If you’re any kind of a history buff–or if you’ve watched Carl Sagan’s Cosmos–you know about the famed Library of Alexandria, the most famous center of learning in the ancient world.
The site of the library has been lost for going on two millennia, but–turns out–it’s been found!
At least so says Dr. Zahi Hawass, curator of the Giza Plateau in Egypt, and a team of archaeologists from Poland.
Dr. Hawass is kind of a character. I’ve been following his career for a number of years, and the man seems to consider himself a kind of modern, Egyptian Indiana Jones. His antics when giving interviews can be a real hoot, but he’s not a flake when it comes to archaeology.
In fact, it is his job to reign in the nuttiness of a lot of what passes as Egyptology in certain circles. You know, they people they patterened the early, goofus version of Dr. Daniel Jackson off of. (*Cough*Robert Bauval . . . *Cough*Graham Hancock . . . ).
In other words: If Hawass says they’ve found the Library of Alexandria, they probably have.
Wicked awesome!
Hopefully, they’ll be able to find out the answers to some of the mysteries connected with the library, like how it was finally destroyed. There is considerable confusion on this point. The story linked above notes that it may have been destroyed by Julius Caesar, that’s far from certain, and there is evidence that the library survived after Caesar’s time (though it may have been rebuilt after he burned Alexandria)–see the wikipedia link, above.
What would be even cooler would be if they found a few of the works the library had in its possession but which have been lost to subsequent history.
I’d just hate to be the person who has to pay the library fine on those!
“I’d just hate to be the person who has to pay the library fine on those!”
LOL! I used to listen to Dr. Hawass on Art Bell all the time, great guy!
Wasn’t the library of Alexandria destroyed a few times and then rebuilt…?
I’m not a history major.
I actually do a very good Zahi Hawass impression, based on having studied colloquial Egyptian Arabic and, more importantly, his utter ubiquity in Egyptological documentaries (just saw an IMAX movie, and sure enough, he does a walk-on at an excavation). I joke about the guy, but he’s really a pretty serious scholar, even though I suspect he probably owes some of his prominence to his ability to navigate within Egyptian bureaucratic politics. Would be awfully neat if they found the Library.
Just the architectural find they describe in that BBC piece is going to be unbelievable. Easily the biggest thing since KV-5, and who knows what more they’ll find. If they were actually to find any texts, man, could be Tut-sized revelations. Alas, I don’t know if the world will be riveted like in 1922.
“I see wonderful things.” —Howard Carter
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