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May 17, 2004
Archeologists Locate Library of Alexandria
Archaeologists have announced that they have discovered the site of the Library of Alexandria.
A Polish-Egyptian team has uncovered what look like lecture halls in the Bruchion region of the city. The 13 lecture halls uncovered could potentially house 5,000 scholars. A conspicuous feature of each of the rooms is an elevated podium, where it is presumed the lecturers stood.
Two thousand years ago, the Library of Alexandria housed works by the some of the greatest philosophers of that era, including works by Plato and Socrates. Also reputed to be the world's oldest university, the Library of Alexamdria was destroyed by fire, possibly by Julius Caesar as part of a campaign of conquest.
At the Library, Archimedes invented the screw-shaped water pump still in use today; Eratosthenes measured the diameter of the Earth; Euclid expounded on the rules of geometry; and Ptolemy wrote the Almagest, the most influential treatise on the nature of the Universe for the next millennium.
Alexandria started life as tiny fishing village when Alexander the Great chose it to be the site of his empire's capital. As its influence grew, the city built two of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, including the Lighthouse at Pharos, and the Library of Alexandria.