James WuJul 22, 2023

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

Show threadyour auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦Jul 22, 2023
@analogist have you heard about the theory that most of it is in Timbuktu?
Show threadJames Wu
@blogdiva well, TIL this hypothesis! I remember that fire a few years back
Jul 22, 2023 at 11:53pmWeb
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 😏