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Library at Alexandria Discovered?
dustmote writes "According to the BBC, a Polish-Egyptian team believes they may have discovered the Library at Alexandria, including ancient lecture halls or auditoria, in the Bruchion region of the city. It's said by some that the burning of the library set civilization back as much as a thousand years."
Good thing it set us back 1000 years, otherwise SCO might actually have a case when it comes to "owning unix"
Proudly pulling random things into context. . .
It's kind of embarrasingly, really. They knew which building it was in for ages, but it took them years to figure out they just had to smash through the big Roman numeral 10 on the floor.
"Derp de derp."
Hey, someone had to ruin the joke.
Imagine where our societies would be if it was still around...
I wonder if these same people could come up with a list of things that we could burn that would actually set us ahead.
30% Troll, 50% Underrated, 10% Interesting
Score:5, Troll
auditoria
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
It's said by some that the burning of the library set civilization back as much as a thousand years.
Which just goes to show the importance of doing your back-ups!
1. 2.
Carl Sagan did some work on the
ancient Library of Alexandria, the Mouseion, for his TV series Cosmos.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Afterwards, PHB got a raise for keeping it "reasonably" under budget. Imagine the loss if both copies were destroyed!!!
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
If we hadn't lost that thousand years of Civilization, just think of where Moore's law would have taken processor speeds by now!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
I thought it was destroyed by Omar (Caliph of Baghdad) in 640-someting AD. Julius Caesar would've taken his shot way earlier (47BC) and then by anoher Christian dude.. But if it was destroyed by Omar in 640s it means it was still around to destroy.
;)
Maybe I'm wrong? Or maybe it's politically correct to blame it on the romans.
In fact Poland is most loyal US ally in Iraq (which is nothing to be especially proud of)
This Is Not a Sig
It's not as if the Romans were on some strange bookburning spree. The library was accidental damage from the attack on the city--given the chance, Caeser would have picked up all the goodies as additional loot.
At last! They have found it! I have a few overdue books at the place I've been meaning to return. Not looking forward to the fine, though.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
There was a great library at Pergamum. It was a competitor to Alexandria, and may have had around 200,000 volumes. Supposedly, the contents of the library at Pergamum were given as a gift to Cleopatra by Mark Antony. I'm not sure where this was chronologically with respect to the destruction of the library at Alexandria.
Then, even before, there was King Assurbanipal of Assyria, who in 650 BC created a great library. He had copies made of thousands of years worth of Sumerian tablets. In fact, it's unlikely we'd have even a tiny fraction of the surviving Sumerian information if he hadn't done that. His library had 22,000 volumes (clay tablets). I don't know what number of those are still extant and intact.
That's why I back up all my CDROMs onto clay tablets. As the marketroids tell me, it's a robust archival medium for assuring SOHO data persistence!
Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachtani?
www.fogbound.net
A substantial body of opinion dates the major destruction of the Alexandrian library/museum to the late 4th century AD, i.e. a time when Christians were in charge and very concerned to discourage pagan things, which included the learning of the ancients ........
...
It is also worth remembering that much of what did survive out of the destruction of classical learning was eventually preserved and re-transmitted to a deeply ignorant and religiously hidebound Europe several hundred years later through the hands of the relatively liberal and learned muslim arabs
-wb-
"The only book we need is the Koran, burn the rest!" Except for one thing, the evidence that the library of Alexandria was burned down my Muslims is slender and in fact Muslims preserved the literature of the ancient world that early Christians had lost or even tried to suppress.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
"Great illustrated classics" Burn them all. They got the names of great classics, but they are simplified versions that ruin the whole point. Read the real book, or sit in your cave ignorant, either one is better than something from that series. I'm glad I had already read real versions before I started adding them to my library (hey they are cheap, and I didn't have them...) or I might not have recognized it.
"evidence that the library of Alexandria was burned down my Muslims is slender and in fact Muslims preserved the literature of the ancient world"
Especially true given that islam didn't exist when the library is thought to have been destroyed!
Dialectician. Archology.
and among them we have the burning of the library of Alexandria by the Muslim invaders.
Erm, Muhammad was born in 570 AD. For it to have happened as you claim, he would have had to have gone back in time to before the birth of Christ, founded a new religion, and then compelled his new followers to burn down the library. Occam's razor suggest instead that you're talking out of your arse.
While we're on this note, let's not forget the contributions made to Mathematics and Science, over the centuries, by countless Muslims. To name but one: Al Khwarizmi, from whose name we get the word 'algorithm', and from whose work on mathematics (Hisab al-jabr wa al-muqabala) we get the word 'algebra'. Tell me, AC, what have you contributed?
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
A quick google found the library in Alexandria
Douglas County Public Library
720 Fillmore St
Alexandria, MN 56308
(320) 762-3014
Thats about 50 miles from where I live.
We'll be able to get any technology discovered by other civilizations now.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
Why isn't this on the front page? This is by far a lot more important than much of the dribble that gets posted to the front page, and yet it's relegated to just the Science section.
// file: mice.h
#include "frickin_lasers.h"
The legend of the destruction of the library by
Muslims blames invaders in the 7th century.
There's no doubt there was such an invasion.
What's very doubtful is whether they destroyed the
library.
As for contributions to Mathematics and Science
by "countless Muslims," I think that's a bit of
an exaggeration. It's fashionable in some circles
to exalt this or that civilization at the
expense of the Europeans. The Muslims deserve
some credit, but I wouldn't go overboard.
The Muslims were tolerant in some places, but
destroyed intellectual communities in others.
The majority of scholars in the Muslim empires
were actually non-Muslims. They were tolerated,
but many were not happy.
As for Al Khwarizmi, his most lasting
contribution to mathematics is surely the two
words you cite. He treated some quadratic
equations, but the basic quadratic equation
was already known to the Babylonians thousands
of years earlier. He could not solve the
cubic. The Italians were the first to solve
cubic and fourth degree equations.
The Greeks, building on contributions of
Babylonians and Egyptians, made phenomenal
contributions of mathematics. The Europeans
began to make progress again in mathematics in
the second millenium. Over the past 1000 years,
they've contributed many times over to science and
mathematics the contributions of the entire rest
of the world. The Europeans have outrun, by a
very wide distance, the rest of the world in
almost every aspect of civilization.
Of all of the modern and current libraries that are around, the Vatican Library (yes, the Pope's own book stack) is probabally the most comprehensive collection of medeval and ancient texts that is in existance. For more technical volumes there are other places that are more extensive, but if you are trying to study history or philosophy, this is the place to go.
To suggest that Christians deliberately burn books simply to hide knowledge is totally wrong. That from time to time bullheaded idiots sometimes get control of ecclesiastical authority and abuse that same political and spiritual power to evil ends is not disputed. This happens in most religions (including atheism) or even political movements. (This is in response to the grandpartent article. I agree with you dasunt.)
The problem that happened at Alexandria, and what caused the "Dark Ages" was a total breakdown of the political & social framework of Europe due to the collapse of the Roman Empire. It didn't burn down earlier simply because the Roman Legions would have massacred anybody that tried to challenge Roman authority. By 400 A.D. the Roman government had all but stopped existing in any form, and the citizens of Rome itself were fighting off invaders into the city itself from the Vandals, Goths, and other germanic tribes that routinely sacked Rome for what was left of wealth from being an imperial capital. This was almost like the "Mad Max" movies by Mel Gibson in terms of a total lack of control by governments, except in silly irrelavent symbolism that doesn't keep my neighbor from raping my wife and killing my kids.
"a Polish Egyptian team believes they may have discovered the Library at Alexandria..." wherein they were promptly shushed by the librarian and fined millions in late fees.
Maybe I am too eager, but does anyone know what conference this was presented at and/or if the archeological team has a webpage? I see that Zahi Hawass has a webpage, but, being a "president of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities", he may not be the actual researcher behind the finding.
Reality or nothing.
Except for a few volumes on geometry, the library likely contained masses of CRAP about gods, goddesses, thaumaturgy, alchemy, inaccurate histories, &c.
You're missing the point. The people who regret the burning argue that all that nonsense being burned just meant that people had to waste hundreds of years thinking it up and writing it all down again again before they could move on to more scientific matters: if the library hadn't been burned, people would have got on with "important" things much sooner.
Actually, one of the popular theories was that the library was burned down by Caliph Omar around 640AD. The modern verdict is that this is probably just Christian propaganda. See here for more info.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
I haven't done any serious research but that much i can point out:
Having said that i guess it's a pretty realistic hypothesis that library of Alexandria could have been burnt by christians (burning pre-christian pagan writings must have been a natural idea for them).
The problem that happened at Alexandria, and what caused the "Dark Ages" was a total breakdown of the political & social framework of Europe due to the collapse of the Roman Empire.Yes. But it's church that prolonged the agony. The dismissal of the church bullshit and replacment of it with a secular knowledge [re]imported from the Arab wold is the definition of the Renaissance, isn't it?
Well, it is my home town. I was born and raised there many moons ago.
Anyway, to give some perspective and background:
Egypt is floating on archeology, literally. It is very common to find amphorae and stuff when digging foundations for buildings.
Oh, and by the way, here are some pictures from the city today, focusing on the electric tramways, two types, narrow carriage for downtown, and a wider one for the eastern parts.
I miss it!
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning.
The Ptolemic Pharaoh stopped the export of parpyrus for a period to try to gain the upper hand. This embargo resulted in pergamom (Origin of word paper)being used as substitute. Pergamom could not easely be concateneted into long roll like Papyrus so they used leafs and later started to bind them into fore-runner of a book.
Help fight continental drift.
Among the burned ruins, they will have found a list of these books.
1. Building Pyramids for Dummies
2. Finding lost ruins.
3. How to burn a library. (currently checked out)
Life is not for the lazy.
I absolutely agree that being a US ally isn't something to be proud of.
/aren't really human/ so there's no human rights violatin' going on!)
Why? Who is a good nation to be an ally of? France? Oops... looks like they're involved in their latest little genocide matter in Africa. Hey, what's a few million dead anyway when they're black or jew as long as a Frenchman is making a buck?
Germany? My friends in Germany worry me with their desire to blame the Holocaust on the Jews. These are some deep rooted issues that are beginning to crop up again. This has long been a popular middle eastern view, but now it's taking a mainstream role in Germany (the code phrase is "we've dealt with this guilt long enough" which is the dominant attitude in German generations under 50 years of age). Is this what Hitler meant by a 1,000 year Reich?
China? The same government takes first place for total tens of millions exterminated in the 20th century. Oh, they now let you shop for consumer goods before they exterminate your family for religious or political beliefs. Unless you're Tibetian, and then you just get to die.
So who's the great nation? Lichtenstein? Switzerland? Hans Blix's Sweden? Appeasing and abstaining from taking a part in countering evil is not an ingredient in greatness (nobody ever nominated the "Hear No Evil, See No Evil" monkeys for a leadership post outside of the UN!). Canada comes up at the top of this unfortunate list.
Ah... the Sudan! Yes, nominated to the UN human rights council. Must be a great nation recognizing individual liberty and all (oh sure, as long as your Muslim - those other people
Marillion, here's a suggest that'll make your life much more enjoyable (not to mention the life of those that have to put up with you). How about PROposing rather than OPposing? Quit bitching about those you're envious of and either decide to outdo them in good works, or accept that you're a parasite and deal with the consequence.
Per former eastern Europe allies of the US, they deserve our greatest respect. Nations like Latvia fought and died for freedom throughout the 20th century, only to be oppressed repeatedly. No wonder they can tell right from wrong, while a western will surrender his life and liberty at the slightest threat.
From the Arabs, the West also got numerals,
including the very important concept of
zero. Where would modern mathematics be
without these things?
This happens in most religions (including atheism)..
Atheism is the rejection of supernaturalism.
Name one religion that does not rely on a supernatural mechanism for its existance.
If atheism is a religion, then an abiotic environment has all kinds of biotic critters running about.
Atheism is a philosophy, not a theology.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
LOL - only on /. can a person get moderated down for blocking certain domains.
:)
Mods, put down the crack pipe