The Famed Library's Location

It started as a dream. Alexander the Great, a famous explorer and conqueror at the time, had a dream that he should found a great city on the island of Pharos, calling the city Alexandria. Everyone has one of those dreams telling them to build a great city right? Yeah...no. However, Alexander did. He received help from Ptolomey I (pronounced tall-o-me) the pharaoh at that time. Ptolomey respected learning, so he decided that at this site, a research center would be built. (A research center? Sounds like a school! Why not a swimming pool, Ptolomey?) Anyway, as the city progressed, observatories, zoological gardens, coloumns, and places for medicine study were built. Zenodotus of Ephesus remained librarian from the year the library was bulit (290 BC) to 245 BC. The library remained until 48 BC. (Whoa...that's 242 years! That's older than our country!!)

Heart of The Library

What is the heart of the library? The books of course! Only, they were actually scrolls. (rolled up pieces of a reed called papyrus...sounds like something I'm gonna "reed"! Get it?! Never mind) They are valuable because most of them are original. Several copies were made and if someone donated an original copy, they would get a handwritten copy. Many mistakes were made due to that fact that they were copies. Many originals ended up in the Library of Alexandria. (wonder how that happened!) As you will later learn, the library no longer exists. The scrolls are all that tell us that library was there in the first place. (Wonder how much they cost. Probably very expensive..) The Library of Alexandria has made a name for itself by all the scholars that visited. There were scrolls on mathematics, astronomy, medicine, geography, biology, architecture, philosophy, and literature. Study areas were located near the library.

The Books Pour In

How did the library get soooooooo many books? Well... they copied, stole, ordered, and did lots of crazy things in order to get the beloved scrolls. (Desperate much?) They purchased books in Athens and Rhodes, which were the main markets at the time. However, some books were collected by robbing ships when they docked in Alexandria. They even bought books in other languages they couldn't read, just to have them. Cool! I'm gonna buy a book in Pig Latin, then ask if anyone can copy it in English for me! They did use a translater to put the book into Greek, a common language at the time.

The Library Trend

After the Library of Alexandria had become a site to visit, a city in Asia Minor called Pergammun wanted to open a library itself. (Come on! Does everyone copy in the 3rd century?) They ordered tons of papyrus (again...rolled up pieces of paper...) and started to collect and write books. At one point, this library had about 1,000 more books than the library in Alexandria. (Gasp! More than 490,000 books. What packrats!) After Egypt heard this news, they stopped sending papyrus to Pergammun. (Some people think this town's real name is Pergamum. Either way, they're still copiers!) Egypt regained their record after cutting off its deal with Pergammun.

The Destruction of the Wonder

Around 217 B.C.E, the Egyptians revolted against their Greek rulers. (Egypt was ruled by Greece...?I thought Egypt was ruled by Egypt...) Most of their over-seas territories were turned over to Mediterranean Empires. (bummer, but life in the 3rd century B.C.E.) Many scholars left, decreasing the library's importance. Cleopatra contacted Julius Caeser, and they attacked Cleopatra's brother, Ptolomey (not the first). They set fire to the Egyptian's military fleet, and the winds carried fire to the shore...(Alexandria is close by.This is a nail-biter!)...and burned down one of the ancient wonders. Gasp! How could this happen?! 400,000 of the estimated 490,000 scrolls were destroyed. We know so little about this facsination, only the remaing scrolls tell us of this magnifacent library.

The library was surrounded by scholars. What tools did the library have to help them?

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