The Royal Library of Alexandria

The beauty of the area now known as Alexandria, in northern Egypt on the mouth of the Nile river, captivated Alexander the Great, (356 -323 BC), so much that he established the city in his own name at approximately 334 BC. Although he would never see this city again, with the exception of his burial place, one of his generals, Ptolemy I, (who was also related to him), claimed control over Egypt after the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC. Ptolemy I not only constructed the Great Library of Alexandria and possibly the original Temple of the Muses, called the "Musaeum", (where the current word museum comes from), but also began one of the Seven Wonders of the World, the Great Pharaoh's Lighthouse.

Under the rule of his son, Ptolemy II, the Great Pharaoh's Lighthouse was completed and the Great Library of Alexandria continued to flourish and grow into a massive storage epicenter of ancient spiritual and scientific knowledge. It was renowned for the meeting place of many numerous intellectuals of the time. A rule supposedly had also been decreed that whenever scrolls entered into this area, that the originals were kept and copies given back, (with just compensation), to the owners so that the original information could be stored within the Great Library.

Although the Royal Library of Alexandria was not the first, nor the largest library in history, it was the largest and most magnificent of its time. For reasons still unknown, however, very little appears to have been written about its historical notoriety.

One of the few historical facts that can be truly agreed upon by its writers is the final destruction of the Serepeum, (sister library of the Royal library), in 391 AD during the persecution of the pagans by the early Christians. As written by Socrates Scholasticus for the Church records:

"CHAPTER XVI - "Demolition of the Idolatrous Temples at Alexandria, and the Consequent Conflict between the Pagans and Christians."

"At the solicitation of Theophilus bishop of Alexandria the emperor issued an order at this time for the demolition of the heathen temples in that city; commanding also that it should be put in execution under the direction of Theophilus. Seizing this opportunity, Theophilus exerted himself to the utmost to expose the pagan mysteries to contempt.

"And to begin with, he caused the Mithreum to be cleaned out, and exhibited to public view the tokens of its bloody mysteries. Then he destroyed the Serapeum, and the bloody rites of the Mithreum he publicly caricatured; the Serapeum also he showed full of extravagant superstitions, and he had the phalli of Priapus carried through the midst of the forum.

"Thus this disturbance having been terminated, the governor of Alexandria, and the commander-in-chief of the troops in Egypt, assisted Theophilus in demolishing the heathen temples. These were therefore razed to the ground, and the images of their gods molten into pots and other convenient utensils for the use of the Alexandrian church; for the emperor had instructed Theophilus to distribute them for the relief of the poor. "All the images were accordingly broken to pieces, except one statue of the god before mentioned, which Theophilus preserved and set up in a public place; 'Lest,' said he, 'at a future time the heathens should deny that they had ever worshiped such gods.'"

Although a bloody riot ensued soon after this task was begun, the pagans dispursed for fear of retribution from the Christian emperor and their temples were pillaged. Strangely enough, only the Serapeum, (sister library built to store overflow of information), was mentioned though, not the Great Library or the Museaeum.

Although there were over a dozen ancient historians, (Plutarch, Callimachus, and Strabo to name a few), that mentioned the Great Library, there has never seemed to be much consistency or agreement in their writings, due to their possible political alignments or the fact that some were writing up to a hundred years after its destruction. Above and beyond that, if the Library was as grandiose as it is thought to have been, why then would there be so few writings about it?

To the casual observer, one may say that either it was not as grandiose as we believe, or maybe that the information contained within was not as important as we would like to believe. Stories have swirled for ages about the mysteries that may have been contained in the Great Library and Musaeum, from sacred/mystical knowledge to mysterious artifacts that may have been collected as war spoils by even Alexander the Great himself. How much of this may be true? Let us take a look into some theories…

First off, we know that it all started with the construction of the Temple of the Muses, (Musaeum), which was considered a sacred, spiritual site. Then, very soon after, the Library was built as an extension to this, similarly like the Vatican's library that exists underground in Vatican City. As a footnote, it is highly doubtful that in the Vatican library one would come across cookbooks, romance novels, or comic books filling the shelves, but then again, no one is allowed to verify that!

It is known that the Library of Alexandria had succumbed to a few other disasters from earthquakes to Roman power struggles before its formal destruction, but during the rule of Ptolemy III, another smaller library was built to sustain the expansion of knowledge, the Serapeum. This was another storehouse of information that was built in addition, but not believed to be connected to, the Great Library of Alexandria. The Serapeum was dedicated to the Greek/Egyptian deity of Serapis, who was the patron of Alexandria and had underground catacombs that housed numerous stone reliefs and statues including a great basalt bull that was excavated by the late Dr G Botti and now resides in the rebuilt museum, Bibliotheca Alexandrina. Most certainly, the Serapeum is where many pagan rituals were taught and held in this time, just as the Serapeum of Saqqara was dedicated to the Apis Bulls dating back to the 18th and 19th Dynasties.

The Egyptians and the pagans were only the first groups to consider this area extremely important; it soon became a major congregation for Jews and Christians as well. Everyone who studied at the library found a wealth of information that was written in one of the three major languages of the time: Greek/Latin, Egyptian, or Hebrew. Most documents were slowly translated into all three languages over time for the versatility and benefit of all who studied there.

The area of Alexandria also quickly became the centre of what was known as Arianism, named after Arius, a Christian theologian and patriarch of Alexandria. This was one of the early Christian doctrines that taught that "Jesus Christ" and "God the Father" were not the same. The Son was created as a divine being by the Father and therefore inferior to Him. It also taught that at some point, the "Father" did not exist but was Himself, created by the "Supreme Will," a higher power that all things came from.

Although Arianism attracted much support in Alexandria, and the early Church initially allowed its teachings, it soon became subject of much debate and controversy, leading to the first Council Nicaea, and was quickly put to an end. After stripping Arius of his patriarch status, he and some of his closest followers were excommunicated and banished for their teachings, but eventually restored his good relationship with the emperor at a later date.

Some of the other brilliant minds of their time, as well as ours, which appear to have studied at the Royal Library, were:

Euclid, (approx. 325 BC - 265 BC), who wrote the elements of geometry.

Aristarchus, (approx. 310 BC - 230 BC), the first to theorize that the earth revolves around the sun, and pioneer of determining the sizes of the sun, moon, and earth.

Callimachus, (approx. 305 BC - 240 BC), great poet, and grammarian, also possibly one of the librarians of the Royal Library, and credited with becoming the first to write a catalogue for books classified by topic and author.

Archimedes, (approx. 287 BC - 212 BC), discovered the principles of density and buoyancy, known as the Archimedes principle, invented the irrigation device known as the Archimedes screw, and developed a myriad of complex mathematical principles of which include center of gravity, density, paraboloids, and hemispheres of geometrical figures to name but a few. Considered to be one of history's greatest mathematicians.

Eratosthenes, (approx. 276 BC - 194 BC), produced surprisingly accurate measurements of the circumference of the earth and the distance from the earth to the sun and moon.

Hipparchus, (approx. 190 BC - 120 BC), the first to accurately measure the solar year within six and a half minutes.

How did people like these derive their theories and calculations? That is the question that should be asked. Many of these people, it is said, used centuries-old information from the ancient sciences recorded in the Babylonian libraries of Ugarit, as well as possible information from the library of King Ashurbanipal, in Nineveh, in addition to many other numerous sources like philosophical teachings from Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates, which apparently must have all been housed in the library. Unfortunately, many of the most influential works that these, and others, had written involving this information have supposedly been lost to time, or so we are told.

But, were their works and this information really lost to time, or rather, was it slowly removed from the public's access? Could their syllabuses have contained much more than just information on math and science that may have been deemed too dangerous to leave to the general public? As the world moved from free thinkers to politicians, was some of this information a threat to the political and religious powers? How, one might ask, could all of these works be lost, but yet we still derive accurate information on their lives and studies? To a logical mind, that would suggest that this "lost information" still exists somewhere.

Another question that begs to be asked is how did these people from the Hellenistic era of history develop all of these revolutionary, yet accurate theories of our world and universe in a time that many historians imply was still heavily barbaric in their nature? In addition, how again could this knowledge have not been understood and verified until the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries? There are many questions that are neglected, passed over, or simply not even addressed by modern minds.

Probably the single most noteworthy accomplishment of the Library of Alexandria, according to history books, was the creation of the Septuagint. The Septuagint was the Hebrew Testament, (Christian Old Testament), which was translated into the Greek language. This also allowed for the spread of the Hebrew religion to many other parts of the world.

One of the most important uses of Alexandria was the ability for multi-lingual translations of any information contained within its walls. For the first time in history, works from around the world could be simultaneously translated for others to study.

This brings us to another interesting point about a crucial artifact that does not appear to be correlated to the Royal Library, the Rosetta Stone. Found by Napoleon and his army, in approximately 1799 AD, in the small coastal city of Rosetta, was a stone that eventually was the single item that allowed modern day man to understand and translate Egyptian hieroglyphics once again, the Rosetta Stone. The stone was inscribed with a flattering decree for the current pharaoh, Ptolemy IV. (As an important note, the city of Rosetta is located approximately 200 km, (or roughly 124 miles), north/northeast of Cairo. The ancient city of Alexandria is located roughly 50 km, (or 31 miles), west/southwest of Rosetta.)

Seeing as the stone was painstakingly written in formal and common dialects of Egyptian hieroglyphics, as well as Greek, not to mention that it is roughly dated at 196-200 BC, (the height of the Royal Library's existence), as its creation date, is this another perfect example of the Royal Library's extreme importance to ancient times as well as ours? You can be the judge.

It is known that valuable information and records were beginning to be moved around to public, as well as private libraries as early as the first century A.D. We also now that some very influential pagans that were chased out of Alexandria had moved on to Constantinople, but again, what happened to the thousands of scrolls that once graced the walls in Alexandria. It has been theorized that if Alexandria had not been desecrated, that we as a civilization may have encountered the industrial revolution as much as 1500 years earlier than we did, another example of the magnitude and wealth of information contained therein. Sadly, the world may never know the true fate of this valuable information, but one thing is for certain…it is highly doubtful that it was destroyed without copies being kept somewhere by someone. After all…the writings that talk about the temple's destruction, only mention the destruction of the pagan statues and furnishings, but not one word of the scrolls.

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