Library of Alexandria discovered

BBC News ^ | Wednesday, 12 May, 2004 | Dr David Whitehouse

[presidio9]

Archaeologists have found what they believe to be the site of the Library of Alexandria, often described as the world's first major seat of learning. A Polish-Egyptian team has excavated parts of the Bruchion region of the Mediterranean city and discovered what look like lecture halls or auditoria.

Two thousand years ago, the library housed works by the greatest thinkers and writers of the ancient world.

Works by Plato and Socrates and many others were later destroyed in a fire.

Oldest University

Announcing their discovery at a conference being held at the University of California, Zahi Hawass, president of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, said that the 13 lecture halls uncovered could house as many as 5,000 students in total.

A conspicuous feature of the rooms, he said, was a central elevated podium for the lecturer to stand on.

"It is the first time ever that such a complex of lecture halls has been uncovered on any Greco-Roman site in the whole Mediterranean area," he added.

"It is perhaps the oldest university in the world."

Professor Wileke Wendrich, of the University of California, told BBC News Online that the discovery was incredibly impressive.

Alexandria was a major seat of learning in ancient times and regarded by some as the birthplace of western science.

Birthplace of geometry

It was a tiny fishing village on the Nile delta called Rhakotis when Alexander the Great chose it as the site of the new capital of his empire.

It was made Egypt's capital in 320 BC and soon became the most powerful and influential city in the region.

Its rulers built a massive lighthouse at Pharos, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and the famed Library of Alexandria.

It was at the library that Archimedes invented the screw-shaped water pump that is still in use today.

At Alexandria Eratosthenes measured the diameter of the Earth, and Euclid discovered the rules of geometry.

Ptolemy wrote the Almagest at Alexandria. It was the most influential scientific book about the nature of the Universe for 1,500 years.

The library was later destroyed, possibly by Julius Caesar who had it burned as part of his campaign to conquer the city.

[aruanan]

Not just “along with Black Death.” Black Death in Europe was the result of Islamic germ warfare (although, of course, it might have eventually spread there anyway). Islamic practice in its wars against the (Byzantine) Roman Empire was to fling diseased corpses into cities.

One of the earlier waves of Black Death is what made Islam possible because it weakened both the Roman and Persian Empires to the point that neither had to recruit Bedouins as mercenaries for their ongoing wars, leaving the Bedouins from Arabia with nothing better to do that start up a new religion and start their own wars against civilization.

[ladyjane]

And the singular of broccoli is brocculum.

[dangus]

Brocculus. The plural of brocculum is broccula. I bet you two weeks’ bi fare. (Each bus fare is $1.35.)

[dangus]

Actually, I wonder if the anti-Aryan riots that resulted in the burning of the libraries of Alexandria in the 4th century could be blamed for the rise of Islam, ironically.

Here’s how:

Islam is actually a fusion of Bedouin folk religion and the Aryan heresy of Christianity, which was popular throughout much of North Africa and the Middle East. The center of civilization for the Aryan heresy was Alexandria. Due to Rome tossing in on the side of the Orthodox (”correct”) /Catholic (”universal” in the sense of being “objectively knowable”) Church, there was strong tension between Aryans and Rome.

There was a great decline in Aryan scholarship. Was this due to the loss of the great Aryan learning center and de-facto intellectual capitol? With the decline in scholarship, the folk weren’t converted to Orthodox / Catholic Christianity, they just became less educated and less organized. Did this ignorance (and perhaps a grudge from the anti-Aryan riots) enable Islam to drive out the last vestiges of Catholic thought?

[SunkenCiv]

• Calls to Destroy Egypt's Great Pyramids Begin [07/10/2012]