Myths About the Great Library of Alexandria

you probably have heard all sorts of legends about the great library of alexandria like that it contained all the knowledge of the ancient world was filled with lost scientific knowledge it contained half a million or a million scrolls but none of this is actually true the library of alexandria was one of many ancient libraries and was not unique there was one at pergamon there was one in antioch one in the form of trajan and many others it's not like losing the one at alexandria would mean all the knowledge of the ancient world would have been lost the library was part of the museum of alexandria and dedicated to the nine muses most of the scholars who studied there focused on poetry and literature and not the sciences the library would have mostly contained works on these subjects there's no reason to think it contained half a million scrolls more realistic estimates by historians today suggest the library may have contained around 40 to 50 000 scrolls at its height so the library did not contain all the knowledge of the ancient world lost scientific advances or had the large estimates of scrolls that people throw around today

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Published: Fri Apr 29 2022