The rise and fall of the Great Library of Alexandria [View all]

The famous library of Alexandria, Egypt, was one of the most important repositories of knowledge in the ancient world. Built in the fourth century B.C., it flourished for some six centuries, was the cultural and intellectual center of the ancient Hellenistic world, and was rumored to contain half a million papyrus scrolls — the largest collection of manuscripts in the ancient world — including works by Plato, Aristotle, Homer, Herodotus and many others. Some of the most brilliant minds of the period worked, studied and taught at the library.

By the fifth century A.D., however, the library had essentially ceased to exist. With many of its collections stolen, destroyed or simply allowed to fall into disrepair, the library no longer wielded the influence it once had.

The story of the Alexandrian Library's rise and demise is still being fleshed out through scholarship and archaeology. But what we do know of this tale is as complex and dramatic as any Hollywood movie. "The library was probably created quite soon after the founding of Alexandria around 331 B.C.," said Willeke Wendrich, a professor of Egyptian archaeology and the Joan Silsbee chair of African cultural archaeology at the University of California, Los Angeles. "But it is unclear whether the library was founded by Alexander, Ptolemy I or [his son] Ptolemy II, but it seems likely that it came to fruition under the latter, who ruled from 284 to 246 B.C."

The library expanded in size and scope over the years as the Ptolemaic rulers saw the advantages of promoting a center of learning and culture within their city. Generous royal subsidies led to the creation of a complex of buildings surrounding the Museion. Although the precise layout of the library is not known,
at its height the library was reputed to have included lecture halls, laboratories, meeting halls, gardens, dining commons and even a zoo, according to the ancient historian Diodorus Siculus. There was also a medical school whose students practiced the dissection of human cadavers — a unique skill that was rarely practiced in Europe before the 15th-century Renaissance.

"The Museion was not a museum in the modern sense of the term, but much more like a university," Wendrich told Live Science. "Here, literary works were recited and theories discussed."

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