In Search of the GREAT LIBRARY of ALEXANDRIA

For regular videos on ancient cultures and forgotten civilizations, please subscribe. When traveling the world, it's nice to get some perspective. And one great way of achieving that is with a globe. Globes provide an enhanced sense of context and geographical literacy, which is beneficial to have whether you're a traveler or not. And I especially like Mova Globes, the sponsor of today's video. You may have noticed that I promoted them before. And I am back with some news. As part of their seasonal promotion, Mova is going to be giving away one of their globes to a World of Antiquity viewer. Ah? What's so great about Mova Globes? They rotate. Yeah. By themselves. Without a cord. Without batteries. Huh? What's the trick? It turns when it's exposed to ambient light. Hidden magnets inside provide the movement. This is first-of-its-kind technology. I got one with an antique map, but they have more than 40 other designs as well. They even have an outer space collection featuring graphics by NASA and JPL. You can browse what you like at MovaGlobes.com. This will look great in your office, living room, bedroom. It tells people you're a world traveler. If not literally, at least in the heart. And what better way to irritate the flat earthers? You can enter now to win a 4.5-inch Mova Globe of your choice at the link I will provide under the video. The giveaway ends November 22nd, so best to do it now before you forget. The winner will be notified via email. Now back to the show. Alexandria. It's a city that's often overlooked by tour groups visiting Egypt. It's true there are no pyramids here, but Alexandria is rich in history. It was at one time the capital of Egypt, after all. And the ancient history lover will find some fascinating ruins and artifacts to drool over. The city from which Cleopatra once ruled, and which famous Romans like Julius Caesar and Mark Antony visited, was home to the Great Lighthouse, to a university at which notable scholars of the ancient world worked and taught, and the Library of Alexandria, where thousands of ancient books were held, a vast repository of knowledge in its day. One of the reasons I and fellow historian Natalie Hilder visited here was to learn more about this library and its secrets. Who built it and why? What books did it hold? What happened to it? We're going to find out. Did you know that part of it still exists? Oh yeah, we're going to show it to you. So come with us on our search to find the Great Library of Alexandria. Welcome to the Antiquities Travel Guide, a helping hand for visiting historic places. Follow us to different countries as we search for ancient artifacts. If you too wish to explore the ancient past through travel, we'll help you plan where to go, what to see, and how best to enjoy what you encounter. In this series of the ATG, you can accompany Natalie and me on our trek through Egypt, homeland of the ancient Egyptians, Kushites, Libyans, Asiatics, and Greeks. Come on, let's go. We started our inquiry into the mysteries of the Library of Alexandria by looking into some of the historical background of the city, and in particular its heyday in the days of the Ptolemies, the Macedonian dynasty that ruled Egypt from 305 to 30 BCE. So we headed over to the Alexandria National Museum in the heart of town. Housed in a renovated Italianate mansion and built around a beautiful garden, the museum holds about 1,800 artifacts from the city's ancient past. The cost is 100 Egyptian pounds, which is about $3.25 US. Near the entrance are fabulous objects that were retrieved from under the sea by underwater archaeologists. Artifacts not only from Alexandria, but also the nearby sites of Heracleion and Canopus. As you may know, Alexandria and other coastal cities are now partly underwater. Each floor is dedicated to a different era in Egypt's history. The main floor exhibits artifacts from the Hellenistic and Roman periods. This wonderfully preserved stela is the decree of Nectanebo I, Egyptian name Nacht Nebeth, who reigned from 358 to 340 during the 30th dynasty, shortly before Alexander the Great's conquest of the country. The stela was part of a temple in Heracleion, and it had a twin in a temple in Naucratis, which was found in the late 1800s. The contents are about tax money being given to the priests. But I mean, it is like perfect. It's got one broken corner. That's about it. Everything else is just like new. It's beautiful. It is perfect. A king would put up a decree or something, you know, an official announcement, a proclamation or whatever. You can see that this is written vertically here. But hieroglyphs, they can be from left to right or right to left. And the way you can tell the direction is the way that the hieroglyphs are facing. So let's say this was the first one. This would be from left to right. But if it was this one here, if this was the first one, it would be from right to left. But here you can see that this is vertical. I was just looking at the master craftsman here. Look at the knees and everything. The ankles are sticking out. It's so detailed. Yeah, you can see the kneecap and everything. So this is the Red Crown of Lower Egypt. You can see it here. But the Upper Egypt Crown, it's kind of more like this kind of shape and it's white. So if it's the pharaoh, the lord of the two lands, he would be wearing the double crown. That's right. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. That's right. This is lower and upper. There you go. There isn't any glass on it like what we have today, but they just would have polished it really well so you could sort of see yourself. Alexandria was different from the rest of Egypt because its population was primarily Greek and Macedonian. Alexandria is the quintessential Hellenistic creation because it was built as a Greek city. Though perhaps dreamed up by Alexander the Great and named after him, most of what was built here was from the time of the Ptolemies. Ptolemy I had been one of Alexander's generals, but he founded a dynasty that would last until the Roman conquest. There's the Roman Emperor Caracalla in Pharaoh's garb. This is Caracalla. That is so fascinating. You can still see the Greek pyramid. There's Berenice III, wife of King Ptolemy X. The hybrid Greek-Egyptian god Serapis. I talked about him in our episode on the Serapium. One of the things you'll notice about statues of the Ptolemies and their depictions in reliefs is that they are often dressed as pharaohs. This was to appeal to the Egyptian population. There also was a Greek population in Egypt, especially here in the capital city. They didn't recognize the Ptolemies as pharaohs. They were simply kings. So the government had to appeal to two different crowds, and this gave it kind of a split personality. The first floor is dedicated to the dynastic period. The Ptolemies generally looked down on the Egyptians, especially the peasants, who couldn't speak Greek and therefore were considered barbarians. And he's the god of scribes, and that's a scribe sitting right there. Down below is a recreated funerary chamber with artifacts typical of Egyptian tombs. Why do they do it that way, do you know? Well, for protection from masculine animals, you know. The museum is not very big, but the collection is impressive. So if you are an ancient history enthusiast in Alexandria, I recommend it. After that we met up with Ehab, the guide who has been with us this whole trip. His scheduled time with us was complete, but he enjoyed our company so much he decided to hang out with us today too. We picked up some street food on the way to our next destination. The Greeks and Macedonians were the elites in Ptolemaic society. But the Ptolemies did want to be considered legitimate rulers to the Egyptians, so they participated in Egyptian ceremonies and rituals and gave money to the temples. Some kings even went so far as marrying their sisters. Ptolemy II was the first to do so, marrying his sister Arsinoe II, because this had been a custom in Egypt. But I should add that Greek gods also had incestuous relationships and the Ptolemies were trying to imitate divinities, so that may be part of it too. Foreigners lived in Egypt under the Ptolemies too, and some of them, those that were fully Hellenized, would even serve in the court. One large community of foreigners that lived here in the city was the Jewish people, who resided in the northeastern quarter. And what was the next destination? The Library of Alexandria. But not the ancient one. I'm talking about the new Library of Alexandria, commonly known by its Greek name, the Bibliotheca Alexandrina. No, I didn't trick you. We still are going to the ancient site of the library, but I want to show you the new library, because, well, it's amazing. Our friend marine archaeologist Alicia Johnson joined us. The admission price is 150 Egyptian pounds, but I recommend the all-inclusive ticket, which gets you into the museums too, That's just under $10 US. The feeling that you get from this place is probably very similar to the feeling ancient scholars and students got when they visited the original library. Besides the main library, there are six specialized libraries also here. But this place is more than a library. There are also four museums. The Manuscripts Museum holds many valuable ancient and medieval manuscripts. What manuscripts did the original great library have? A wide variety of texts. The scholars, poets, and scientists who were invited by Ptolemy II to come and work and teach in Alexandria toiled to preserve great books of the past and to produce new ones. They obtained the best copies of the works of Homer, for example, and works of the earlier philosophers, and they engaged in textual analysis and studied the philology, etymology, and grammar of these books. They also wrote new books of poetry, science, philosophy, and even epic. And there also is an Antiquities Museum, which holds ancient artifacts that were recovered right in the vicinity of the library, on land and underwater. Some people wonder whether the original great library might have preserved Egyptian texts from earlier times. There is no explicit mention of this in any surviving documents, and it seems clear that most of the books of the library were in Greek, but it is possible, as we know that Egyptian temples did house scrolls, specifically those related to worship and ritual. Maybe some of them made their way into the great library. I should add that the library seems to have been modeled after an Egyptian temple, specifically the funerary temple of Ramses II at Thebes, known more commonly as the Ramesseum. Descriptions of the library seem to match the layout of Ramses' temple, and we know that at the back of Ramses' temple were rooms that held scrolls. That being said, we have found no evidence of significant works of Egyptian philosophy written before Hellenistic times. If you're wondering about the supposed Egyptian philosopher Hermes Trismegistus, you can see my video on the subject. Long story short, he is likely a fictional character. It is surmised that just as the Ramesseum was a memorial temple for Ramses, perhaps in a symbolic way the library was a memorial temple for Alexander, and maybe Alexander's tomb was adjacent to the library. It's just an educated guess. I can't recommend a visit to the Bibliotheca Alexandrina enough. It will impress you. The library gets about 1.5 million visitors each year and hosts a number of academic organizations and projects. From what I understand, they are digitizing more manuscripts than any other library on the planet. There's an arts center, art galleries, a planetarium, an exploratorium for kids, Vista, a virtual reality environment used to examine objects in 3D, and much more. So how was the original Library of Alexandria founded? One old tradition is that it was brought into being by Demetrius of Phalerum in the reign of Ptolemy I. But other sources indicate that Demetrius was not on good terms with Ptolemy I. Whatever the case, the library appears to have opened officially during the reign of Ptolemy II, who reigned from 283 to 246 BCE. The original librarian is said to have been a man named Xenodotus of Ephesus, who collected numerous works of Greek poetry. After Xenodotus came Apollonius of Rhodes, who you may have heard of before. He's the author of the Argonautica, the oldest surviving complete story of Jason and the Argonauts. He was succeeded by Eratosthenes of Cyrene. People used to call him Beta. Beta! Referring to his being a second-rate scholar. But he certainly wasn't. As you may know, he calculated the circumference of the Earth. Seeing as there is a modern city sitting on the ancient site, there isn't much of the ancient city left. But if you know where to go, there are remnants you can find. One of the best spots is Qom el-Diqa, which is where we went the next morning. Okay, check this out. We are in the heart of downtown Alexandria at Qom el-Diqa, the remains of a Roman theater here. And this is the center of town. This is the civic center of Alexandria during the late antique period. So this would be in later Roman times. And they had all kinds of interesting events here. Conferences. I think different kinds of athletics. My personal favorite is the chariot races. So we're going to go inside and check it out. The admission price is 80 Egyptian pounds, which is about $2.60 U.S. This is a spot that has enabled archaeologists and historians to better understand the urban fabric of the city. During the first three centuries of the Common Era, this was a high-end residential area. And there are still remains of some colorful floor mosaics, wall paintings, and sculptures from this time. At the end of the 3rd century, there were rebellions in the city over political issues, which the Roman emperor violently put down. As a result, most of the residences were destroyed. Some smaller and more modest homes were then built here. Look at the animals, the birds here. That's why they're called the Villa of the Birds, I guess. Thinking of what it would have looked like when it was new, the colors would have been so bright. So this was a villa that was built in the time of Hadrian. It was destroyed by fire, but it's underneath kind of the city that we've been walking through, which is from slightly later. And the floor survived remarkably well, actually. It's incredible. I mean, here you see some dark marks, and I don't know how much of that is natural weathering or maybe fire as well, but over here it just looks immaculate, pretty much. The colors are still so bright. Yeah. Then, in the 4th century, something interesting occurred. A new urban project transformed this area into something special. They built numerous public buildings, a complex of large baths in the midst of monumental colonnades, gymnasia, and new public latrines. A new system of furnaces were added to heat the water in the baths. Large late-room bath, 4th to early 7th century. Oh, yes, the caldarium is where they had the hot water, and the frigidarium is where they had the cold water. Oh, the frigidarium. It's just like what we were talking about, about you go into the hot water and then you go into the cold water. Yeah, the hot and cold. People do that today for health reasons, right? Oh, yeah, you can see the whole inner part was made out of red brick. Oh, you can see some of the original paving of the street here. It's amazing. It's actually quite large, really, when you think about it. Most interestingly, in the 6th century, a large academic complex was built here with 22 different auditoriums, or lecture halls. That makes this the only ancient university so far discovered in the Mediterranean. These granite columns here, this is Aswan granite. We talked about this a little bit in my Baalbek video. The Romans had quite the granite industry, but Egypt supplied them with some of the best single granite columns that there were. And you can see they erected them here. This theater was built in the 4th century and lasted until the 7th. It was remodeled in the 6th century after an earthquake hit it, so you're looking at the later version. But here, they would have had events of various kinds, not only conferences, but also sporting events, including chariot races. In fact, we found some graffiti in the seats, not we, but archaeologists, from around the 6th century that talk about the blue and green factions of the chariots. These are the colors that were coated with various chariot teams that existed not only in Alexandria, but throughout the ancient Greek world. A campus of this size in Alexandria should come as no surprise. Next to Athens and Beritus, Beirut, the city was one of the most important educational centers of Hellenistic and Roman times. At the same time the Great Library was built, in the Ptolemaic period, a university was built here too, but we have this one, its successor, you might say. Since the creation of this site roughly coincides with the closing of the Academy in Athens, we might speculate that there could be some correlation. The Museon and Library were connected with one another and stood within walking distance of the place we just were. Unfortunately, the Museon and Library are completely gone. What is not gone, however, is one of the satellite branches of the Library, and that is where we are headed. We took an Uber to get there. But before that, we have one more stop to make, which is on the way, and I have to say, if you're going to visit any of the ancient ruins in the city, this should be at the top of your list. I'm referring to the Catacombs of Qom el-Shukafa. The admission price is 80 Egyptian pounds, or $2.60 US. The catacombs found here were not unique, actually. Alexandria had a large necropolis on the west side of town, but so far, none of the rest have turned up. It's very likely they are now destroyed. This one is believed to have been constructed in the 2nd century CE and was used until about the 4th century. In the court above the catacombs can be found numerous ancient sarcophagi. Red Aswan granite from the Roman period. Look at what fine work they did at this time. Beautiful. Rub-a-dub-dub. And the remains of some small funerary chapels, most of them from Roman times. Wow. Upper, middle, and lower levels. So the lowest is the dotted lines. The catacombs themselves were topped with a large funerary chapel. Only remnants remain. From there, a round shaft descends into the ground. It has a stairway going around it. It is believed that the shaft was used as an easy way to lower bodies down into the catacombs. It would have been a pain carrying them down the stairs. There's a rotunda room a little ways down. Seats carved into the wall are where visitors to the tombs could rest. From the rotunda through a hole in the wall is a set of tombs. This area was dubbed the Hall of Caracalla. There were bones of both men and horses found in this section. It is believed that these were the tombs of soldiers and army horses from the time of Caracalla. There's also a banquet hall on this level called the triclinium, where families of the deceased could participate and gather to honor their dead loved ones. Heading down to the middle level is the coolest part of the complex. In the center is a section designed like a Greek temple. On either side of it is a large complex of tombs. We are in the Qom al-Shaqafah catacombs. Its name means hill of shells, which is because of all of the pottery that's scattered throughout the area. There's a myriad of different corridors and tunnels that you could easily get lost in. Why was broken pottery found down here? Well, people who came here to visit the tombs of their family members would bring food and drink with them for ritual feasting. Maybe because they didn't want to carry the vessels back home with them, they would just smash them and leave them here. Or maybe it was part of the ritual. It's believed that the tomb was started as a place for a single rich family to bury its dead. But then later it was expanded, and other people, for what reason we don't know, were allowed to inter their dead here as well. Archaeologists say that in later times, the place was likely supported and tended to by a group whose members paid dues for the upkeep. The section here made to look like a temple is fascinating. You don't often find something like this in catacombs. And the art is an eclectic mix of Greek and Roman styles. And while we can see various Hellenistic elements, like right down here, this is actually dated back to the Pharaonic times. And you can also see some of the Egyptian iconography here. So you see the Greek and the Egyptian together, side by side. The serpents carved in the wall were meant to guard the tomb. Each is an agathos daimon, or good spirit, in Greco-Egyptian religion. Notice that they wear the Egyptian double crown. On one side they hold a kercheion, a winged staff from Roman iconography, and a thyrus, a pinecone staff from Greek iconography. This mixture of styles is seen even in the tombs, as some are made to hold cremated remains, according to Greco-Roman practice, and others are meant to hold sarcophagi for mummies, according to Egyptian practice. The catacombs go down another level, but unfortunately, the lower section is now underwater. Excuse me, sir. Do you know the way out? Guys, I would live in the catacombs. They're so peaceful. I'm like, I could just chill. Oh, the dead bodies aren't hurting anyone. They're just resting, like what I would be doing, too. But then it was time to go see what is left of the ancient library of Alexandria. In order to do that, we need to find the serapium. You probably have heard of the serapium of Saqqara. We did an episode on it. But fewer people have heard of the serapium of Alexandria. It's within walking distance of the catacombs. As with the last two sites, or $2.60 U.S. A serapium, as you may know, was where the Greco-Egyptian god Serapis was worshipped. The serapium of Alexandria was built in the 3rd century BCE by the architect Parmeniskos under the patronage of Ptolemy III. Well, Ptolemy, Eogertes as he was called, also had a satellite library made here at the serapium This was when Aristophanes of Byzantium was head librarian. This site is marked by that massive red granite pillar. Now, everyone calls it Pompey's Pillar. It was a name that medieval travelers gave it. But it's not Pompey's Pillar. It has nothing to do with Pompey. It's actually a pillar dedicated to the Roman emperor Diocletian and it was erected in 298 CE after he saved the city from a famine The column is estimated to weigh 285 tons. The fact that it is known to have been added to the serapium in Roman times shows very clearly that the Romans were able to move objects this heavy and erect them. We have numerous examples around the Mediterranean. The name Publius, Eparch of Egypt, appears in an inscription on the base. We know this man was prefect here between 297 and 303. So this helps us to date the column. Because the inscription is damaged someone read Pompeios instead of Publius and that is how the wrong name got attached to it. Look at the size of this thing! It's 27 meters high and 9 meters in diameter. And right on top of the Corinthian capital you see at the top there was a giant porphyry statue and we know that because pieces of the statue were found scattered on the ground around it. This is the only ancient monument in Alexandria that's still standing in its original location. Two Ptolemaic sphinxes made of granite still sit near the column. You can see the remains of the serapium but not much is left above ground. Ah, but did you know that there are tunnels where we believe books of the great library were held? Let's take a look. We are now in a part of the famed library of Alexandria. This would have been full of books. When I say books I mean scrolls. The codex wasn't invented yet when this place was built. A statue of the Apis bull, one of the incarnations of Serapis. In another section we find underground catacombs where sacred jackals associated with the cult of Anubis were interred. Many people think the great library was destroyed in a single catastrophic event, but its downfall was slow. Its decline started in the reign of Ptolemy VIII when he expelled a large number of scholars from Alexandria because of what they were writing about him. They probably took some of the books with them. The people who lived after him did not give much care or attention to the museum or library, and it lost a lot of its prestige. When Julius Caesar brought his fleet here in 48 BCE, Ptolemy XIII had the ships set on fire, and the fire is said to have spread to the docks and then to some houses. Some sources say many scrolls of the library were destroyed. Whether this was in the library itself or a warehouse of scrolls, we're not sure. But we do know the library lived on. Mark Antony is said to have donated books to it from the Library of Pergamum. In 270, Zenobia, the queen of Pelmyra, conquered Egypt, and two years later the Roman emperor Aurelian took it back. In the fighting, the section of the city in which the main library stood was destroyed. What survived this event is not known. But the daughter library here at the Serapium lasted for a little bit longer. It was here when the column was put up. The Serapium was finally closed down in the 4th century for religious reasons. By that time, the Christian emperors were shutting down all temples with pagan services. Around 391, there were riots in the city, and Christians began attacking pagan monuments. Some of the pagans fortified themselves here in the temple and its enclosure to protect it. But a mob of Christians came here, drove out the pagans, and sacked this place, destroying much of it. Later a church was built here, but it eventually fell into ruins. And then a cemetery was put here. Alexandria is rich with ancient history, and I hope you enjoyed seeing what some of it has to offer. That brings our trip through Lower Egypt to an end. I don't know how long of a trip it has been, but there is one more episode. Natalie will sit down with me to discuss our rankings of the best sights from our trip and compare notes. Please join us, and if there are some earlier episodes in the series that you missed, check them out. Until next time.