The Library of Alexandria: What Did We Lose?

The Great Library of Alexandria conjures images of a grand building, rising proudly above the hustle and bustle of the dusty streets of Alexandria, a vault housing the vast stores of ancient knowledge, the pinnacle of human innovation and a monument to everything the ancient world achieved.

A complex built for the sole purpose of learning and innovation, the great inventions spilled out of the library transforming Alexandria itself, creating an inspiring city filled with wonders. The great minds working at Alexandria weren’t limited by funding or prejudice – and it showed. Mechanical birds sang and whistled in the trees, operated by running water. Compressed air made statues blow trumpets and shoot arrows.

Temple doors would open and close automatically, controlled by the lighting and extinguishing of fires, and the city’s central avenue was lit by street-lamps burning olive oil, brightening the night sky. Everyone was welcome to visit the library, to absorb the knowledge and learn from the wise men and women who taught in the gardens and the lecture halls. And then it all ended, going up in smoke, setting humanity back thousands of years.

The Library of Alexandria is one of those stories we all accept as fact, but there’s actually a lot about the library we simply don’t know. There are as many theories and fanciful tales as there were books stacked on the shelves of the great library, but what is fact, and what is fiction?

The Great Library of Alexandria

In 334 BCE, a young man known as one Alexander the Great went on a world tour and, around two years later, he arrived in Egypt, promptly conquered it, and founded a city, Alexandria. He soon left to continue his conquering ways and never returned to the city that bore his name. Upon his untimely death, his empire was divided among his generals with Ptolemy I becoming the ruler of Egypt and choosing Alexandria as his capital. Under the Ptolemic rulers, fondly known as the Ptolemies, Alexandria became one of the greatest and most prosperous cities of the Hellenistic world.

It was a thriving seaport, a commercial hub and a center of learning and culture. For, you see, Alexandria was home to a great library, or so most of us believe.

One of the many things we don’t know about the library is who founded it. Alexander was a student of none other than the great Aristotle. Later in life, the two had a falling out and never spoke again, but Aristotle instilled in the young ruler a respect for scholarship and knowledge.

So, the more romantic theory is that Alexander envisioned the city of Alexandria, and its future library based on Aristotle’s Lyceum, as a pinnacle of Greek culture and learning. However, he died before the city and the library was built so his general and the future ruler of Egypt, Ptolemy I, took the idea and ran with it, turning Alexandria into a center for Greek arts with the help of Demetrius of Phalerum, a brilliant politician and scholar who found himself in exile. If this was the case, it seems that good ole Alexander never made a note of this grand vision of his, so it’s equally plausible that the library was founded by Ptolemy I or his son Ptolemy II.

We figure the library was probably founded soon after the city and was most likely completed under Ptolemy II, who ruled from 284 BCE to 246 BCE, but that’s all just guesswork.

The truth of the matter is that there’s no record of anyone building a great library. However, in the Burcheion, or Royal Quarter of the city, a temple was built, the Mouseion, or Seat of the Muses, dedicated to the nine Greek goddesses of the arts. It functioned much like a university today; a center of learning where the great minds of the Hellenistic world could gather, swap ideas, and criticize each other’s work.

The library, which is never referred to as the Great Library of Alexandria, but rather the Alexandrian library, was probably attached to the Mouseion and reserved for use by the scholars who came to study, learn and teach at this great temple of knowledge. During this time, it was common practice for temples and shrines to have their own libraries, so it wouldn’t have been unprecedented. The men of letters, these were the early days before they started hunting down the knights of hell, had a good life.

They were given free lodgings and meals as well as a generous allowance and some tax exemptions. The head librarian or director of this great institute was a priest and scholar, since it was a religious affair after all, appointed by the king.

According to legend, the Mouseion and its library was considered one of the largest in the world and the Ptolemies, eager to build its prestige, were generous with their funding. The goal of the library was to collect all the works in the known world under one roof. To achieve this, agents were sent to the great book markets of Athens and Rhodes to buy books.

Ships docking in the port were expected to hand over any books on board. The ships were also routinely searched and any books found were confiscated. These books were then copied and the copies were returned to the owners while the originals were placed in the library.

So many books were added to the collection in this way that they had a designation of their own: ‘from the ships.’ Ptolemy III sent emissaries to the kings and leaders of the known world, asking to borrow their books to copy for his great library. From the Athenians, he borrowed master copies of the works of Aeschylus, Euripides and Sophocles, leaving a deposit of 15 talents.

However, after copying the books, he sent the copies back to Athens and kept the originals for his library. He lost his deposit, but that was 15 talents well spent. The library grew and at least two, possibly three, annexes, or daughter libraries, were added to accommodate this great collection.

One of these daughter libraries could be found at the Serapeum, a temple to the god Serapis.

We have no idea how many books were kept in the library. When we say books, we mean scrolls since books as we know them hadn’t been invented yet. According to a letter, which we’ll get back to, when asked by the King, Demetrius claimed that the collection already contained 200,000 books but that he was still endeavoring to find more to reach his goal of 500,000.

It seems old Demetrius might’ve been the first bibliophile in recorded history. Other estimates vary wildly from 40,000 scrolls to 700,000 scrolls. However, none of the sources giving us these estimates ever visited the library themselves; by the time the likes of Seneca the Younger started lamenting the loss of the invaluable collection, the library was long gone which is not surprising.

With all that flammable papyrus scrolls, the Library of Alexandria was a Health and Safety disaster waiting to happen and an OCD librarian’s worst nightmare.

No contemporary description of the library when it was built remains today. It might’ve been inside the Mouseion, or it could’ve been a separate building. The only description we have comes from Strabo who visited Alexandria around 24 BCE, well after the library’s heyday.

From his description of the Mouseion, we know it formed part of the palaces, had a colonnaded walkway, a room with seats, and a communal dining hall where all the learned men took their meals. While he doesn’t specifically mention a library, from his writings we know he had access to a book collection but whether it was the great library, or the remnants of a much diminished library, we simply don’t know.

Great library or not, we know there were some libraries in Alexandria, and the Mouseion of ancient Alexandria drew some of the great minds of the time, so odds are that there were most likely book collections of considerable value in the city, which brings us to the first big mystery: What happened to the Alexandrian library?

The Destruction of the Great Library

For a long time, the blame for the destruction of the Great Library of Alexandria fell on Julius Caesar. In 48 BCE, Caesar was hot on the trail of his one-time ally turned rival Pompey. He finally caught up with Pompey in the city of Alexandria.

However, in his eagerness to be reunited with his rival, he arrived in the city well before the bulk of his army and walked right into the middle of a civil war between Cleopatra and her younger brother, Ptolemy XIII, for control of Egypt. Caesar soon found himself allied with the future queen and last Ptolemic ruler, Cleopatra. When the Egyptian forces under Ptolemy XIII attacked the harbor, trying to seize the ships, Caesar, realizing he would be left high and dry with no chance of supplies or reinforcement if he lost control of the docks, set the ships on fire.

Unlike many of Caesar’s other military endeavors, this attack wasn’t particularly well documented. It appears that the ships, all made of wood and conveniently tied up together, went up in a blaze of glory. Soon, with the help of the ocean breeze and because things just weren’t going his way, the flames spread to the city.

Depending on your source, and how much the writer disliked Caesar, the fire was either limited only to the buildings right on the docks or it spread into the city and destroyed the Great Library. It’s only 100 years after this attack that the first mention of a loss of books were made by Seneca the Younger who accused Caesar of destroying at least 40,000 books during this attack. A later source claimed that Caesar burned 400,000 books and destroyed ‘that marvelous monument of the literary activity of our ancestors.’

Eventually, he was accused of burning 700,000 books when the city of Alexandria was sacked by the Dictator Caesar’s army. It seems Caesar’s popularity waned somewhat in the years after his death.

By the time Caesar came along, the library was probably already in decline. It’s plausible that a part of the library’s collection, marked for export, was stored in a warehouse close to the docks, and it’s this collection that Caesar burned; however, it’s highly unlikely that Caesar destroyed the Library of Alexandria single-handedly. Strabo, who wrote 20 years after this supposed flaming disaster, doesn’t mention any fire damage.

Mark Antony, according to legend, gifted Cleopatra 200,000 books from the library at Pergamum to add to the collection in Alexandria. This didn’t go down well in Rome. The Emperor Claudius, who ruled around 60 years after Caesar, added a new extension to the old Mouseion at Alexandria and named it after himself, of course.

Emperor Domitian sent scribes to the library to recover and copy some texts that had been lost to a fire, and Emperor Hadrian visited the Mouseion at Alexandria in 130 CE. Apparently, he had a lot of question for the teachers though it’s unclear how many of those questions were related to construction. It seems that Caesar, at least, is off the hook.

However, he wasn’t the only Roman emperor to burn down Alexandria.

Over the many years of Roman dominance, the city of Alexandria was repeatedly attacked by a succession of Roman Emperors and their various enemies – and that list is long for Rome had many enemies. In 215 CE, Emperor Caracalla punished Alexandria for mocking him by massacring its young men and plundering the city. Whether the library was sacked is unclear, but he did stop funding the library.

In 270 CE, the Palmyrene Empire, under Queen Zenobia, captured the city of Alexandria. By 272 CE, the forces of Emperor Aurelian, in an attempt to reclaim the city, destroyed the entire Burcheion quarter where the library was located, and it’s unlikely that the library survived this battle – it was probably utterly destroyed along with everything around it. However, if by some miracle something did survive, it was probably destroyed in 297 CE when Emperor Diocletian sacked the city of Alexandria, destroying the Burcheion quarter yet again.

The destruction of the library could be placed on any of these Emperors, or a dozen others, or none of them. None of the accounts of these many battles mention the destruction of a library.

Another favorite theory blames an over-zealous Christian mob of burning down a beacon of rational thought, science and philosophy. In 391, Emperor Theodosius, a devout Christian, issued a decree sanctioning the demolition of temples in Alexandria. The streets of Alexandria had turned into a battleground between the upstart sect known as Christianity and those clinging to the old faiths.

By this time, the Library of Alexandria, if it ever existed, was long gone. However, the Serapeum, which once served as an annex to the great library, was still standing. For many weeks, the Christians and the pagans had been at each other’s throats.

Pro-Christian writers blame the pagans while anti-Christian writers blame the Christians. As is often the case though, I suspect both sides were equally guilty of atrocities against the other and it had nothing to do with preserving monuments of learning and rational thought and everything to do with religious intolerance. The pagans had occupied the Serapeum after yet another bout of violence.

Emperor Theodosius, probably getting tired of dealing with the riots, ruled that the pagan militants be pardoned but the temple had to be demolished. Apparently, the Bishop of Alexandria, Theophilus, led an attack on the Serapeum, giving the first blow to the statue of Serapis. After plundering the temple and destroying it, Theophilus ordered a church be built on the site.

There are five different accounts of the destruction of the Serapeum and none of these mention a library. A Roman historian writing before the destruction of the Serapeum already refers to the scrolls and books once kept there in the past tense, suggesting that the collection once held there had gone. By this time, Rome had converted to Christianity, so the emperors were no longer funding pagan temples.

Without funding, it would’ve been a near impossible task to maintain a library, so it’s very likely that the daughter library housed at the Serapeum disappeared around the same time as the Great library itself. As for the Christians, they definitely burned down a temple, but, like the Roman emperors, they were probably not responsible for the destruction of the Library of Alexandria.

So, with no-one left to blame, attention turned to the Arabs who invaded Alexandria in 642 CE. According to this story, after conquering the great city, an Arab general, Amr ibn al-as, impressed with the vast collection of books in the library asked the Caliph Omar what he should do with all the books. Apparently, the Caliph replied that if the content of the book was in accordance with the book of Allah, it was superfluous since the book of Allah will suffice.

If it was not in accordance with the book of Allah, there was no need to preserve it. So, all the books were sent to Alexandria’s bathhouses to use as fuel. Apparently, it took around six months to burn the whole collection.

Now, this story only shows up around 600 years later, in the 13th century, and it has been discredited by historians. By the time the Arabs arrived in Alexandria, the library was already a bit of a myth. However, there were probably other libraries in the city, so it’s possible that the invading army destroyed those, intentionally or accidentally, and a Christian Bishop, with an axe to grind, embellished the story 600 years later.

We’ve tried to blame the Romans, the Christians and the Muslims and, so far, no luck. So what happened to the Great Library? The most likely answer is also the most boring: time. Under the early Ptolemies, the library was well-funded and well-managed.

It was considered a jewel in the crown of Egypt and no expense was spared. However, as time progressed, politics and ideas changed, and under the later Ptolemies, and eventually Rome, funding became unreliable. The library may once have been considered the most important in the world, but later rulers had little time for libraries, especially libraries that contained texts contradicting the popular religious and political ideas at the time.

The golden age of the library probably came to an end when Ptolemy VIII expelled several scholars, among them the chief librarian, from the city for supporting his political rival. In a fit of pique, he also expelled all foreign scholars. Suddenly unemployed and homeless, these scholars left for other cities with schools, like Athens and Rhodes, taking their knowledge, influence and prestige with them.

Initially, the directors of the Mouseion were also scholars, renowned for their intellect and knowledge. However, as interest in the library began to fade, the role was given to court favorites and political allies; it became a reward for flunkies, with little interest in intellectual pursuits, rather than a position held by serious scholars.

A combination of mismanagement, neglect, and unreliable funding would’ve been disastrous for the library. The humidity of Alexandria and the wear and tear of being handled would’ve led to the scrolls deteriorating quickly. Without computers or a printing press, the only way to preserve a document was to copy it by hand, a time consuming process. To do that, you need papyrus, ink and scribes, and for that, you need money.

When the codex arrived, books as we know them today, every single scroll had to be hand-copied into a book. This process meant that only texts considered to be valuable would’ve been saved. Minor texts that didn’t make it into a codex before deteriorating to the point where they were no longer legible, or weren’t considered worth copying, were lost.

When the Roman Empire finally took control of Alexandria, the importance of the once great library would’ve been greatly diminished. As the library lost influence, many of its collections were sold and the buildings were finally razed or converted into other facilities, such as churches or mosques. The Romans also built a great many libraries of their own, probably stocking these new libraries with scrolls from the library of Alexandria. Libraries closer to the scholars’ homes meant they no longer needed to travel all the way to Alexandria to continue their work so, in a twist of irony, the building and expansion of the library network in Rome probably helped the Library of the Alexandria to its eventual demise.

What did we lose?

The Library of Alexandria held the accumulated knowledge of the ancient world. Whether by fire, mobs or just the passage of time, the wealth of information lost when the library disappeared set human development back thousands of years. One article even claimed that, had it not been for the loss of the library of Alexandria, Columbus wouldn’t have set sail for the new world; oh no, he would’ve travelled to the moon.

Knowing his navigational skills, he would probably have ended up on mars and just called it the moon. So, what amazing information could be found within this bastion of knowledge that would’ve led to Columbus colonizing the new moon?

Let’s start with some of the more outlandish theories; after all, we’re trying to send Columbus to the moon here. Apparently, the Library of Alexandria contained information about, wait for it, aliens. Yes, the great library could’ve told us, once and for all, the truth about extra-terrestrial life and their visits to our lovely planet.

The powerful elites, you know who you are, destroyed the library and with it all records of alien contact and UFO sightings in antiquity because they don’t want us to know the truth. I reckon ET could most certainly have helped Columbus get to some form of planetary body, but I’m a little skeptical, so let’s get a little more serious.

Another favorite theory is that the library contained records of even more ancient civilizations, like the Minoan Empire, the Hittites, the Nabateans, the Babylonians as well as records of diplomatic correspondence between Egypt and Atlantis. The library also contained the Summerian King list, dictionaries for Linear A, and records to answer questions that have been puzzling archaeologists for decades: Who built Gobekli Tepe and who were the mysterious Sea People? Atlantis is fiction, so definitely no diplomatic records, but the rest isn’t entirely unreasonable for those of us who haven’t made an in-depth study of history.

However, sadly, the Hellenistic era Greek scholars knew very little about the Minoan civilization and the Bronze Age in general, and even less about preceding ages, and, as far as we know, the ancient Egyptians forgot to mention the invasion of the Sea Peoples to their Greek overlords. Thus we can safely assume no Atlantean technologies or science from ancient civilizations, which we for some reason have not been able to come up with ourselves in the last 2000 years, had been lost when the library disappeared.

What about the Bible? Surely a library as great as the Library of Alexandria had the first copies of the Bible, writings about the rise of Christianity, Rome’s conversion to Christianity, records of the great flood or stories upon which the story of Noah’s ark was based, records of the time Jesus spent in Egypt, evidence of the Israelite migrations out of Egypt, or records of the ten plagues, you know, that sort of thing. However, the ancient Greeks, who built the library, had very little interest in Christianity.

It was just another, somewhat strange, upstart cult among a sea of other cults and beliefs and nothing more. By the time Christianity became a serious religion, and the Roman Empire started converting, the library no longer existed. Many of the stories in the Bible are also parables and myths rather than historical events and, therefore, wouldn’t have been found in the Library of Alexandria.

However, the library wasn’t entirely devoid of Jewish writings. The city of Alexandria had a large Jewish community, so the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Hebrew Bible translated from Biblical Hebrew into Koine Greek, was most likely done at the Library of Alexandria. At the time, few people could read or even speak Biblical Hebrew, so Greek was a more accessible choice.

So far, there’s nothing about aliens, Atlantis, the Great Flood or the life of Jesus in the library. So, just what the heck was in this grand temple to the muses? Well, thanks to the work of Callimachus of Cyrene, we have some idea. Callimachus is the man responsible for developing the first library catalogue system, called the Pinakes or the Tables, which we still use today.

Scrolls were divided into categories based on topic and then listed alphabetically by author. Each catalogue entry contained a brief summary of the text as well as a biography of the authors and lists of their other works, and each scroll was tagged with the title, the author, the subject and the estimated number of lines per work. The system wasn’t perfect, but, without it, the library and all the knowledge stored within would’ve been unusable.

Many articles and websites claim that the library was intended to be a universal library containing books and knowledge from all nations. This may have been the case but since we have no original contemporary accounts about this library, there’s simply no way to know for sure. However, we do know the library was built in the early Hellenistic Period by Greeks to serve the needs of the Greek scholars, so the collection mainly focused on Greek literary works, and the fragments of the Pinakes that survived supports this theory.

Alexandria was a Greek city, but it was in Egypt, so it’s very likely that the library would also have had a substantial collection of Egyptian books and records on kings that ruled before Alexander came along, the building of the pyramids, details about explorations around Egypt and the interior of Africa, and information about the Egyptian people and their beliefs. There’s some writing to suggest that books from a few other cultures were included, such as a history of Babylonia written in Greek by a Chaldean priest and a sizable book on Zoroastrianism written by a pupil of Callimachus. Buddhist writings might also have been available to scholars at the library, and perhaps a small collection of works from other nations, like India.

However, works from other cultures and written in other languages would’ve been translated into Greek and we have no idea if anyone would’ve seen any value in keeping the originals since it would’ve been a language not everyone could read. Besides, they had a Greek version, so why take up precious space with a document no-one is going to look at again.

Researching this topic, I’ve also come across a list of celebrity men, and women, of letters who apparently all studied at the Great Library of Alexandria and possibly added to its substantial collection: Archimedes, Eratosthenes, Euclid, Herophilos and even Hypatia. However, as with everything else about the library, this is just a theory. We know very little about the life of Archimedes; what we do know about his life suggests that he spent time in Syracuse, but there’s nothing that specifically links him to Alexandria.

Euclid, Herophilos and Dionysius of Thrace may all have studied there depending on when exactly the library was founded, but since we don’t know that, we don’t know for sure. As for Hypatia, as fascinating a figure as she is, by the time she was born, the library had ceased to exist so she definitely didn’t work there and she was most certainly not the last librarian of the Great Library. One scholar who we know lived and worked in Alexandria, and could probably be found wandering the halls of the Mouseion was Eratosthenes who theorized that the world was, in fact, a sphere in a time when most people thought the world was flat.

He even calculated the circumference and diameter of the earth and considering that he was working without computers and a very limited understanding of science and mathematics, he came pretty close. He also came to the conclusion that the oceans were all connected and was the first man in history to suggest that it might be possible to circumnavigate the globe. So while we’re not sure about Archimedes, and we don’t have a year book with a silly staff photo, some of the great thinkers of the time studied at the Mouseion and they would most certainly have added their own writings to the library’s collection.

There also seems to be this idea that the Library of Alexandria was not just a center for learning, but a center for scientific research and development. However, to the Greeks of the Hellenistic era, science meant something a little different. Scholars were far more interested in what we would call the Humanities than the hard sciences.

Many of the head librarians’ fields of study were philosophy, grammar, poetry, and textual analysis. The scholars at the library would’ve spent months comparing various copies of the Iliad and the Odyssey, carefully analyzing and pondering every little difference, and studying the works of the Athenian playwrights and great philosophers. Most scholars would’ve been polymaths, so they probably dabbled in other fields, like mathematics and natural philosophy.

However, the scholars and philosophers studying and teaching at the Mouseion, and similar complexes around the known world, were either rich themselves or they had rich patrons. They never had to do any physical labour and therefore didn’t have the interest or the incentive to invent anything – that was left to the working class and slaves. The sciences studied at the Mouseion were based in logic, induction and common sense in an attempt to explain the physical and natural world.

The scientific method had not been formulated yet, and the closest these great minds ever came to experimentation was thought experiments. The fields of astronomy and geometry might’ve contained a little more observation and measurement, but it still wasn’t anything like science as we know it today. If they were anything like most academics I know, they mostly sat around arguing about abstract concepts that few people care about while drinking Gin and Tonic and munching snacks.

There were exceptions of course. The work done by Archimedes in the fields of geometry had some practical applications and Hero or Heron of Alexandria, who may or may not have worked at the library, is considered one of the fathers of physics for his multitude of inventions including the first vending machines and the Aeolipile, a sphere placed in perpetual motion through the use of pressurized steam. Today, it’s considered to be the very first, and very primitive, steam engine, an invention that would later power the Industrial Revolution.

However, most of these inventions were considered toys and curiosities – it’s doubtful that Heron ever thought his inventions would send human develop hurtling forward. As for other ancient discoveries, like batteries or crude flying machines, sorry to disappoint, nothing like that ever graced the ancient shelves. So, it’s unlikely that mankind was set back centuries, or even decades, in terms of technological and scientific progress.

The scholars at the Great Library of Alexandria were far more interested in the various different variants of Homer’s Iliad than they were in advancing medicine or sending anyone to the moon.

While the Mouseion and the Library is seen as a beacon of enlightened thought, there are some rumors that the library had a dark side. Throughout history, prisoners have often been used for medical experiments, and it’s possible that the same happened in Alexandria. The study of medicine and human anatomy was still in its infancy, and considering the interest of the great scholars up on the hill in their library, research on medicine was probably historical and philosophical in nature.

However, there were at least two anatomists living and working in Alexandria who made some groundbreaking discoveries. Herophilus discovered the nervous system and the distinction between different types of nerves, and Erasistratus mapped the blood-vascular system. No amount of logical reasoning and discussing abstract thoughts would’ve allowed them to do this; for this kind of work, you need an actual human body.

Their subjects were the bodies of prisoners, as well as condemned prisoners, provided to them by the kings, Ptolemy II and Ptolemy III. Apparently, even ancient commentators considered their investigations to be cruel to the extreme, and they were heavily criticized for their use of vivisection on living prisoners. While they were working in Alexandria under the patronage of the king, there’s no proof that they were associated with the Mouseion or the Library specifically.

However, the library was a center of learning, it did have a medical section, though it was very limited, and ethics regarding medical research and human testing were a little different back then so it’s possible that their works could be found on the catalogue. Sometimes, the quest for knowledge can go down some dark roads, and it’s plausible that not even the great library of Alexandria was exempt from this.

After that dark detour, let’s get back to Columbus and his trip to the new moon. We’ve determined that there probably wasn’t any grand technologies that could’ve helped Columbus reach the moon, but we still lost a lot of knowledge when the library ceased to exist, right?

The library of Alexandria was the largest, and the most famous, but it was hardly unique. It even had a rival, the library of Pergamum. There’s one story that claims the king banned the export of papyrus to the city of Pergamum to stifle the library and so preserve the prestige of the Library of Alexandria.

On top of that, owning books was a sign of wealth, so the book markets were thriving and many a rich man had his own private library. Scribes, commissioned by scholars and the wealthy, visited the library to make copies of books for their patrons, and copies made of books were sent to other libraries. Books taken from the ships were copied and the copies returned to their owners.

While the library probably contained a number of unique scrolls, most of the scrolls and the knowledge they contained were widely available. Imagine losing one of the world’s biggest libraries, like the British Library or the Library of Congress, to a fire. The financial and culture loss of original documents would be immense, but airplanes are not going to start falling out of the sky simply because the books containing the information on how they work went up in flames.

The knowledge is still there in the minds of everyone who has ever study aeronautical engineering. Of course, the number of people who had access to the books in the library of Alexandria is probably quite a bit smaller than the number of people who studied aeronautical engineering, but the principle is the same. Knowledge doesn’t vanish simply because the books are destroyed.

While we Humanities majors lament the loss of Homer’s Epic Cycle and the plays of Euripedes, when it comes to the question of what did we lose in the destruction of the Library of Alexandria, the honest answer is: not much, except perhaps for how the pyramids were built. The library’s destruction is not the reason why so many texts from antiquity have been lost; the passage of time took care of that.

Bonus Mystery: Was the Library ever real or is it a myth?

While the question of what happened to the library has been circulating for years, skeptics have been asking a whole different question of late: Did the library of Alexandria even exist, or is the whole story of the great library a myth? It’s generally accepted that the library did exist, but this is a channel all about unsolved mysteries and, to be fair, it’s not an entirely unreasonable question, so it’s worth considering.

Today, Old Alexandria lies deep beneath modern Alexandria. Archaeologists have made great discoveries under the dusty streets and in the waters, just off-shore, where sphinxes, columns, ceramics and other finds tell the story of the Ptolemies and their Alexandria. However, the library remains elusive.

We know the Mouseion was in the Royal Quarter of the city, but we’re not entirely sure exactly where the Mouseion, and therefore the library attached to it, was built and, to date, not a single stone or scroll that once made up the great library have been found. Artifacts linked to some of the great philosophers who may, or may not, have studied at the Mouseion have been uncovered but while it suggests that the philosophers were in Alexandria at the time, it doesn’t prove the existence of a great library.

The supposed size of the collection, or rather the lack of agreement on the size of the collection, adds further doubt. Seneca the Younger claims that 40,000 books were burned in Caesar’s attack and apparent destruction of the library. Ammianus Marcellinus, a Roman historian writing three centuries later claimed the library contained 700,000 books that were destroyed during the Alexandrian war.

Skeptics claim that there simply wasn’t room in Alexandria for a building large enough to house 700,000 scrolls, even more scrolls if the figure is 700,000 books, and they are right. This is a large collection even by modern standards. It’s highly doubtful that so many different books even existed at that time.

Also, imagine how long it would take for a librarian to count 700,000 scrolls, especially if new scrolls were added to the collection and copies were removed and sent to sister libraries or back to their original owners. When you finally finished counting the scrolls in one section of the library, the number of scrolls in the three other sections you counted over the last two years has changed, so you have to start again. No librarian had the time, or sanity, for that.

By studying the ruins of the library of Pergamum, the rival of Alexandria, archaeologists were able to estimate the number of scrolls housed there based on available floor space and concluded that the library only held about 30,000 scrolls. The story about Mark Antony giving Cleopatra 200,000 scrolls from the library of Pergamum was probably a wild exaggeration, if it happened at all, since Mark Antony had fallen out of favor in Rome and the story was probably used to convince the Roman people of the excesses Mark Antony and Cleopatra were indulging in in far-away Egypt. So, realistically, and based on the floor plans of Pergamum, since none exist for Alexandria, it’s unlikely that the Library of Alexandria ever had more than 40,000 to 50,000 scrolls. Personally, I think the library’s size and scope have been exaggerated over time, but the more skeptical amongst us feel that this only proves that library itself is a myth and it never existed.

The fact that there are no contemporary historians describing the library, the closest we come is Strabo mentioning visiting a library while spending time at the Mouseion, is also problematic. The first mention of the library is in a letter a man named Aristeas wrote to his brother, Philocrates. He claimed to be a courier for Ptolemy II and apparently witnessed a conversation between Ptolemy and Demetrius regarding the progress of collecting books for the library.

Unfortunately, the Letter of Aristeas has been proven a forgery. Most scholars date the letter to at least a century later than it was initially claimed to have been written and some even doubt whether Aristeas ever existed. The letter is mostly considered Jewish propaganda intended to heighten the importance of the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible.

The writer was trying to magnify the size and importance of the library in Alexandria and claimed that Ptolemy himself insisted that a copy of the Hebrew Bible be included in this grand library collecting all the works of the known world, thus raising the importance of the Hebrew Bible.

So we have no solid proof to show that the great library of Alexandria ever existed. Everything written about the library was written after it was gone. The many accounts of Roman Emperors sacking Alexandria, burning down great swathes of the city and killing off the population in some cases, don’t mention a library.

Of the collection of great minds often listed as studying at the Mouseion, we only have proof that a few of them spent any time in Alexandria and, without these great minds, Alexandria’s supposed reputation as a center of learning and home to a great library is becoming less certain. Every time the story of Caesar’s destruction of the library is told, the number of books he destroyed becomes bigger, and both the Christians and the Muslims were accused of burning down the great library and destroying the knowledge it held. Nothing paints your enemy as a small-minded barbarian quite like the destruction of the biggest library in history.

So, is that all the Library of Alexandria is? A device used throughout history to discredit your rivals?

Perhaps the Library is just a myth. However, when Julius Caesar returned to Rome after the Alexandrian war, he had plans to build a library that would rival the Alexandrian library of the Ptolemies in Egypt. He never got round to it due to a pesky assassination plot that ended his reign and plans prematurely, but Caesar August did follow up on the idea and built a huge library on Palatine Hill. So whether the great library as we picture it existed or not, Caesar saw something in the city named after Alexander the Great himself that inspired him.

Conclusion

The library as we imagine it, a grand edifice filled to the roof with books and serious scholars bent over ancient scrolls in dimly lit rooms, probably never existed. However, while the image presented in myth might be wildly exaggerated, I think that the Library of Alexandria was very real, tucked into a spacious corner of the Mouseion, with preoccupied scholars randomly leaving scrolls lying around and a slightly hysterical librarian, running on the Hellenistic world’s equivalent of caffeine, trying to keep it all sorted and running smoothly. After all, the world built by Alexander the Great valued knowledge and appreciated learning: two qualities it sometimes seems our modern world has long since lost.

Other than rumors of the ancient collection being hidden away in the Secret Vatican archives, or buried somewhere in the desert waiting to be found, nothing remains of the library today, except perhaps its legacy. Instead of just a great collection of books, the Great Library of Alexandria has become a symbol of human knowledge and the achievement of Western thought as well as a warning of the dire consequences when religious doctrine or war overrules logic and reason.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who founded the Library of Alexandria?

The founder of the Library of Alexandria is uncertain. It is possible that Alexander the Great envisioned it, but it was likely founded by Ptolemy I or his son Ptolemy II.

What was the purpose of the Library of Alexandria?

The Library of Alexandria was built for the sole purpose of learning and innovation. It aimed to collect all the works in the known world under one roof.

How many books were in the Library of Alexandria?

The exact number of books in the Library of Alexandria is unknown. Estimates vary widely from 40,000 scrolls to 700,000 scrolls.

What happened to the Library of Alexandria?

The Library of Alexandria was likely destroyed gradually over time due to mismanagement, neglect, and unreliable funding. It may have also been partially destroyed during various conflicts and sackings of the city.

Who is blamed for the destruction of the Library of Alexandria?

Several groups and individuals have been blamed for the destruction of the Library of Alexandria, including Julius Caesar, Christian mobs, and Arab invaders. However, it is more likely that the library declined and was destroyed gradually over time.

What kind of knowledge was lost with the Library of Alexandria?

The Library of Alexandria held a vast collection of ancient knowledge, including Greek literary works, Egyptian records, and some works from other cultures. However, much of the knowledge was likely duplicated in other libraries and private collections.

Did the Library of Alexandria contain any unique or advanced technologies?

There is no evidence that the Library of Alexandria contained any unique or advanced technologies that could have significantly advanced human development. The scholars were more interested in the humanities than in scientific research.

Was the Library of Alexandria a center for scientific research and development?

The Library of Alexandria was primarily a center for learning and the humanities. While some scientific work was done, it was not a major focus of the scholars there.

Did the Library of Alexandria have any dark practices?

There are rumors that the Library of Alexandria may have been involved in dark practices, such as using prisoners for medical experiments. However, there is no concrete evidence to support this.

Did the Library of Alexandria ever exist?

While there is no concrete evidence of the Library of Alexandria’s existence, it is generally accepted that it did exist. The lack of contemporary descriptions and the exaggerated stories about its size and destruction have led some to question its reality.

Sources

• Original Decoding the Unknown video: The Library of Alexandria: What Did We Lose?
• Hero image source by David Evers from Amsterdam, Netherlands / openverse, by.