Halls of Ancient Alexandria's Ivy Found

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS ^ | Published: May 27, 2004

[Grzegorz 246]

CAIRO, May 26 - Polish archaeologists have unearthed 13 lecture halls believed to be the first traces ever found of ancient Egypt's University of Alexandria, the head of the project said Wednesday.

"This is the oldest university ever found in the world," said Grzegorz Majderek, head of the Polish mission.

The lecture halls, with a capacity of 5,000 students, were part of the fifth-century university, which functioned until the seventh century, according to a statement from Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities.

"This is the first material evidence of the existence of academic life in Alexandria," Mr. Majderek said. Knowledge of earlier intellectual pursuits there came through historical and literary documents.

Ancient Alexandria was home to a library, which was founded about 295 B.C. and burned to the ground in the fourth century. Ruins were never found. The auditoriums were found near the portico of the Roman Theater in the eastern part of the city. All the lecture halls are of identical dimensions. Each contains rows of stepped benches in a semicircle and an elevated seat apparently for the lecturer, the antiquities council said.

[King Prout]

The
Religion
of
Peace
(tm)

Islam, in other words

[lizma]

at least they were civilized enough to preserve greek learning!

I think that's a good point. I've also read about their advances in medicine and the correlation they made concerning sanitation and health. It went well beyond the Greeks.

Our culture's understanding that sanitation might be a good thing really didn't come about until the Civil War. (Was told at Plymouth Rock that the natives were disgusted that the English didn't bath. Who knows.) It wasn't until the 1860's that we started to look at Lister's and Jenner's work seriously and began to understand that flies will travel the short distance from the outhouse to the hospital's kitchen and having the surgeons sharping their amputation knives on their dung covered boots may not be a great idea.

All in all, it a lesson in the cyclic rise and decline of cultures.

[SunkenCiv]

Fascinating history of the library. Notes that the library was *not* burned by Julius Caesar, and in fact was around during Roman times, and was finally consigned to the flames by the Moslems:

---

The Vanished Library by Luciano Canfora tr by Martin Ryle

---

[SunkenCiv]

Just updating the GGG information, not sending a general distribution.

To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. Thanks.

Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on or off the
"Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list or GGG weekly digest
-- Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)

[rock58seg]

Why not mention WHO destroyed the Library of Alexandria and WHY?????????

Could the Cult of Death misdescribed as the Religion of Peace have had something to with it?

[rock58seg]

student is obliged to attend classes that may or may not be available when he needs them seems, to my mind, to be an outmoded and wasteful way of doing things.

Finding it hard to get up for class in the morning??? are we???

[plenipotentiary]

"Your own Western thought sprang from Arab scholorship discovered during the Crusades."

What complete b*ll*cks.

[Kenny Bunk]

Your own Western thought sprang from Arab scholorship discovered during the Crusades

Um, make that Western thought re-discovered. The Arabs of that era were still intellectually living off the plunder of Christian Civilizations they had overrun. It did help snap us out of the 'Dark Ages,' as did the Byzantine refugees from Islam who flooded into Europe, particularly the Italian City States.

The Muslims are owed a debt for preserving such Classical Knowledge as they did, and should also properly be castigated for that which they destroyed or forgot. Note I say "Muslims," not Arabs. Many of the "Muslim Best and Brightest" were actually forcibly converted Christians, and especially Jews.

Intellectually speaking, Islam has been an intellectual curse and a civilizational retrograde movement in those countries unlucky enough to have fallen to Arab conquest.

[Old Student]

I find it interesting that the system of education by lecture has survived this far into the modern world. For most of human history books have been expensive and hard to obtain; but that's no longer so. Adhering to the lecture system, where the student is obliged to attend classes that may or may not be available when he needs them seems, to my mind, to be an outmoded and wasteful way of doing things.

With something over 300 semester hours of college credits to my credit (or shame), I believe I must agree with you, at least somewhat. There ARE lecturers it's worth listening to, even today, though. Of course, we have recordings of many of those folks, now, too. ;) Google the Khan Academy, for a great example of lecture-on-demand. Especially if you have HS teenagers.

Oh, and I just LOVE your tagline!

Old Student

[jjotto]

Well, some of us would not be comfortable going to a medical doctor with a degree from a correspondence school.

Or a lawyer who knew law by reading all the required texts from Harvard Law but who never actually went there.

[Rocky]

Did they have any LGBT studies?

[Old Student]

“Well, some of us would not be comfortable going to a medical doctor with a degree from a correspondence school.

Or a lawyer who knew law by reading all the required texts from Harvard Law but who never actually went there.”

You do know why it’s called the “practice of medicine” of course. They’re still practicing...

As for your last example, how well do you think we did with the current “most famous” graduate of Harvard Law School? You know, the guy in the Oval Office who obviously missed Marbury vs. Madison?

Tongue in cheek joking aside, there is nothing to prove a person with a correspondence degree spent any less time studying than the guy with the fancy sheepskin. Nor that the guy with the fancy sheepskin knows any more about his subject. Your comfort may be less than mine, but then I’ve got a degree in teaching from what passes as a highly recommend school here in Oklahoma. Having spent quite a lot of my time as a student (over 300 semester hours of college alone) I know that there were many things a teacher needs to know that were either not addressed at all, or just barely glossed over in my undergrad degree, and the masters program I half completed before my academic career crashed and burned.

I’ve also worked with some very good mechanics of one sort and another that had NO formal education.

OS

[SunkenCiv]