astrology, augury and other forms of divination actually
worked. This made the practitioners dangerous people who had to be controlled. For this reason, they were either regulated by the state or,
if they worked unofficially, persecuted to ensure they stayed in line. Astrologers were regularly persecuted and expelled, from the first time in
139BC and throughout the duration of the Empire.

We learn from Suetonius that Augustus, as soon as he became High Priest and in charge of such matters, rounded up over 2,000 prophetic
books and burnt them. He left only the famous Sibylline books which he locked away in the Temple of Palatine Apollo so that they could
only be consulted by those who could be trusted to give an official interpretation.

We can read about the final fate of these esteemed but probably less than enlightening books in the elegy Concerning my Return by Rutilius
Namatianus who says of the Gothic general, Stilicho, who rose to be chief minister of the Western Emperors at the end of the fourth century
"Before this, he burnt the predictions which carried the power of the Sybil." Rutilius is writing shortly afterwards and hence he is nearly
contemporary. Consequently, it seems likely that Stilicho completed the job Augustus started in destroying prophetic texts.

Later on, John of Salisbury in the thirteenth century, tells us in his Policraticus a different story. He is really far too late to be reliable and
admits he is reporting a rumour, so is mentioned here only for completeness. According to John, the story was that Pope Gregory the Great
had burnt some books from the Palatine Library in yet another purge of prophetic writings. He writes:

As well as this, that man most holy teachings, Gregory, who poured forth a charming shower of proclamations and inspired the
whole church, not only ordered magical works out of his palace, but, as our ancestors hand down, gave to the fire writing
forbidden for reading - whatever was held by in the Temple of Apollo on the Palatine - works in which there were teachings
which seemed to reveal to men the mind of the heavens and supernatural prophecies.

Although there is nothing intrinsically unlikely about Pope Gregory continuing the policy of Rome's pagan rulers in destroying these apparently
subversive works we have seen the job appears to have been completed already. Some commentators have taken one or the other above
passages to mean that the entire Palatine Library was destroyed but this is an interpretation that the sources, even if they are reliable, cannot
sustain.

As far as the Emperors were concerned there was one kind of divination activity that was treated as the highest form of treason and punished
accordingly - that of predicting the future of the Imperial family. Ammianus Marcellinus gives the most terrifying account of how these things
could spiral out of control. He tells of reign of terror under the Emperor Valens reminiscent of Caligula or Commodus involving the show trial
and execution of dozens of people who were suspected of divination of this kind although the evidence came from others tortured into
confessions. The victims' books were seized and claimed to be prophetic texts although Ammianus says that in fact they were mainly
concerned with art and law. These books were burned and in the resulting panic many people destroyed their entire private libraries to
ensure they had no incriminating evidence in their homes.

In a further example, Diocletian is said by John of Antioch, again in the Suda, to have destroyed the esoteric works of the Egyptians on
alchemy and magic:

He also sought out the forbidden books by the ancient Egyptians concerning the alchemy of gold and silver and threw them to
the flames so that the confidence and spirit for rebellion would not be available to the Egyptians due to either the means of their
art or the amount of their wealth.

The story is again unsupported and unreliable but accurately reflects the reputation that Egypt had for being the repository of forbidden
knowledge as well as typical Roman policy toward magical texts.

The fact that Augustus and Diocletian were pagan Emperors and that Valens and Stilicho were Christians does not figure at all in the analysis
of these events. Certainly, although Constantine made Christianity the official religion, the Roman Empire remained just as much of a military
despotism as it ever was. It was not until Theodosius was reprimanded by Archbishop Ambrose that some of the Emperors' megalomaniac
proclivities were to be at all circumscribed by Christianity and even then, not by much.

The Christian church prior to the Middle Ages had a very healthy attitude towards magic and related subjects as it simply dismissed them as
superstition not worthy of attention. The episode in the Acts of the Apostles where the magicians destroy their own scrolls to show they
realise how useless they are is illustrative of this. The church would therefore have not particularly cared about such texts but as they were not
copying them either, very few have survived the ravages of time. In the early Renaissance, in many ways a far more superstitious time than the
Middle Ages, they again became popular, especially the Corpus Hermiticum and related works.

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Persecution of Christians

The Church History of Eusebius sometimes gives the impression that Christian martyrs were being slaughtered in their thousands for three
hundred years. Scholars today take a rather dim view of this idea and accept that persecution specifically aimed at Christians was both rare
and highly localised. Pliny's letter to Trajan appears to sum up the Roman attitude that hunting down Christians was not the done thing but
they were to be executed if they happened to be caught.

Late in the day, however, on the advice of his protégé Galerius, the Emperor Diocletian launched what is usually referred to as the Great
Persecution. It was a indeed a bloody affair that involved the suppression of literature as well as persons. Of course, it is unlikely that
Diocletian made any distinction between orthodox and heretic Christians. Eusebius and the Suda both mention that there was wide scale
destruction of Christian texts and some scholars such as Bruce Metzger believe it was so efficient that it explains why almost no pre 300AD
New Testament manuscripts survive. When the persecution finally came to an end the most pressing concern of Christians was what to do
about all the people who had recanted under the threat of the scaffold and now wanted to return to the church.

The last pagan Emperor was Julian who tried a much more subtle approach. He wanted to reinvigorate paganism so it could win the battle
for hearts and minds against Christianity. He wrote that his efforts to restore paganism were being seriously hampered by the charity and
good deeds of the Christians and in any case his two years on the throne were not sufficient to have much effect. He wrote to his friend
Arsacius, a Galatian pagan priest:

Why then do we think that this is sufficient and do not observe how the kindness of Christians to strangers, their care for the
burial of their dead, and the sobriety of their lifestyle has done the most to advance their cause? Each of these things, I think,
ought really to be practised by us.

Persecution by Christians

In the end the Roman Empire was not converted at the point of a sword but rather because quite soon anyone who wanted to get anywhere
had to be a Christian and hence people lost little time in becoming one. This was partly because most pagans were happy to become nominal
Christians and unlike earlier martyrs did not feel that any faith was worth dying for. Substituting the household gods for household saints was
not seen as a radical step and furthermore paganism had been becoming increasingly monotheistic (usually worshipping the sun) before the
advent of Christianity. The Bishop of Troy was happy to move between religions with a clean conscience as he could not really tell them
apart. Even pagan polemic aimed at Christians seems more concerned with how stupid and dirty they were than any immediate danger they
presented. Temples were quarried for their valuable marble although even today dozens still survive almost intact. A few were pulled down
by fanatical monks but it is the rarity of these events that makes them so noteworthy to the historians of the time.

In the one example I have been able to find of the persecution of pagans involving the destruction of their holy books, the chronicler John
Malalas says that during the reign of Justinian in the sixth century:

In that month of June during that persecution, pagans were arrested and paraded around. Their books were burnt in the ring for
animal shows together with pictures and statues of their loathsome gods.

Christianity was introduced to act as a unifying force in an increasingly fragmented Empire. This meant that it immediately became a political
matter and indeed it was politically important that Christianity was itself united. The idea of religion as civic duty was handed down from
centuries of pagan practice while Emperor Julian had already seen that the monolithic Christian creed had a marked advantage over his
disparate pagans whom he had tried to reform.

Luckily for the desired unity, orthodoxy had been fighting heretics for a couple of centuries already and with the full might of the Imperial state
behind them, they took this battle to its conclusion. In general, during the fourth and fifth centuries, the argument was reasonably civilised but
from time to time violence erupted or official coercion was used. Later on, methods became steadily more severe as heresy came to be seen
as a cancer at the heart of society until even the accusation of heresy could be used as a political weapon. If you want to find evidence of
Christians destroying manuscripts then it is here you should look.

The Theodosian Code, a law book that collects all the Imperial Decrees and was published by Theodosius II in the early fifth century is quite
explicit that the writings of certain heretics should be destroyed. Likewise, we find Pope Leo the Great ordering the burning of Manichean
writings in Rome after he had found how far they had penetrated into his church. There can be no doubt that heretical Christian texts were
lost in this way although the scale of destruction would have been quite modest. The idea of huge pyres of manuscripts burning in a city
square is pure myth. Most heretical works perished due to neglect in that after they wore out there was no one left to copy them. Heretics
would not have been able to afford expensive and long lasting vellum for their books so would instead have had to rely on fragile papyrus that
simply does not last.

It is the case that a few of the most forthright pagan attacks on Christianity were also targeted for suppression. Most famous is Porphyry's
Against the Christians. He was a pupil of the great neo Platonist, Plotinus, and wrote a massive work to combat the new religion. He was
particularly offended by the way it was taking over pagan philosophical ideas and turning them to its own ends. The book was condemned in
the fourth and fifth centuries but today we can still study Porphyry's arguments from the long quotations of his work found in Christian
refutations. Likewise, the arguments of other pagan apologists survive in works such as Origen's Against Celsus. On the other hand, Julian's
Against the Galilaeans, Eutropius's various insults, the works of Libanius and other works of late pagan polemic against Christianity have
been preserved by the very faith they were attacking.

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The End of the Classical Age

By the fifth century learning in the Western Empire was rapidly decaying as barbarian hordes swept over the dying Roman civilisation.
Ammianus Marcellinus had complained in a rather rhetorical way that the libraries of Rome had been shut during his time in the mid forth
century. It is likely that they were transported with many other works of art and learning to the new capital of Constantinople being built on
the shore of the Bospherus. We hear that the Christian Emperor Constantius founded an centre of learning and a library there under
Themistius, the master of Rhetoric.

Whatever was left in Rome was destroyed during the sackings of 410AD by the Goths, in 455AD by the Vandals and many times thereafter.
Although most cities were ransacked and fell into ruin, the barbarians quite quickly converted to Christianity which meant that at least they
tended to spare book filled monasteries and churches from their depredations.

In Alexandria too, at the start of the fifth century, Orosius found that pagan temples, while still standing, had been emptied of their book . He
does not say where they were taken but Constantinople is again not unlikely. The Emperor Justinian is notorious for his closing the academy
of Athens in 529AD and causing the pagan teachers to flee to Persia, although they all came back a few years later and were allowed to
write and study unmolested. Meanwhile, John Philoponus, a philosophical master at Alexandria in the sixth century, found there was little
conflict between his work studying Aristotle and being a professing Christian. Indeed his religion seems to have led him to make some of the
most exciting advances in ancient natural philosophy.

The Loss of Literature

It has been claimed that about ten million words of classical Greek and one million words of classical Latin, excepting Christian works, have
come down to us. Of the former, two million words are the medical corpus of Galen alone, while of the later about a third is made up of the
surviving three quarters of the works of Cicero. In fact, whereas much classical Greek is technical and not of interest to the general reader,
nearly all preserved classical Latin is worth reading in its own right.

So just what proportion of ancient literature has been lost? This is difficult to answer but we can get a rough estimate from the size of ancient
libraries. Archaeology suggests that the biggest contained 20,000 or so scrolls and the Great Library of Alexandria itself is most reliably said
to have contained 40,000. On the other hand, all the extant pagan classical works would not fill much more than a thousand scrolls so we
have been left with about 5% of what might be found (barring repeat copies) in Rome. Of course, this does not tell us what people were
actually reading and we can get a better idea of this from the papyri retrieved from the sands of Egypt, especially at Oxyrynchus. Of the
Greek literary papyri that have been edited, a full third are scraps of Homer, a further third are from works familiar from the manuscript
tradition and the remainder are previously unknown. This suggests that roughly half of the most popular works (even excluding Homer) have
been preserved through the Dark Ages by the copying of manuscripts.

Literature was lost in two main ways - it either was not copied after the original version fell apart or it was the victim of disasters and war.
The latter cases were probably all too common and one would be hard pressed to find any Greek or Roman city that was not sacked or
pillaged at some point. On top of this we have to add natural disasters such as earthquakes, flood and accidental fire. Rome suffered many
times, as did Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem. Constantinople was wracked by frequent periods of civil unrest and fell in 1205 and 1453.
The later of these, when the Turks finally snuffed out the Byzantine Empire, is said to be the occasion of the loss of the last complete copy of
Diodorus Siculus's History.

But even without these downfalls, we can explain the loss of most ancient writing simply by noting that it was written on papyrus scrolls and
this is an exceedingly delicate medium that does not stand well to being handled. The document would require recopying before it fell to bits
and this was an extremely time consuming and expensive business. Not only that, once Egypt was conquered by the Arabs, papyrus was in
short supply and very much more expensive parchment had to be used instead. This was made from treated leather and many sheets were
needed to produce a good length book.

The shortage of both materials and personnel meant that choices had to be made about what would be copied and what would not be.
Although it is common today to hear people complain that the monks who did the work did not copy what interests us and instead what
interested them, this is simply anachronism and close to bigotry. They copied what they thought was important and worth the effort. That it
was more often Christian works of their own time that seemed relevant to their own lives, rather than works that were ancient even then,
should not surprise us. And nor should they be condemned by anyone who has not copied out the complete works of Shakespeare by hand
on real parchment (which lasts 30,000 years rather than the expected 1,000 for paper) on the off chance that CD-ROM technology does not
survive the apocalypse.

Some of the reasons that important literature disappeared are in fact very prosaic. The most important was language. When the Roman
Empire was at its height the educated classes could read both Latin and Greek but after the fourth century the two languages split on
geographical grounds with Greek completely dying out in Western Europe. In the East, Latin was first confined to the army and then
disappeared altogether. As late as the thirteenth century the humanist scholar Petrarch could bemoan in a letter to Nicolas Sygeros that he
was unable to read any of his collection of Greek manuscripts. Clearly, copying a manuscript that no one understands is not going to be a
priority so Latin in the East and Greek in the West was lost.

This is also the reason for the near total lack of scientific scholarship in Western Europe before the translations into Latin of the High Middle
Ages. There never was a scientific tradition in Latin, only popular writings like Pliny the Elder's Natural History. Once Greek died out, these
were all that anyone could read and the technical Greek works (apart from one or two like Plato's Timeaus that had already been translated
into Latin) were lost to the West.

Another major factor was the educational curriculum. In Byzantium, attic Greek was valued as a much finer form of literature than other
dialects. Consequently attic playwrights, orators and thinkers saw their works preserved while other writers were not copied. The most high
profile casualty was Menander who wrote comic plays in everyday Greek. He was once very popular but then his lower style fell out of
favour and not a single one of his plays survives in the manuscript tradition (luckily large portions of several of his plays have been found on
papyri in Egypt).

Palimpsests are another interesting case. The ruinous cost of parchment combined with its ability to withstand centuries of wear and tear
meant that it was frequently reused. The old writing was scrapped off and the new written over the top. However, the process left faint
images of the original text which later scholars have been able to read. Some important pagan works have been accidentally preserved in this
way such as part of Cicero's De Republica and the recently rediscovered Archimedes palimpsest. There is no evidence that the monks doing
the scrapping were deliberately targeting pagan texts although we may sometimes find their priorities unfortunate. The text they were
scrapping off had, itself, been transcribed by earlier Christians and a perusal of a manuscript catalogue (such as the British Library's on-line)
shows that in most cases the underlying material on a palimpsest is Christian as well. One of the earliest known bibles, the Codex Ephraemi
Rescriptus, had the sermons of Ephraemus written over the top of it.

In history and geography, many texts were lost because they were perceived to be out of date. Copying out Erastothenes' Geography
seemed a waste of time when everyone knew that Stabo's work, which is still extant, was better. Likewise, nearly all the earliest Byzantine
chronicles, like Julius Africanus are lost because they were considered to have been superseded by the later ones like Georgius Syncellus
which is still preserved.

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The preservation of what classical Latin works that we do possess was almost entirely down to the Christian church. It helped in a number of
ways:

1.It preserved the use of the Latin language and hence ensured that classical works could continue to be used and understood;
2.Its monks copied texts as they wore out. Not a single complete text survives from Roman times but instead those we possess were
recopied from the ninth century in monastery scriptoria.
3.As Christianity is a highly literary religion it had to ensure that enough people remained literate in order to use sacred texts. This
naturally spilled over into secular work as well.
4.The monastic libraries were safe havens for valuable and delicate manuscripts that Christian raiders (though not pagan ones like the
Vikings) generally left alone.

It might be claimed that as the Church was the only institution that contained people able to read and write it is hardly surprising that the Latin
that survived was in their hands. This misses the point. There is no evidence that the church was in any way jealous of its learning and anyone
who paid could have received an education. But among the upper class warriors of the Franks, Saxons and Goths there was simply no such
desire until Charlemagne encouraged them in the ninth century. For this reason, had the church not occupied its unifying, educational and
preserving role no other institution would have done so. The amount of classical Latin literature that has come down to us is a pitiful remnant
of what there once was, but we can think the church for what we have.

In the fifteenth century humanists (in the context the term simply means a classical scholar) like Poggio searched the libraries of the
monasteries seeking to acquire, by fair means and foul, copies of ancient works and by 1450 nearly all the classical Latin known today had
been recovered.

In the Eastern Empire there was no sudden collapse but instead a thousand year decay. This meant that learning was carried on for much
longer and something like ten times as much classical Greek survives as classical Latin. The amount that was still extant in the ninth century
when Photius compiled his Bibliography was considerably more than still known today. Unfortunately, Byzantium was hammered over the
next five hundred years by successive invasions by Turks and Normans who, between them, destroyed it utterly. As these disasters unfolded,
Byzantine learning, despite some brief revivals, shrunk so that it could not replace what the invaders took away. On the other hand, only a
tiny fraction of late Byzantine manuscripts have been edited and there remains that chance that substantial parts of earlier classical works have
been copied and remain to be discovered.

Of course, the Greek works that survive are those that the Christian Byzantines choose to preserve for us. Hence they give a very skewed
view of what Greek thought was actually like. For instance, we have seen that the medical works of Galen make up a full fifth of the entire
surviving classical Greek corpus. Add Plato, Aristotle, Ptolemy and the mathematical works and we find that Christians were by far the most
keen on copying scientific and medical writings. The papyri from Egypt and epigraphical evidence show that this was not the concern of most
Greeks. In other words, we think Greeks were a rational lot because Christians were interested in their rational thought. Hence, the
preponderance of Greek science in the surviving corpus tells us that the Christians who preserved it were very interested in science - not that
the classical Greeks were. Oddly, Stoicism, the Greek philosophy that comes closed to Christianity is severely under represented as is
Epicurianism and Cynicism. And yet these three schools rejected much of reason and science, concentrating instead on ethical issues. We are
left with the strong impression that it was Christians who appreciated Greek science a whole lot more than the Greeks did.

The final destruction of Byzantium coincided with the Renaissance in the West. The extent to which the two events are linked has long been
debated but there is no doubt that the rediscovery of the Greek language by the humanists helped preserve much of the detritus left by the
loss of the Greek Empire. The conquering Ottoman Turks were also happy to let most of the Greek monasteries continue in peace and
discoveries were made in their dusty libraries well into the twentieth century.

Conclusion

Today we regret how much has been lost but we have been remarkably careless ourselves. Many classic television serials, such as Doctor
Who from the 1960s, have disappeared because at the time no one felt they were important enough to use up video tape for. Even more
tragically, large numbers of early movies like the second part of the incomparable Wedding March (1928) have been lost through
carelessness and the perishability of nitrate film (for further details see here). Some surviving classics were preserved in a single print. To
those of us who mourn the loss of classical literature this is a depressingly familiar story.

Further Reading

There are relatively few books about this subject that are not either Christian apologetics or atheist propaganda. Glenn Miller's summary is
informative from a Christian point of view while good examples of the later include the works of Joseph McCabe that can be found in the
Internet Infidels' Historical Library. While McCabe is worthless as scholarship, he certainly is a rollicking read. For my own article, I have
tried to track down the primary sources rather than use secondary works but the following, including some general references, have all been
helpful:

The Early Church - Henry Chadwick
The Beginnings of Western Science - David Lindberg
Libraries in the Ancient World - Lionel Casson
Themistius and the Imperial Court - John Vanderspoel
Dictionary of Scientific Biography
Oxford Classical Dictionary
Books for the Burning - Clarence Forbes (link to actual article)
http://www.bede.org.uk/literature.htm

Hofburg in Wienna are reported too have a large collections of old writings, amoungs them also lot of Papyrus scrolls.

The collection of these writings migth have started as early as the 13 or 14 century-

But also here can things have gotten lost.
There are reports of fires both in the 14 century and as late as in 1992.

I have tried too find info but it seems unclear if any of the writings them selves has been damaged by this fires or not.

Anyway what i would like too know, are if those writings who still exists in Hofburg have been checked out and translated.

I would like to learn more about these writings myself. Hofburg kept many ancient artifacts at it, but not only did it fall victim to fire, but was probably also looted in the postwar period after World War II.