James Wu

TIL there was no single burning of the historic Great Library of Alexandria. The “single burning” story is just myth.

Instead, the Library of Alexandria was slowly defunded and its librarians, intellectuals purged from Alexandria. Over generations its prominence and scholarship slowly faded away, and the collection was likely slowly lost to corruption, war, plunder, dilapidation, or dispersed across other private and public collections.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_of_Alexandria

Library of Alexandria - Wikipedia

Jul 22, 2023 at 11:40pmWeb
Show threadyour auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦Jul 22, 2023
@analogist have you heard about the theory that most of it is in Timbuktu?
Show threadJames WuJul 22, 2023
@blogdiva well, TIL this hypothesis! I remember that fire a few years back
Show threadyour auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦Jul 23, 2023
@analogist well, what's interesting is that the original myth is supposedly intentional. it was meant to get library/treasure hunters off the back of the librarians trail, back to Timbuktu. the books became the kingdom's source of $$$ thru its universities & professionals. once the kingdom fell, those libraries "disappeared". 600 years later we hear about them... and they get lost in a fire? IMNSHO nah... that's just part of the librarians tradition & promise to protect those manuscripts 😏
Show threadBill HookerJul 23, 2023
@analogist I did not know that either. How depressingly familiar.
Show threadSearingTruthJul 23, 2023

@analogist

"Many imagine that just in this time, this moment, and this instance, the laws of humanity must be violated.

And after that moment continue to violate them."
SearingTruth

Show threadLyonsJul 23, 2023
@analogist 🤯
Show threadDie Mad 🇨🇦Jul 23, 2023
@analogist “Over generations…”? Hah! Amateurs. Red states are going to destroy intellectual life in a single generation.
Show threadMattO Oh there’s way more spJul 23, 2023
@analogist @lisamelton A slow disintegration of norms, intellectual thought, and integrity, you say? Oh those crazy humans of days past. Let’s all celebrate modernity.
Show threadGwynJul 23, 2023

@analogist Wow! How crazy that such a big thing can be so widely believed when not true. 😮

There are so many myths about so many things.

Show threadCrazyMyraJul 23, 2023
@analogist A whole lot of history (as we're now taught) is like this. Future children will be told the climate crisis was a cataclysmic event condensed into a few years, while we've known about the problem for a century already 😕
Show threadRodneyPetersonTalentAgencyJul 23, 2023
@OutOnTheMoors @analogist What future children? At the end of it we’ll be really lucky to have a society rivaling Waterworld or the very end of Cloud Atlas.
Show threadCrazyMyraJul 23, 2023
@RodneyPetersonTalent @analogist There's a good chance the species will survive - but not in large numbers
Show threadJonathan D. Cope, Esq.Jul 23, 2023
@analogist I read that the books were lost mostly through water damage and insect infestation.
Show threadGeorg Arne SpendenJul 23, 2023
@analogist You mean, Alexandria VA.
Show threadRobert GouldingJul 23, 2023
@analogist I’m sure no modern society would do something as daft as defunding libraries and knowledge right? Right?!
Show threadsmaroukisJul 23, 2023
@analogist also #til
Show threadAndrew HintonJul 23, 2023
@analogist @lisamelton so … Idiocracy, but set in the past. Got it.
Show threadRodneyPetersonTalentAgencyJul 23, 2023
@analogist whatever anyone does don’t let Ron DeSantis know about this. Or maybe do. The permanent hard on that mother fucker would get from this story might get in the way of implementing his other horrible and often illegal policies.
Show threadOtownKimJul 23, 2023
@RodneyPetersonTalent @analogist I hate him!
Show threadLacciJul 23, 2023
@analogist
A library in the ancient world depended on scribes to copy manuscripts as they deteriorated. Even in the most exceptional preservation conditions like the Nag Hamadi Library or the Dead Sea Scrolls they were in extremely fragile shape. If people were reading them and they weren't in sealed containers in an exceptionally dry climate manuscripts fell to pieces and have be painstakingly reconstructed from fragments. And that's whatever wasn't taken by someone.
@aprilfollies
Show threadLegalQuiltsJul 23, 2023
@analogist as it was defunded more than a few "excess" volumes were sold out the back door to raise money to keep the place going. Lamp oil costs money you know.
Show threadRamesh #NotGoingBackJul 23, 2023

@analogist

#Florida

Show threadSean AblettJul 23, 2023
@analogist So... Modern day Florida.
Show threadMike MajeskiJul 23, 2023
@analogist Alexandria: The original Florida
Show threadTheriacJul 23, 2023
@analogist
well gosh, who knew Milton Friedman was a Never Die.
Show threadDjeannotJul 23, 2023
@analogist
Cela semble le sort réservé à toute bibliothèque ou université d'excellence, qui ferait de l'ombre à un pouvoir.
Show threadWolfgang FeistJul 23, 2023

@analogist

This should be known about the library:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eI5PSCBtJ6s

Carl Sagan - Cosmos - The Library of Alexandria and Hypatia

YouTube
Show threadsigurbjornlJul 23, 2023
@analogist @alda Problem with the emphasis on memorisation of years is that it makes them all seem like some sort of big bang event when the truth is a lot more complicated
Show threadChristian Keefer-MoomawJul 23, 2023
@analogist This feels like it belongs on the Wikipedia page for common misconceptions, if it isn’t already there. I don’t recall seeing this one the last time I read through.
Show threadKeith M. JudgeJul 23, 2023
@analogist What you recount is only half true. The Serapeum was burned down once the Roman Empire decided to escalate their genocide of original Christianity, Gnostic Christianity, by co-opting Priapus, the mushroom, which put them in touch with the Chrism spirit. The Holy Roman Empire would continue genociding the Gnostics; the most galling example being the Albigensian Crusade, or genocide of the Cathars.
Show threadKeith M. JudgeJul 23, 2023
@analogist Serapis is obviously as important as or more important than Harpocretes to this history.
Show threadKeith M. JudgeJul 23, 2023
@analogist
Show threadlegraLeGraJul 23, 2023

@analogist @stefan

Well this is interesting.

My postdoc just finished up a paper about how in the 160’s BC, a series of 4 very large volcanic eruptions within a decade wrecked havoc with the Nile flood, undermining the foundation of the Ptolemaic stability. Looks like this is coincident with the turn of fortunes for the library.

Its is an interesting angle — maybe my historian colleagues can pursue this angle for their companion paper.

https://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abs/si06400u.html

Pubs.GISS: Singh et al. 2023: Investigating hydroclimatic impacts of the 168-158 BCE volcanic quartet and their...

Show threadSimon CameronJul 23, 2023
@analogist knowledge lost by the banality of ignorance
Show thread🇨🇦🇩🇪🇨🇳张殿李🇨🇳🇩🇪🇨🇦Jul 24, 2023
@analogist The "Great Library" story is as mythical and as historically unsound as the usual picture of what happened at the Alamo.
Show threadTransitBikerJul 24, 2023
@analogist there was a fire during a Ptolemaic kingdom battle tho. Oops.
Show threadAyespyJul 24, 2023
@analogist I had not been aware that Alexandria was in Florida
Show threadMatthias BürcherJul 24, 2023
@analogist @ramsey A modern example of defunding and destruction is the Cinemateca Brasilieira
Show thread˗ˏˋ★3Ξasyˎˊ˗Jul 27, 2023
It’s a metaphor…
Show threadJuggling With EggsJul 27, 2023

@analogist I don’t remember where I first heard that the Library of Alexandria was lost in a fire, but its something I’ve always just assumed was true. A fire sounds like something that would be impossible to recover from…a good catch all excuse.

But my city lost its library in a serious fire in 1994, it was rebuilt for 2000 and by 2014 it was most used public library in the country 7 years running. Sadly I can’t find any more recent figures, but it’s still very busy.