hi i'm uh dr edward gonzalez tennant so i'm a lecturer here at the university of central florida in the department of anthropology and so this talk tonight is of course uh sponsored by the central florida chapter of the archaeological institute of america and i'm going to post a link for sort of our local officers and such in a moment but of course if you're not a member of aia that's not a problem but if you'd like to help us support these great lectures you can join that by going to archaeological.org and when you sign up for a membership you can select the central florida chapter and that actually helps us build our membership but also bring more of these talks to central florida and orlando i also want to thank our our publicist officer which you see here right allison hudson for facilitating this but also at the end we'll have a q a and she'll be facilitating that you can type into the chat after uh the the presentation or use a little raise your hand icon and and we can have a little bit of back and forth following dr serwin's talk um and then of course uh like i said a moment ago i'll post this into the chat takes me a moment here this is our link for information about our local chapter so if you'd like to learn more please visit that and now it is my great pleasure to introduce dr nancy sirwin our speaker for the evening right and and she is with the school of art at arizona state university she holds phd and ma degrees from princeton as well as an m.a from the university of chicago and a ba from the university of illinois at urbana-champaign her research interests include the coroplastic arts of cyprus and ancient israel particularly their production and manufacturing as well as cross-cultural stylistic influences and the role played by terra cotta votive sculpture in cult ritual and religious ritual or sorry religious worship so talk tonight is um the the destruction of the library of alexandria obviously i think a lot of us are excited to hear about this um and so if you missed it right this is basically um a talk offering details of what is known of the famed library in addition to housing an incredible literary corpus the library attracted some of the best minds of the ancient world so serving as a repository for an exceptional quantity of written material the loss of information in ancient alexandria by the destruction of this library in this talk will be cast in the light of the lamentable historical reality in the modern era of the destruction of libraries as a political tool to erase cultural memory so with that i want to i want to thank you again dr schumer for sirloin for being with us uh thank you for joining us this evening well thank you i should i should offer two things before we begin number one i have a little cat and if she strolls through i apologize for bella number two is i have three computer screens up and running i am quite sure i can handle changing the correct um screen but if something goes wrong ed will you just let me know nancy you're pressing the wrong button thank you anyway good evening it's a pleasure for me to be able to speak to you the members of the central florida chapter the aia i wish the restrictions of the pandemic were otherwise so we could be together in person and that way i could warmly thank allison hudson for her many gracious emails and for orchestrating the logistics for tonight's lecture so thank you allison very much i would also like to thank the archaeological institute of america for designating this talk as the peter von blankenhagen lecture for the 2021 lecture series professor von blankenhagen was born in 1909 in riga latvia then under the russian tsar after the bolshevik reza excuse me revolution his family fled to germany where he was educated in classical archaeology it was in 1947 when professor blankenhagen came to the united states as a visiting professor at the university of chicago and he later taught at harvard he had a long and distinguished career specializing in roman painting and sculpture and he is especially remembered for his publication the paintings from bosco in 1982 he was awarded the aia's gold medal for distinguished archaeological achievement at his death in 1990 professor von blankenhagen was the robert lehmann professor emeritus of fine arts at the institute of fine arts of new york university so it's a great honor that this lecture is presented in the memory of such an eminent scholar so tonight's lecture i should begin by providing a very big disclaimer the title the burning of books the destruction of the library of alexandria is a little bit misleading actually we're going to be considering more than just the library of alexandria and the holdings of the library were not books at all at least not in the form that we know them given what we're going to talk about maybe this is more accurate words on fire the destruction of the knowledge of the world for all of us who are literate people who love language cherish ideas and revel in the capacity of the human mind our session this evening holds the possibility of breaking your heart you might ask the question what drew me to this topic in the first place i teach ancient art at arizona state and my focus is on the cultural achievements of the greeks romans and egyptians those achievements included some of the most exquisite works of art humans had ever produced but then this happened it seems like a lifetime ago doesn't it and i know some of you in the audience you might not even have been born um on the 2nd of august 1990 saddam hussein invaded kuwait and the subsequent response from a 12-nation u.s led coalition that began in january of 1991 and ended one month later ultimately put antiquities in jeopardy this was the case not only because of the ground war in aerial campaigns but because of other decisions that were made and subsequent consequences that could easily be regarded as collateral damage after the gulf war of 1991 the united states along with great britain and france enforced two no-fly zones in iraq the one in the north was to protect the kurdish population in the area while the southern no-fly zone was established to protect shiite muslims iraqi aircraft were forbidden to fly within those two areas and this had major consequences for archaeological sites with no-fly restrictions the countryside could not be patrolled and archaeological sites were left unattended because of u.n sect excuse me sanctions foreign archaeologists were forbidden to return and resume excavations for the first time in 50 years illegal digging was reported dozens of sites were looted because of the lack of monitoring you all know that iraq is an archaeological rich country it's been estimated that the total number of archaeological sites this means known and yet to be discovered may be anywhere from 20 000 hundred thousand so the looting that went on particularly in southern iraq was devastating a tragic example of the looting is this site um akarib in southern iraq a 5 square kilometer site that date excuse me dated to the early dynastic period in mesopotamia that's about 2900 to 2350 bc it included two temples and a palace the pock marks that you see are the result of looters digging for antiquities in many instances the looters pits continued underground in a network of tunnels all for the purpose of finding objects that could be sold on the market the iraqi economy was shattered after desert storm and it was soon realized that objects from the country's rich cultural heritage were lucrative the impact of looting was realized all the more when photographic surveys began to document the extent of destroyed sites and here are two more out of the hundreds the extent of the looting became manifest when hundreds of thousands of objects like these began appearing for sale on the market some were still covered with dirt indicating that they were freshly looted what you were looking at of course are cuneiform tablets which are written texts from ancient mesopotamia after the first gulf war they became available for sale with prices ranging from a few hundred dollars to many thousands in more recent memory we all witnessed the systematic destruction of antiquities in syria and iraq by isis the decided policy of eradicating earlier cultures began in 2014 and the obliteration of monuments and artifacts was particularly aggressive in the isis-held city of mosul and it is the inside of the museum that you see in the upper left in addition to erasing cultural memory many objects that were not destroyed were sold on the market experts have not agreed on the exact amount that the islamic state had made from the antiquities trade and estimates have ranged anywhere from millions to seven billion the amount reflects incredible financial gain and it is sobering to remember that the november 2015 paris attacks that killed 130 people likely cost no more than ten thousand dollars to stage as much as i have been deeply dis disturbed as an archaeologist at the destruction of antiquities i have to admit that i was much more affected by reports of the systematic burning and looting of libraries in iraq it was the burning of the iraq national library and archive in 20 2003 that included included the central akfa market oxygen library that you see here that became the visceral turning point for me some artifacts are priceless to be sure but in some cases multiple or similar objects exist that isn't always the case with books and manuscripts many items are unique and when they are destroyed they cannot be replaced reports were never conclusive as to what was lost due to the deliberate burning of the library and archives in baghdad some reports maintained that six thousand manuscripts in arabic persian and turkish were lost many of which were rare a report submitted to unesco indicates 40 percent of the manuscripts and ninety percent of the printed books were destroyed at the time of the fire a british journalist reported flames 30 meters high bursting from the windows so that's how my exploration began i was profoundly affected by the willful destruction of objects books and print that could never be restored this image is a powerful one richly bound in leather books being devoured in a storm of flames as i began to look further into the destruction of books i soon learned that throughout the history of this atrocity books and documents have been lost to us in different ways certainly fire destroys books and this can be the result of various circumstances there are accidents some the result of human carelessness there are natural disasters book repositories at the center of earthquakes tornadoes and accidental fires and destruction is not always by fire water damage is catastrophic for books in the aftermath of the devastating march 11 2011 earthquake in japan it was reported that 1.8 million books in the national library in tokyo had fallen off shelves on the second floor of the library tokyo was inland so the damage was not severe this was not the case for coastal libraries many of which were swept away in the tsunami those libraries that were not totally lost were inundated by seawater and it has taken years for restoration programs to be effective closer to home there were numerous reports of horrific water damage to libraries that took place during hurricane katrina and the breaching of levees at congregation beth israel in new orleans the seven taurus scrolls and more than three thousand sacred books remained submerged in water for two weeks after being rescued the squirrels and books could not be salvaged so they were buried in the congregation cemetery destruction is destruction and losses grievous but the damage seems all the more catastrophic when the intention is deliberate and those losses have been staggering willful destruction is the case with this image it is associated with the burning of the jaffna public library during the sri lankan civil war during the nights of may 31st to june 1st in 1981 a mob of sinhalese origin went on a rampaging and destroyed the library the fire was regarded as one of the most violent examples of book destruction of the 20th century the library was one of the largest in asia and contained over 97 000 books and manuscripts nothing survived the fire but the hulk of the structure on the right a commentator writing on one of the memorial anniversaries of the fire said the following quote someone quite rightly pointed out that it was a crime against humanity no doubt it is a crime which struck at the very heart of the tamil culture and civilization a crime which is tantamount to rape a rape not of the body but of the hearts and minds for this repository of knowledge culture and history represented the pride and dignity of the tamil people the willful destruction of books has been called by a recent author libra side which literally means from the latin into the murder of books the phenomenon has sadly taken place throughout history and i will show you just a few examples remember the intention of the perpetrators was always to destroy culture and historical memory and of course when that happens the entire world ultimately suffers the imperial library in constantinople the capital of the byzantine empire was the last of the great libraries of the ancient world during the course of its history it had suffered from unintentional fires it was in 473 a.d that a fire broke out and it is it is reported that 120 000 volumes were lost it was in 1204 that the library was targeted by the knights templar the fourth crusade when fires ravaged the city the books in the library were burned and those that survived were sold many of the recovered books later were absorbed into the sultan's library after constantinople was captured by the ottoman turks in 1453. just over a hundred years later in 1562 during the spanish conquest of the yucatan franciscan monk and conquistador bishop diego delanda deliberately set fire to prussian mayan texts this is what he said of the event we found a large number of books in these characters and as they contained nothing in which were not to be seen as superstition and lies of the devil we burn them all which they the maya regretted to an amazing degree and which caused them much affliction that same affliction was sorely felt when the library of congress was destroyed during the two and a half year conflict of the war of 1812. the library of congress had been signed as an act of congress in 1800 during the presidency of john adams and two years later in 1802 president thomas jefferson had been responsible for its physical structure located on capitol hill the library was set on fire by british troops with its contents of 3 000 volumes destroyed within a month former president jefferson offered his personal library as a replacement which he had spent 50 years accumulating the library today holds more than 39 million catalog books and 73 million manuscripts making it the second largest library by collection size eclipsed only by the british library the u.s library of congress had been storing 50 excuse me 500 million tweets per day as part of its efforts to build a twitter archive twitter signed on um an agreement in april 2010 to provide the library with an archive of every public tweet since the company went live in 2006. by 2013 the year of the latest archive information i could find 107 billion tweets had been added to its collection and this was of course before um former president trump started adding tweets as well um in 2017 it was announced that the library would no longer archive every public tweet adding that it would be more selective in the future and good thing that storage is digital of the several buildings that make up the library of congress the jefferson building above and the madison building below measure two million one hundred thousand square feet the madison building is one of the three largest buildings in washington along with the pentagon and the fbi building back in europe and in the early 20th century in 1914 the library of the catholic university of leuven was destroyed by the advancing german army the university was distinguished as the largest oldest and most prominent university in belgium about three hundred thousand books were lost in the fire donations received from around the world allowed the library to be rebuilt and the structure was designed by american architect whitney warren sadly the library suffered again in 1940 during the second german invasion of leuven during an exchange of fire between the german and allied armies the library was burned down and this time nine hundred thousand manuscripts and books were destroyed what you see on the screen is the present library built according to warren's original plans among the many atrocities perpetrated by the nazis a book burning campaign conducted by the german student union took place in the 1930s in nazi germany and austria it was on the 10th of may 1933 that students burned over 25 000 volumes of what were considered ungerman books that were regarded as subversive or representing ideologies opposed to nazism in many university towns on this night students marched in torchlit parades and high nazi officials professors and student leaders addressed spectators who had gathered to watch while books were thrown on bonfires in berlin forty thousand people had gathered in the square the state opera listening to joseph goebbels say no to decadence and moral corruption yes to decency and morality in family and state the ethnic basis for the destruction of books has continued in more recent times on the night of august 25th in 1992 sarajevo the capital of bosnia hitzer gobinda was under siege by bosnian serbs the national library had no military significance but was targeted and firemen who arrived to put out the flames were shot at the sarajevo national library was completely destroyed in the fire and 80 percent of its contents were lost three million books were consumed in the flames along with hundreds of original documents from the ottoman empire and the austro-hungarian monarchy the materials testified to the history of bosnia and its proud identity as a multi multicultural society the destruction of the library was a deliberate objective to crush the cultural identity of an entire country during the siege of sarajevo cellos vidran smelevich often played and destroyed buildings in the city and at funerals even though targeted by snipers he would play albanoni's adagio in g minor and here he is within the ruins of the library within the last decade the litany of destruction of libraries has continued with libraries as collateral damage during regime change during the arab spring in egypt on the 17th of december in 2011 you might remember this scene the burning of the egyptian scientific institute the institute de jept had been founded in 1798 by napoleon after his invasion of egypt and not only was it the oldest scient scientific institute in egypt but it was the oldest library in the country and housed a rare collection of over two hundred thousand two hundred thousand excuse me two hundred thousand volumes during the clash between protesters and the egyptian military a molotov cocktail was thrown and set the building on fire it burned for 12 hours consuming all but 30 000 volumes among the thousands of books lost one of the most priceless was one of four original handwritten copies of the description delegit which contained nine volumes of text and ten volumes of plates the description recorded the research conducted by 167 scholars who had traveled with napoleon to egypt and recorded everything they saw previously egypt had been relatively unknown to westerners and the detail and draftsmanship of the drawings of the architecture and sculpture as well as flora and fauna took the european world by storm this is one of the typical images offered to the public while the library burned but more hopeful were these pictures of volunteers who lived in the vicinity of tower square who had tried to salvage what could be saved even while the flames raged lieberside continued and at times nearly daily in the middle in the middle east in february of 2015 the mosul public library was destroyed by isis incendiary explosive devices were used to destroy the mosul university theater the church of the virgin mary and the mosul library which was the repository of rare manuscripts that dated to various phases of iraq's history over 8 000 rare books were destroyed the destruction of the mosul public library is part of the islamic state's ongoing attack against moses library and cultural history during the course of two months isis militants had raided and devastated collections from the mosul museum library the university of mosul library and an additional suny library it was estimated that more than one hundred thousand books had been destroyed in response to the catastrophic destruction in mosul the head of the un's educational scientific and cultural organization unesco said it was quote one of the most devastating acts of destruction of library collections in human history the history of book carnage has been an extremely violent one and that leads us full circle back to the subject of of tonight's discussion the library of alexandria this is an artist's imagined view of what the destruction of that great library might have looked like it's important to remember that it is a made-up scene and this may surprise you it is actually difficult to speak about the library of alexandria because very little is known about it for certain its location has never been precisely determined by archaeologists the appearance of the structure is not known and the ultimate fate of the library has been disputed so images like this are imaginary and will help set the tone for what we talk about next but remember that they are invented scholars who write about libraries remind us that in the modern world libraries are taken for granted by most people because they are everywhere the oclc the online computer library center which is the global library cooperative estimates that there are today one million libraries worldwide this is a staggering number and actually represents a modern phenomenon libraries were actually few before the 19th century during the middle ages knowledge was click was closely held and books were placed in private repositories often guarded by religious as its artists rendering suggests but the previous scene has its actual basis in fact with any number of decorated medieval manuscripts that illustrate the copying of books often by solitary monks it is the rarity of early libraries as well as the deserved reputation ascribed to the library of alexandria that has fueled the popular imagination so what allows us to say anything at all about the library it might be helpful to review what our evidence actually is extremely valuable are specific commentaries by this man julius caesar the roman general and statesman in the 40s bc he engaged in political and military rivalry with the roman general pompey and followed him to egypt where pompey was murdered at pelusium in the eastern delta caesar was in egypt in 4847 bc and was present in alexandria and describes his time there in his work civil wars we will see that caesar's presence has much to do with the fate of the library rabo's comments are also exceptionally important for what we learned about the library as the greek geographer who lived during the period straddling the first century bc in the first century a.d he went in 24 bc to alexandria then one of the largest cities in the world and decided to reside there for some time it is strabo who gives us information about part of the layout of the structure that encompassed the library plutarch the famous roman historian and biographer lived in the first and second century's a.d among his most important works were the parallel lives detailed biographies of eminent greek and roman men he wrote one about julius caesar and from this source we learn more about caesar's time in egypt titus flavius jose josephus was the first century roman jewish historian born in jerusalem which was in the roman province of judea perhaps his most famous work is the jewish war which records the capture of jerusalem by the roman legions led by titus the son of the roman emperor vespasian it must have pained josephus because he was a personal friend and served as translator to titus whose soldiers were also responsible for the destruction of the temple and the siege of masada josephus also wrote about the early history of the library at alexandria so his information is valuable to us was a celebrated roman physician and biologist who was born in asia minor in the second century a.d during his training he went to alexandria to study at the famous medical school there which may have been connected with the library and he provides important information about how books were collected later he went back to his hometown pergamon and took care of men who fought in the arena earning him the title of surgeon of gladiators john sutzis was an influential byzantine scholar and poet working during the medieval period the 12th century a.d he wrote a huge book called the book of histories which contained various comments on history pathology and things ancient he also mentions 400 different authors significant because some were not previously recorded setzi's importance is that he recorded things that had not been mentioned in other sources but we should remember that he wrote for memory and did not have many written sources available to him his comments are nonetheless critical because he wrote about the day-to-day operations of the library there are several other ancient writers who commented on the great library some of whom i list here they offer individual comment and some of the workings of the library so i have found the remarks useful and piecing together a fuller pic excuse me a fuller picture for you one thing we can say for certain is that the library of alexandria was not founded by this man alexander the great the young macedonian general intent on campaigning against the persian empire was in egypt in 332 and 331 bc while inspecting areas in the nile delta he found a stretch along the sea at the western delta that had an excellent harbor he decided to establish city in his name actually there would eventually be over 70 cities founded by the general and named after him this particular alexandria would become the second most important city in the ancient world after rome and would have a population between 500 thousand and seven hundred and fifty thousand people alexander died in babylon in june of 323 bc his body was embalmed in honey to preserve it for the long journey home from what is iraq to macedonia the funeral cortege was diverted and alexander was buried in memphis the capital of egypt his body was then moved to alexandria sealed in a coffin made of solid gold we know that julius caesar visited the tomb as did other romans however the mad emperor caligula partially looted the tomb removing the general's breastplate the golden coffin was melted down for coinage with the body placed in one of glass or crystal over 40 different archaeological expeditions have been mounted to find the tomb and it has yet to be identified there is dispute over who created the library at alexandria most scholars now concur that it was ptolemy the first soter one of alexander's generals and his successor who established a family dynasty in egypt it was he who also moved the capital of egypt from memphis to alexandria whether it was this ptolemy or his son ptolemy ii philadelphus who actually built the structure we don't know but it was the father and son who were responsible for the construction of the pharaohs the great lighthouse of alexandria that was known as one of the wonders of the ancient world we know what it looked like because its image was printed on imprinted rather on roman coins minted in egypt and described by several authors built in successive levels it was 100 meters tall and was topped by a statue of ptolemy the first a fire was kept burning in the top tier with the light projected out to sea using mirrors and it was this way that ships were guided into the harbor the lighthouse suffered through several earthquakes and by the 14th century at lay in ruins it was in 1994 that a french archaeological team found what appears to be the remnants of the lighthouse at the bottom of the eastern harbor in alexandria currently egypt is working with unesco to have the bay named a world heritage site because the library of alexandria was thoroughly destroyed and remnants have never been found this is only added to the cachet of the structure numerous reconstructions have been posed for what was known as the greatest library in the ancient world we can place the library within the ancient city on the basis of comments made by the greek geographer strabo he said that an area of palaces stretched along the great harbor and it was called the brukayan it was filled with government buildings parks offices public institutions and royal grounds and residences i've outlined the area for you in red and strebo said that the area took up one quarter to one third of the ancient city within was also the great museum which translates into the home of the muses the muses of course were nine greek goddesses who were the patrons of the arts music poetry literature dance history and astronomy within the museum and our word museum comes from the complex where various buildings lecture halls a botanical garden a theater a shrine of the muses and the famed library in some it was most like a university and became a center for learning tells us more the museum had a cloister and an arcade where the learned could walk there was a larger house that provided common meals for men of learning who held their property in common a priest had originally been in charge of the museum and was appointed by the pharaoh but now the roman emperor did that it is interesting that the library is never mentioned by any other source at the same time as the museum so it's unknown whether the library was a separate building the greatest scholars in the world were brought to alexandria and taken care of at government expense and did not pay taxes there were many who did not appreciate the upkeep of the scholars free of charge and questions what they actually did all day this quote is from the greek skeptic philosopher timon of leos he says quote many are feeding in populist egypt scribblers on papyrus incessantly wrangling in the bird cage of the muses and i have to admit that this sounds like he's talking about university tenured professors where ptolemy got the idea for the museum and the great library is uncertain but there already had been a long tradition in the ancient world of important libraries and surely ptolemy wanted to follow suit another reason for the library was clearly ptolemy's intention to rival the cities being built by other generals of alexander who had received areas of his vast empire it was the ptolemaic dynasty that created and funded the library and certainly the objective was to foster greek culture in egypt and provide a link to an illustrious past for greek inspiration ptolemy did not have to look very far in 387 bc plato had established his academy on the outskirts of athens using land inherited through his family certainly philosophical discourse was popular there as well as dialectic and the academy attracted important mathematicians and theoretical astronomers membership was exclusive and the public was not allowed within the grounds the academy was not a school in the modern sense but as a place where intellectuals gathered it continued for 900 years it wasn't until the 20th century that the site of the academy was rediscovered and then confirmed in 1966 when a boundary stone was uncovered solidifying the identification aristotle who was a student and philosophical successor to plato provided a more obvious link to ptolemy with the school called the lyceum located in a wooded grove in athens aristotle established his peripatetic philosophical school called that because he liked to walk around while he talked and aristotle also worked on the natural sciences having a close relationship to alexander the great it was alexander who gave aristotle animal and plant specimens from his various conquests in this way aristotle developed the first zoo and botanical gardens in existence it was at the lyceum that aristotle began collecting a personal library that may have amounted to about ten thousand items that included his own work and student research the lyceum declined in importance when athens as a city of culture began its eclipse in the first century bc it was in 1996 when work got underway for a new museum of modern art that the ancient lyceum was rediscovered with its foundation lying on bedrock the site was opened at the public in 2009 some modern scholars think it quite plausible that aristotle may have been the inspiration for the library at alexandria and provided the idea philip ii of macedon had selected aristotle to be the personal tutor of his son alexander aristotle held this post for seven years and after alexander ascended the throne aristotle returned to greece however the two remained in contact threat through letters it's been said that alexander's custom of carrying books with him during his military campaigns and his love of reading and the arts were due to aristotle's influence likely excuse me likely the influence of it i'm so sorry luckily the influence of aristotle on the establishment of the great library came through this man demetrius of falaran he was a greek warrior and statesman who became tyron of athens for 10 years but was expelled in 307 bc thereafter he was invited to settle in alexandria probably because of his connection with aristotle and his school demetrius had been a student of the lyceum in athens and remembered well the layout of the school and the library that aristotle had recently accumulated it is through the historian josephus that we learned something interesting about demetrius he recorded that demetrius of falerin was the library keeper to ptolemy who was now the king of egypt he began a program of attempting to gather together all the books in the inhabitable world and had instructions to buy what was valuable or whatever the king wanted so this man is the first librarian and there will be many after him who are mentioned in later sources whose influence on the direction of the library was profound some of the men who were appointed as librarian of the great library in alexandria were illustrious individuals and one of their first duties was to serve as the tutor for the royal children vitruvius the great first century bc roman architect said at the librarian of his day every day he did nothing other than read and reread all the books of the library for the whole day examining and reading through the order in which they were shelved so basically vitruvia says the librarian was a shelf reader and this would be a daunting task given the enormous number of books in the library as we'll discuss in a minute and if you think that what the head librarian did all day sit in one place at her desk and read from sunrise to sunset you would be very wrong because of how the library was arranged some of the librarians did more than actually make sure that manuscripts were stored correctly case in point was zenotodos of ephesus who was librarian from 285 to 270 bc as a greek grammarian and scholar he was a perfect appointee he was the first to organize all entries into alphabetical order this was important because previously there had been no system of library organization and with the storage of thousands of items this had posed a significant problem cenotes was also a homeric scholar and he created new editions of the iliad and odyssey regarded as the pinnacles of literature authored by homer in the 8th century bc one of the great contributions of some of the librarians is that they created critical editions of some of the classic works of ancient authors and some of those editions are the ones we read today columbus of cyrene was a greek poet and scholar who worked at the library in the 3rd century bc extremely knowledgeable and known for his great organizational skills he was honored by the egyptian ptolemies columbus is best remembered for his work called the peanut case or tables which was 120 bibliographical survey of all known greek writers 120 volumes he divided their work into categories epics tragedies comedies history medicine rhetoric law and good thing he invented this category miscellaneous basically he invented the first card catalog and his work actually proved to be the foundation for the dewey decimal system calemicus also provided a brief excuse me a brief biographical sketch of each author arranged the list of authors in alphabetical order and indicated the works of each author within opening lines and titles it is by these titles that we associate ancient authors with their well-known writings in addition to famous librarians the great library at alexandria also attracted the best scholars of the day who use the facilities to study converse and publish so let's review a few of them one of the most famous scholars to spend time at the library was euclid the greek mathematician whose work spanned the late 4th and into the early 3rd centuries bc because of his teaching and work he was known and continues to be known as the father of geometry his most important work was called the elements which was in part a set of geometric proofs to be fair euclid did not originate all the theorems he published and he relied to some degree on the work of earlier mathematicians his book was significant because in it euclid organized and summarized critical theorems in a logical and easy to use format and elements was the main textbook for teaching mathematics until the late 19th and early 20th centuries supposedly during euclid's time at the library ptolemy the first became absorbed in his teaching and one day asked the mathematician whether there was an easier way to learn geometry than by the use of the elements and this sort of sounds like a high schooler before the sat exams is there an easier way to do this anyway supposedly euclid replied to the king saying there is no royal road to geometry another mathematician who was attracted to the library and perhaps this had been due to euclid's earlier presence was archimedes who came from syracuse on the island of sicily regarded as perhaps the most famous mathematician in antiquity his work anticipated modern calculus he was also a physicist an engineer inventor and astronomer known in mathematics for closely approximating the value of pi and determining how to measure the area of a circle archimedes is perhaps best known for his inventions he discovered the principle of the lever and fulcrum in his famous quoted and this famous quote is attributed to him give me a lever and a place to stand and i will move the world the archimedes screw which had applications that as a water delivery system was well known in the ancient world his war machines were significant in protecting his hometown of syracuse for invasion by the romans he invented a catapult-like contraption that could fling heavy stones the archimedes claw was a large grappling hook that when mounted on a height could up end approaching boats and archimedes fire made use of mirrors to reflect the rays of the sun to burden enemy ships eratosthenes of cyrene was also a learned greek mathematician but his expertise also included geography and astronomy and he lived in the 3rd century bc in addition to being appointed as librarian in alexandria many of his important discoveries and writings were accomplished there because of excuse me because of alexander the great's military campaigns and reports of unknown lands further to the east eratosthenes drew a map of the then known world that stretched all the way from gibraltar to india his map was far more accurate than any previous ones the greeks had known that the world was round it was eratosthenes who made the first calculation of the circumference of the earth one day he was in southern egypt at saini near modern day as one at noon on the day of the summer solstice he observed the reflection of the sun at the bottom of a well so he knew that the sun was directly overhead another year at alexandria he observed that at noon on the summer solstice that the sun was not overhead but cast a shadow that was seven degrees off vertical knowing that seven degrees was about one fiftieth of a circle of 360 degrees and knowing the distance between alexandria and saini he could calculate the circumference of the earth his calculations were extremely accurate the earth's circumference is 24 901 miles eratosthenes may have been only 360 miles off another very important greek astronomer and mathematician who worked at the library in the 3rd century bc was aristarchus of samos aristarchus made an immense contribution to astronomy in that he determined the relative sizes of the moon and sun from the earth and their distances from the earth his measurements were not accurate for example he configured that the distance from the earth to the sun was 20 times greater than the earth to the moon actually the distance is 400 times greater he also posited that the diameter of the sun was seven times greater than the diameter of the earth in reality it is more than one hundred times as big one of the most important contributions that aristarchus made was to propose a heliocentric model of the universe with the sun at the center because the sun was larger than the earth he concluded that the earth revolved around the sun in a circular orbit and rotated on its own axis this was extraordinary and had never been suggested before it is interesting that this theory soon was abandoned after he proposed it and he was accused of impiety because of this his astronomical works did not survive but he is quoted by two other authors and it would be 108 excuse me 1 800 years later that copernicus would revive the concept of planets revolving around the sun shortly before his death in 1543. a different kind of scholar and one who was incredibly important to scientific exploration was herophilus a greek medical doctor who moved to alexandria as a young man and remained there throughout his life in the 3rd century bc known as the father of anatomy he was one of the founders of the medical school of alexandria his contributions were enormous and he was credited as the first man to undertake dissection in the ancient world previously the internal workings of the human body were suggested by observing corpses of soldiers on the battlefield herophilus believed that in order for a doctor to be effective he had to understand what happened inside the body not only did he undertake deception but it is recorded that he practiced vivisection dissecting a still-living body performed on criminals received from the egyptian king contributions of herophilus were he proposed that the brain was the center of intelligence and not the heart he named the cerebrum and the cerebellum he investigated the heart and the circulatory system and determined that arteries carried blood it was herophilus who was the first to count pulses and recognize the relationship between a beating heart and a pulse and he investigated the anatomy and function of the eye liver and intestines the practice of human dissection likely was no longer permitted after him which the growing roman and jewish presence would not have tolerated as a scientific practice it was not allowed again until the 14th century aristophanes of byzantium was a noted greek scholar and grammarian who worked at the library sometime during the late 3rd and early 2nd centuries bc his accomplishment is that he invented greek punctuation and also was responsible for organizing the metrics of greek poetry previously where there was no punctuation in greek writing nothing divided one word from another and texts were continuous stream of letters imagine reading the iliad which is fifteen thousand six hundred ninety three lines long without any punctuation so we've seen that the library of alexandria would have been a vibrant center of learning but we should ask the question what was its true attraction that brought scholars from all over the mediterranean the answer was simple it's scholarly collection ultimately the library housed most of the written knowledge that had been accumulated and it was the definitive repository of knowledge we know that the ptolemia kings had an incredible source of wealth by taking possession of egypt and money was used to buy books we learned from later sources that any ships that docked at the harbor in alexandria had their books confiscated copies were made with the originals kept in the library and the copies given back to ship captains give you some idea of how serious the acquisition of books was in order to collect all the books in the known world the third ptolemaic ruler ptolemy iii eurogates was given permission by athens to borrow the original dramatic works of the great tragedians aeschylus sophocles and euripides the originals these were the playwrights who had written oedipus rex medea and the orestaya trilogy he put down a deposit of fifteen talents to borrow the materials that would be equivalent to about four hundred thousand dollars the originals were sent to alexandria and copies were made ptolemy decided to forfeit his deposit and keep the originals this was great for the library but not so great for history because the originals were lost when the library was destroyed within the library all genres and styles of the greeks were included but also non-greek texts were also stored in general the greeks had little inclination to learn other languages and they had a somewhat superior notion of what it meant to be greek remember too that the ptolemies were macedonian greeks the tradition developed to translate into greek all foreign texts in the library so there were greek translations of babylonian egyptian phoenician and hebrew texts the septuagint the old testament was translated into greek the egyptian king lists jewish law and verses attributed to the persian prophet zoroaster were housed in the library the great number of books meant prestige to the ptolemies and this set them apart from the rest of the greek world to give you some idea how important this was there was a significant rivalry that developed excuse me between alexandria and the hellenistic city of pergamon on the coast of asia minor in the second century bc the fame of the city of pergamon was rivaled only by that of the city of alexandria as a center of culture pergamon also had its own library which with nearly 200 000 texts and apparently the ptolemaia kings considered it to be a threat in ancient times paper was made from the thinly split strips of the stock of the papyrus plant in egypt had a monopoly on it because it grew only along the banks of the nile river in the second century bc ptolemy v decided to put a ban on exporting papyrus outside of egypt likely to impede the copying of ancient texan pergamon this one act caused a revolution in writing that ultimately would impact on the form of how we read books pergamon had no choice but to develop a different form of material in which the written word could be affixed to a surface parchment the skin of either sheep or goats was scraped and stretched and this became the vehicle by which scribes at pergamon could continue the copying process of manuscripts the form of the final written product was also dictated by the materials used papyrus becomes extremely brittle when dried and cannot be folded because it would crack papyrus sheets would be glued together and then rolled up into squirrels for storage parchment on the other hand does not crack when dried and rather than being folded the common method of affixing parchment sheets was to stack them one on top of another and then stretch them excuse me stitch them together along one side the two methods had existed together and it's been suggested that by the year 300 a.d the popularity of one method over the other was about equal the use of the codex at the primary form for manuscript production has been attributed to the spread of christianity interestingly paper was invented in china in the first century a.d and would ultimately replace parchment as a via vehicle for writing because of the spread of paper from east into arab lands and eventually into europe in the 12th century so the inside of the library of alexandria would have looked something like this rows and rows of niches for the storage of individual papyrus roles remember what i had previously mentioned about the librarian's chief job being to examine each role and make sure that it was shelled in the correct place this would have been an incredibly tedious job so many dry fragile and brittle papyrus roles in the library of alexandria you can easily imagine that their preservation had the potential to be precarious and that brings us to consider the destruction of the library the destruction of the great library has been variously debated by scholars and one of the reasons for the debate is that our ancient sources are not necessarily an agreement with the facts one thing seems certain and that is the library suffered significant damage when julius caesar was in alexandria in 4847 bc he was attempting to resolve the alexandrian civil war between brother and sister ptolemy xiii and cleopatra vii who were disputing the throne of egypt ultimately siding with cleopatra caesar was occupying the royal palace and his roman force numbered only about four thousand in an effort to drive caesar from the palace ptolemy had cut off the water supply and he also had taken possession of the harbor caesar realized that for roman reinforcements to arrive he had to have access to the harbor so we decided to destroy the egyptian fleet by fire remember the proximity of the area of the royal palace the harbor and the library the egyptian fleet was burned but some sources say that a great wind arose and carried burning embers along the docks with flames running over the roofs and leaping from building to building the whole seafront caught fire and with it the library of alexandria what was lost we really don't know because the ancient sources contradict each other but nonetheless the damage was great seneca writing the first century a.d mentioned forty thousand books although alice elias in the next century said seven hundred thousand books were destroyed whatever the number the destruction of the library was not complete because there are accounts of stop of scholars still coming to the library to work and there was another subsequent burning the problem becomes even more compounded because there was more than one library in alexandria during the third century bc and while ptolemy iii eurogate is ruling a second library was established in alexandria in the temple of serapis this was known as the daughter because it was smaller than the earlier great library in the daughter were copies of good additions that had been created by scribes in the main library sources claimed that the smaller library had forty two thousand eight hundred papyrus roles in the royal collection in alexandria there were supposedly four hundred thousand composite roles and a composite role would contain several works in addition there were 90 000 single roles so even if the great library located within museum near the harbor had been completely destroyed when the egyptian fleet burned the fire never reached the temple of serapis the library in alexandria continued to exist for another 400 years because we know that it was this man the roman emperor theodosius who ordered the closure of all pagan temples throughout the empire and in the case of alexandria the temple of serapis that housed the daughter library was included religious riots broke out in the city and it is reported that the temple became the last stronghold of the pagans so it was stormed by christians an eyewitness account by hepatia a female philosopher and mathematician in alexandria who later was murdered by a christian mob recounted that the destruction was fierce and very likely the daughter library was burned in the centuries after alexander became a primary center of christianity and remained so until 642 a.d when it was conquered by the arabs in the 13th century a story started to circulate that the library had been destroyed by the arab military commander armor evan elas who supposedly used the books of the library to heat the baths in alexandria excuse me he used the books at the library heat the baths in alexandria and has said the fuel lasted for six months we don't know why the story was created we can only guess but scholars consider it to be false certainly by the seventh century the feigned library was gone and with it the course of world history was changed so what was lost the library of alexandria had a reputation for housing all the known written language excuse me all the known written knowledge of the world it had also attracted the best scholars alive and the open exchange of ideas fostered some of the most important discoveries of the time some modern scholars believe that if the library had survived even though christianity had become dominant the dark ages would not have been so dark certainly what remained of manuscripts and texts throughout europe would not have been so zealously guarded by the church while doing research for his novel the alexandria link published in 2007 author steve berry learned that today we are aware of about 10 percent of the knowledge of the ancient world 90 have been destroyed so when we react in horror to the destructive libraries by sectarian violence as was the case in january 2014 when the sahel library in tripoli lebanon was burned five fifty thousand books lost it is hard to imagine what the contemporary reaction to the destruction of the library of alexandria would have been like i don't want to leave you on such a negative note the memory of the great library at alexander was so celebrated that even long after its destruction it was regarded as a symbol of learning during the renaissance because of the library of alexandria the remaining books known to the world were reproduced and became known to scholars in the form they had acquired in alexandria many works were now accompanied by critical marginalia explaining passages that were obscure or doubtful line numbers were used especially if the work was verse another bright spot in the aftermath of the ancient library is the new library at alexandria that was dedicated in 2002 by egyptian president hosni mubarak designed by a norwegian austrian and american design team the building was constructed in association with unesco on the site in alexandria where the ancient library may have stood a powerful symbol was employed in its construction the dominating feature is the circle of the roof which extends below ground recalling the library's ancient past and it also accepts extends up into the air suggesting the library's impact on the future the form of the circle is intended to represent the mathematical and geographic accomplishments of early scholars at the library euclid eratosthenes and archimedes the placement of windows mimics microchips the device that makes capable of the contemporary transmission of knowledge symbolism is also employed in the decoration of the outside wall of the library excuse me harking back to the tradition of ancient egyptian sculpted wall reliefs this granite wall is carved with a continuous relief of signs and letters of languages from all over the world in total there are characters 120 scripts what also suggested is the letter as the smallest element of human writing it is critical in the transmission of information the reading room of the library is the largest in the world and provides desk space for 2 000 patrons and covers 220 square feet 220 000 square feet arranged on seven platforms what you see are book carols stacks main reading room and closed book storage the library has shelf space for 8 million books and the collections have been donated from all over the world it is the first mirror and external backup of the intranet archive and to give you some sense of the size of this archive from 1996 to a mere five-year period there were some 10 billion web pages that were produced the new library complex includes other important structures there's a conference center where scholars are invited to present ideas and debate a planetarium and science museum recalls the illustrious past of the ancient museum and accomplishments of renowned astronomers and an auditorium provides a venue for the dissemination of knowledge in total there are four museums four art galleries and um and a manuscript restoration library as you can imagine a fire protection system was a priority for the new library because the ancient library was supposedly destroyed by fire librarians worldwide claimed that water destroys more books than fire so the system in the in the new library was designed with this in mind in the reading room in book storage areas a water sprinkling system only goes off when smoke is detected this is intended to avoid accidental knocking off of sprinkler heads located in the ceiling in the manuscript in rare book areas a gas extinguishing system has been installed and in the offices and public non-sensitive areas a traditional sprinkler system is employed with the biblioteca alexandrina perhaps we have come full circle i end with two quotes from two different writers across the chronological spread of knowledge who referenced the importance of libraries in the first century bc the great roman order cicero said that if you have a garden and a library you have everything a poetic response to how critical libraries are was made by the argentinian writer jorge luis voyas who said i've always imagined that paradise will be kind of a library let's hope that is true thank you very much well thank you very much um so you you're getting lots of applause very silently maybe we'll have a moment at the end where we can all turn on our speakers and give you a wonderful round of applause because that was absolutely fantastic thank you so much so much material there to go through it's a wonderful inspiring note as well to end on which i don't know if many people were expecting that but it is really inspiring um let's see now just oh yes thank you excellent yes um now let me just see i'm going through the chat because wonderfully your talk has inspired a lot of it's been sparking lots of ideas so i'm sorry if i don't see your question right away oh i should also note we are recording this talk so if you don't want me to mention your name um when i give you a question just send a little note saying don't mention my name um but here we have um a first question i hope i pronounced that right um he says hello you thought your lecture was fantastic and i thoroughly enjoyed it um it is someone in the ninth grade wonderful we're getting young people involved in archaeology wonderful and they're looking towards the field of archaeology do you have any information you could give that might help a 9th grader get into archaeology oh my goodness um within the last couple of years i've gone to to primary schools and have um talked about archaeology the second and third graders so if i can do it with second and third graders ninth graders you're you're easy um i think lots of people have this impression that archaeology is a treasure hunt and in lots of ways that's true we find interesting stuff but um i always think it's best to reinforce that not only is it a treasure on but it's a great big puzzle and if you like to put pieces of information together and come up with a plausible um archaeology is is just the profession for you um it's using your mind it's using lots of different forms of evidence lots of different disciplines language religion history culture blah blah blah the best place to start is probably looking at programs offered by local museums that may not be possible now during the time of the pandemic but um there are lots of public programs that that museums will put on if you live in an area i live in phoenix where there's lots and lots of local archaeology many museums mount their own excavations so that would be the place to start and i'm sure that ed and allison can be in touch with you um and put you um in touch with services provided by the aia the aaa has a public outreach program that is geared towards um providing information on excavations to the public so that's also another source so to begin with be inquisitive consult your public library and consult allison and ed and they'll get you in touch with the aia fantastic and we now have another question um from somebody mary price who wants to know more about the content um so they learned that it was mostly or at least fifty percent uh was cook scrolls as they put it thus medicinal too that's how they phrased it huh well remember um the ptolemies had the stated objective that any any scrap of knowledge any scrap of writing in the entire ancient world was to be deposited in the library so yes medicinal texts um um because the medical school had been located there but um foreign texts were translated written down on papyrus rolled up in scrolls and put into a niche so imagine today what's in a library and you know multiply that by a hundred thousand times and you can only imagine what was stored in the library of alexandria cookbooks medical documents treaties blah blah blah blah blah literary texts the list just goes on so the loss of that library was a true catastrophe but um all supposed all the written knowledge of the ancient world great um oh and somebody's mentioned in the chat that the national park service um has a program going back to the previous question called passport in time it recruits volunteers for archaeological projects so keep your eyes open if that's what you're interested in um and so we also another question uh who's asking about um and this is from dms uh curious about golden age of islam and even the carolina renaissance and connections that harun al-rashid i cannot answer that question i so apologize if there's anybody else among the audience who has information please um i i'm not capable of of fielding that question i'm sorry because i i work in centuries i'm far removed from the islamic period here's a question though um have you published on the library of alexandria if somebody wanted to do further reading no i i publish work on material from israel and cyprus so um i have to tell the audience you know i think of myself as something like a dilettante when it comes to the library of alexandria so i'm no i haven't published anything on this but it's a fascinating topic and you made a brilliant case for how it is it's been so formative and of our world today um and here's from jeff pamblenko and he would like to know um do you think the correspondence and what we might now think of his personal writings would ever have been kept in the library of alexandria hmm um i rather doubt it um unless they were personal writings that ultimately took the form of treaties um we know that that some uh i mean for example like the amarna letters which are you know the great correspondence um from the new kingdom in egypt um the amarna letters were never um [Music] then placed within the library so i i doubt that personal correspondence from king to king unless there was something so very very very official that it it took the form of a treaty that likely would not have been copied and then and then placed in the library great thank you i'm looking through to see if i can see any little hands raised and don't hesitate to type in the chat if you have a question and i'm not seeing your hand being raised or i might take an opportunity to ask the question for myself if i may you made a very moving case for um the power of libraries and how we should try to protect them and of course how libraries are still being destroyed today what do you think is the greatest threat to libraries today and what do you think we should be doing to try to look after them boy this is a question that could easily get me talking politics i would say um i i i don't believe in censorship but libraries should be a repository for truth and we need to protect truth um so libraries i like to think of a library as um as sacred as a church that what is included or enclosed within a library is precious material um i would also say and i i say this because right now i am i'm teaching a course on research methods in art history and um my students are being instructed into write into writing scholarly papers and no offense to all the students out there but somehow you guys think that the internet is the be all and end all of a research material nothing nothing nothing nothing replaces um the written word so um libraries are precious the scholarship is precious libraries need to be used and not um shunted aside for the more convenient access of the internet such an important thing to remember especially um in this sort of post-pandemic world we've had another question from rosemary riley who is asking was the medical school in alexandria housed in the same area as the library and was that also destroyed by the fire um we really we really don't know i do not know um as i don't know in terms of the publication record of herophilus the anatomist um what remains um i would imagine that it was housed in the museum and that would have been destroyed in in the various fires so unfortunately yes okay now does anyone have any further questions and feel free to uh oh here comes one um aisha miller says i heard there were statues in monuments that were part of the library of alexandria and can you speak to that the the material building um i really can't because strabo is the only one who talks about the physical structure but doesn't mention he mentions that but he doesn't really mention the monster decorations um so i don't know and i'm in terms of hellenistic sculpture from egypt and and even roman sculpture coming from alexandria i am not familiar really with that body of work that might have been placed within the museum so i don't know what might have been destroyed fantastic thank you and alfred bloom would like to know um did his moves on did julius caesar ever visit the library of alexandria before he did we don't know i mean he doesn't record that in his in his memoirs nor does does plutarch mention that he did but i'm i'm sure he would have but um well yeah i'm sure he would have because the palace where he was residing was very close to the library and even though he was involved in the intrigue between cleopatra and ptolemy um given julius caesar's respect for knowledge and the very fact that he was an intellectual i'm sure he would have visited the library wonderful and coming on to your conclusion as well people were marveling the the digital thing of things that are available at the modern library of alexandria and there's the question is that library or are any libraries keeping non-digital records of digital information that you know say that again one more time allison uh are any libraries keeping non-digital records of information that we have generated digitally or online um i don't know i mean when you when you do searches for the library of alexandria and you read about their your their acquisition policy and how they store materials um they they the library has been given physical books physical manuscripts by libraries worldwide i'm sure they would do well to digitize that but i don't know indeed if that is the case and the flip side of that i do not know if the library then prints out digital records um uh given the catastrophic history of the library in alexandria i would imagine there's a move to digitize everything and have a complete record of that as the priority fantastic thank you and all the people ask questions girls are saying thank you in the chat um there's also a question what is the difference between our national archives and the library of congress i wish i knew um national archives in the library i'm sure their websites will be keen to tell people given what i just told you that the internet is not the be all and end all of my use check the internet and find out i don't i don't know and um you were also wondering about the types of material that were held in the library of alexandria in addition to papyrus do the histories ever suggest that clay tablets were held in the library of alexandria i doubt that um not that i know of ah that would have been so uh well who knows i mean because the clay tablets might have been sent to alexandria um and then probably copied onto papyrus rose and then what they did with the clay tablets we don't know but my goodness it would be so much fun to find the like the spoil heap of the alexander the library and excavate that and see what actually was in there if indeed that that survived the fires that would be fascinating fingers crossed and we're allowed to travel again maybe one of the people listening will be able to find it somewhere now are there any other questions i don't see any raised hands so feel free but feel free to unmute yourself if you've had your hand up for ages and i just can't see you hey right right i'm sure um if you have other questions um we can proudly deal with them the first time but um for the moment i think it as you can see a doctor certainly you've generated so much excitement uh oh somebody um is now thinking oh about the caliphates and the preservation of classical laws oh i see yes the idea of how classical knowledge is being preserved anyway fantastic um so i don't see any further questions so just to say thank you dr sirwin as you can see from all these questions people's imaginations have been sparked i think earlier shawna said it best that all these questions we've had often since we were little kids about the library of alexandria you've been able to answer so it was a really thrilling talk and thank you so much for coming thank you and thank you all my goodness it's friday night um so thank you for for inviting me you