Mostafa ‘Abdel Hamid el-‘Abbadi, the man behind the recreation of the ancient Great Library of Alexandria in Egypt, died in February 2017, aged 88. Professor of Classical Studies at Alexandria University, el-‘Abbadi devoted much of his research to the ancient library of Alexandria. His book The Life and Fate of the Ancient Library of Alexandria remains a valued account on the long-vanished wonder of Egypt’s former capital, but el-‘Abbadi will be most remembered for his initiative toward the modern recreation of this “temple” of learning—an imposing, 11-story structure on the banks of the Mediterranean. Called by a Latin name, Bibliotheca Alexandrina, the new library was inaugurated on October 16, 2002. However, the library’s greatest champion, Mostafa el-‘Abbadi, was not among the distinguished guests at the official opening. He was not invited—apparently because of his criticism of how the project had been carried out.
Little is known about the original, ancient Great Library of Alexandria. We don’t even know its location or the year it was established. Its size is a subject of unreliable accounts and modern guesses ranging between 40,000 and 700,000 volumes. It is sometimes confused with other Alexandrian libraries, such as the one housed in the Serapeum (temple dedicated to the Greco-Egyptian deity Serapis). The Great Library was founded by Ptolemy I or his son Ptolemy II, Alexander the Great’s successor kings in Egypt, in the third century B.C.E. Part of a larger complex, it was not just a repository of books but a center designed to provide a nourishing environment for the brilliant minds of the day. The idea of a repository of all human knowledge can rightly be credited to the expeditions of Alexander the Great, which had shown for the first time the diversity of humanity and the breadth of human genius. To be sure, the Great Library was not the first ancient library, but it was the first universal one—housing texts in many languages and covering subjects from astronomy to poetry, including texts we don’t have or don’t even know ever existed, 013as the papyri from excavations in Egypt occasionally remind us.
We don’t know when or how this library of dreams vanished. Different accounts suggest destruction by fire, for which they blame different wars, fanatic Christians (in 391 C.E.), or conquering Arabs (in 642). Many credit the Roman politician Julius Caesar and his operations in the harbor of Alexandria in 48 B.C.E.
But would the books have survived antiquity? From what we understand about the natural physical degradation of writing materials, for scrolls and codices to have survived continuous use and the humid climate of Alexandria, they would have to have been constantly replaced by new copies and properly curated. This would have required forces and personalities that created and sustained cultural institutions. But precisely the lack of will and means to maintain a major center of learning is most likely what sealed the fate of the Great Library of Alexandria.1 In other words, we don’t need to look for a single destructive force if we recognize that creative achievements do not survive without a cultural milieu that values them—a caveat as relevant today as it was two millennia ago.—M.D.
Mostafa ‘Abdel Hamid el-‘Abbadi, the man behind the recreation of the ancient Great Library of Alexandria in Egypt, died in February 2017, aged 88. Professor of Classical Studies at Alexandria University, el-‘Abbadi devoted much of his research to the ancient library of Alexandria. His book The Life and Fate of the Ancient Library of Alexandria remains a valued account on the long-vanished wonder of Egypt’s former capital, but el-‘Abbadi will be most remembered for his initiative toward the modern recreation of this “temple” of learning—an imposing, 11-story structure on the banks of the Mediterranean. Called by a Latin name, […]
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