What Happened to the Ancient Library of Alexandria?

Erscheinungsjahr 2008
ISBN: 978-90-04-16545-8
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 3, 260 Seiten, Format (B × H): 159 mm x 244 mm, Gewicht: 570 g

Reihe: Library of the Written Word / Library of the Written Word - The Manuscript World

In adopting the theme of What Happened to the Ancient Library of Alexandria? this book aims at presenting afresh, a highly specialized discussion of primary sources related to the diverse aspects and episodes of that long disputed question. The book covers a wide range of topics, beginning with an initial presentation of different Ancient Egyptian types of library institutions, with a special focus on the later Coptic Nag Hamadi Library. It then deals with the troubled times under later Ptolemies and Romans, when the Royal Library, the Daughter Library and the Mouseion, came under a succession of threats: Caesar’s Alexandrian War in 48 B.C., and during the tragic developments in the third and fourth centuries which ultimately culminated in the destruction of the Serapeum that housed the Daughter Library.
A discussion of the intellectual milieu during the fourth and fifth centuries, follows, as well as the conflicting attitudes within the Church with regard to classical learning. An analysis of historical and new archaeological evidence confirms the fact that Alexandria continued to be a city of books and scholarship centuries after the destruction of the Library.
Finally, the late medieval Arab story of the destruction of the Library by order of Caliph Omar, is fully considered and refuted through textual analysis of the original sources.

Contributors include: William J. Cherf, Dimitar Y. Dimitrov, Maria Dzielska, Mostafa A. El-Abbadi, Jean-Yves Empereur, Fayza M. Haikal, Georges Leroux, Bernard Lewis, Grzegorz Majcherek, Mounir H. Megally, Birger A. Pearson, Lucien X. Polastron, Qassem Abdou Qassem, and Ismail Serageldin.

Autoren/Hrsg.

El-Abbadi, Mostafa

Fathallah, Omnia

Serageldin, Ismail

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Afrikanische Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Alte Geschichte & Archäologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Kultur- und Ideengeschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Preface
Acknowledgements
List of Illustrations
Abbreviations
Contributors
The Alexandria Project
Introduction

1. À la Recherche de la Systématisation des Connaissances et du Passage du Concret à l’Abstrait dans l’Égypte Ancienne, Mounir H. Megally
2. Private Collections and Temple Libraries in Ancient Egypt, Fayza M. Haikal
3. Earth, Wind, and Fire: The Alexandrian Fire-storm of 48 B.C., William J. Cherf
4. The Destruction of the Library of Alexandria: An Archaeological Viewpoint, Jean-Yves Empereur
5. Demise of the Daughter Library, Mostafa A. El-Abbadi
6. Ce Que Construisent les Ruines?, Lucien X. Polastron
7. The Nag Hammadi 'Library' of Coptic Papyrus Codices, Birger A. Pearson
8. Learned Women in the Alexandrian Scholarship and Society of Late Hellenism, Maria Dzielska
9. Synesius of Cyrene and the Christian Neoplatonism: Patterns of Religious and Cultural Symbiosis, Dimitar Y. Dimitrov
10. Damascius and the 'Collectio Philosophica': A Chapter in the History of Philosophical Schools and Libraries in the Neoplatonic Tradition, Georges Leroux
11. Academic Life of Late Antique Alexandria: A View from the Field, Grzegorz Majcherek
12. The Arab Story of the Destruction of the Ancient Library of Alexandria, Qassem Abdou Qassem
13. The Arab Destruction of the Library of Alexandria: Anatomy of a Myth, Bernard Lewis

Bibliography
I. Sources
II. Lexical Works
III. Modern Literature
General Index

Über Autor(innen)

Mostafa A. El-Abbadi is a Professor Emeritus of Classical Studies at the University of Alexandria, Egypt, Special Advisor to the Director of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, and President of the Archaeological Society of Alexandria. He is the author of several books and articles, including Life and Fate of the Ancient Library of Alexandria (Paris, 1990), which was translated into several languages.
Omnia M. Fathallah is Director of Public Servcies at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina (BA). She is a graduate of the University of Alexandria, Egypt (B.A., 1992), specialized in Classical Studies. In 1993, she began her librarianship career at the BA as a cataloger. In 2002, she was appointed coordinator of the Alexandria Project (AP). She organized the International Seminar “What Happened to the Ancient Library of Alexandria?” (26–28 September 2004) of which this publication is the scholarly output.