what is the importance of the alexandria library?

Question

and what are the catastrophic implications on humanity?
essay hw, dum , i thought this might help me oh and summerize the main points. give your opinion
good luck!

Answer 1

The library in Alexandria Egypt is the legendary one. It held a collection of several hundred manuscripts and was the greatest repository of knowledge in that time. Compare it to the Library of Congress today.

It was burned a couple of times in its history, once by Julius Ceasar. I believe it was destroyed in an earthquake a couple of centuries later and most of the manuscripts were lost.

Another legendary library that was destroyed was the library in Cordova, Spain under Moorish rule (circa 1100 - 1400). This library contained over a million manuscripts in five languages (Greek, Latin, Arabic, Sanskrit, and Chinese). It was burned by the Christians in the 1400s and all the manuscripts destroyed.

Answer 2

The Royal Library of Alexandria in Alexandria, Egypt, was once the largest library in the world. It is generally thought to have been founded at the beginning of the 3rd century BC, during the reign of Ptolemy II of Egypt. It was likely created after his father had built what would become the first part of the library complex, the temple of the Muses — the Musaion (from which is derived the modern English word museum).
It has been reasonably established that the library, or parts of the collection, were destroyed by fire on a number of occasions (library fires were common enough and replacement of handwritten manuscripts was very difficult, expensive and time-consuming). To this day the details of the destruction (or destructions) remain a lively source of controversy. The Bibliotheca Alexandrina was inaugurated in 2003 near the site of the old library. The geographical diversity of the scholars suggests that the library was in fact a major center for research and learning. In 2004, a Polish-Egyptian team claimed to have discovered a part of the library while excavating in the Bruchion region. The archaeologists claimed to have found thirteen "lecture halls", each with a central podium. Zahi Hawass, the president of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, said that all together, the rooms uncovered so far could have seated 5000 students the picture thus presented is most certainly of a fairly massive research institution, especially for that time.
A story concerns how its collection grew so large: by decree of Ptolemy III of Egypt, all visitors to the city were required to surrender all books and scrolls in their possession; these writings were then swiftly copied by official scribes. The originals were put into the Library, and the copies were delivered to the previous owners. This process also helped to create a reservoir of books in the relatively new city.
The library's collection was already famous in the ancient world, and became even more storied in later years. It is impossible, however, to determine how large the collection was in any era. The collection was made of papyrus scrolls. Later, parchment codices (predominant as a writing material after 300 AD) may have been substituted for papyrus. A single piece of writing might occupy several scrolls, and this division into self-contained "books" was a major aspect of editorial work. King Ptolemy II Philadelphus (309–246 BC) is said to have set 500,000 scrolls as an objective.[citation needed] Mark Antony was supposed to have given Cleopatra over 200,000 scrolls for the Library.
No index of the library survives, and it is not possible to know with certainty how large and how diverse the collection was. It is likely, for example, that even if the library had hundreds of thousands of scrolls (and thus, perhaps, tens of thousands of individual works), that many of these were duplicate copies or alternate versions of the same texts.

Answer 3

The Library of Alexandria was a true wonder of the ancient world, whether or not it was listed as one. It was the largest library in the known world at the time, and contained knowledge that is beyond our imaginations. Thinkers from all over the Mediterranean used to come to Alexandria. We are finding more and more "inventions" that we have some across recently that were in fact known to the ancients, from primitive computers to odometers, to even batteries, and these secrets could have been contained in the Library of Alexandria. The ruler of Egypt was so protective of the library that he refused to provide papyrus to another king so he could not copy the books, and so he could not have a library as grand as the Library of Alexandria. Fortunately, the king got hold of sheepskin, and was able to make some copies, or we would not have any remaining copies of the books. The library was destroyed in a series of fires, most set in times of war. If it had survived, and we had not had to rediscover the knowledge inside it, and we might now be winging our way through the universe at the speed of sound.

Answer 4

The library was burned by religious groups, first Christian and then Muslim. The implications to humanity were indescribably catastrophic, for, humanity's great treasure of the Human Compendium, the entire collection of recorded knowledge and history that we had amassed up to that time, was destroyed. This year, in Timbuktu, an enormous treasure of 150,000 similar manuscripts were revealed. They are perhaps the greatest treasure that we have ever EVER discovered and scholars from around the world are frantically in the process of preserving them.

http://www.mediahistory.umn.edu/indextext/Alexandria.html
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/05/0522_030527_timbuktu.html

Answer 5

The world lost a lot of knowledge with the desctruction of the library - there are things about the ancient world we shall never know as its holdings were irreplaceable. Alexandria opened a new library several years ago, touted as the heir to the old one, but it was more impressive as a building than a collection of books. Its holdings are not very impressive.

Answer 6

Alexandria at that time was the spiritual and cultural center of the known world. Its huge library contained written copies of most of the scientific works of that time's scientists. It literally contained the wisdom and knowledge of that time. The destruction of the library was a set back for science because a lot of knowledge was "lost".

Answer 7

It contained alot of classical texts in Greek. The knowledge of the Egyptian, Phoenician, Carthaginian, Babylonian, Assyrian, Judean, Hittite, Sumerian, Indian, Persian, Greeks, and Romans was gathered there. The profession of librarian was created. The Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians made the chief librarian one of the highest positions in society. People from throughout the Mediterranean were drawn to Alexandria. It became one of the most important cities in the ancient world.

Answer 8

Library of Alexandria, famous ancient library, considered to have the greatest collection of books in the ancient world. Founded by Ptolemy I Soter, king of Egypt, in the city of Alexandria, it was expanded by his son Ptolemy II Philadelphus early in the 3rd century bc. The scholars in charge included the ablest Alexandrian men of letters of the period. Zenodotus of Ephesus, whose specialty was the classification of poetry, was the first to hold the position of librarian. The poet Callimachus made the first general catalog of the books and apparently was also librarian. The two most noted librarians were Aristophanes of Byzantium and Aristarchus of Samothrace, both great editors and grammarians. In the time of Ptolemy II, according to one historian, the main library in the Alexandrian Museum contained nearly 500,000 volumes, or rolls, and an annex in the Temple of Serapis contained some 43,000 volumes. Most of the writings of antiquity were preserved in these collections from which copies were made and disseminated to libraries throughout the civilized world.It is largely through such copies that ancient works have survived to modern times, for the Alexandrian library was partially or wholly destroyed on several occasions. In 47 bc, during the civil war between Julius Caesar and the followers of Pompey the Great, Caesar was besieged in Alexandria; a fire that destroyed the Egyptian fleet spread through some stores of books, about 40,000 of which were ruined. A few years later the Roman emperor Mark Antony presented to Cleopatra, queen of Egypt, books from the library of the city of Pergamum, in Asia Minor. According to legend, the library at Alexandria was burned three times: in ad272 (by order of the Roman emperor Lucius Domitius Aurelian), in 391 (under the Roman emperor Theodosius I), and in 640 (by Muslims under the caliph Umar I, 581?-644).

About 250 bc, Alexandria, Egypt, became one of the great book marts of the world. The first publishing and bookselling there occurred in connection with the Library of Alexandria, founded by Ptolemy I. By training numbers of skilled scribes and exploiting the distributing facilities afforded by the commercial connections of their capital, Alexandrian publishers retained control of
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During the 1st and 2nd centuries ad a group of scholars advocated a return to the pure Attic dialect of the 5th and 4th centuries bc. Despite the vigorous support of the philosopher Galen and the grammarian Phrynicus (flourished 2nd century ad) and the brilliant use of the dialect by such writers as Lucian, the so-called Atticist movement was not wholly successful. Many great writers of the 2nd century and later, including the essayist and biographer Plutarch and the geographer Pausanias, used the literary Koine, but Atticists also continued to arise and occasionally dominated the literary scene, for instance, the great orator, Libanius (flourished 340-80). With the destruction of the libraries in Alexandria in the civil wars of the 3rd century and by the Roman emperor Theodosius in 191 and the closing of the Athenian schools of philosophy by the Byzantine emperor Justinian in 529, even the literary language, which was deviating more and more from the spoken and living vernacular, became confined to the church, to a few scholars, and to the hack writers of the time.

Answer 9

theres a library in Alexandria, Va, USA, its pretty big