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From: mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor)
Newsgroups: net.religion,net.flame
Subject: Re: Destruction of the Alexandrian Library
Message-ID: <879@dciem.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 20-Apr-84 12:56:32 EST
Article-I.D.: dciem.879
Posted: Fri Apr 20 12:56:32 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 20-Apr-84 15:16:20 EST
References: <7611@cornell.UUCP>
Organization: D.C.I.E.M., Toronto, Canada
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Ralph Johnson says that the great library of Alexandria was destroyed
book by book, by a Moslem Caliph.  The Encyclopaedia Britannica says
otherwise. According to the encyclopaedia, the bibliography of the
library was preserved until Byzantine times (doesn't say how it was
destroyed). As for the library itself:

"It may have been damaged when Caesar besieged Alexandria in 47 BC but
it was not destroyed then as some early legends relate.  The end of the
main library came in the civil war that occurred under Aurelian in
the late 3rd century; the "daughter library" was destroyed by the
Christians, AD 391."

Perhaps Johnson was referring to the bibliography. But the library
(at least what remained, which was a substantial segment of the original)
was destroyed as a matter of policy (much like the notions Johnson
attributes to the Caliph) by the Christians.) As a matter of interest
Carl Sagan made a dramatic point of this, depicting the great female
mathematician and philosopher who was looking after the library (whose
name I have forgotten) as being torn limb from limb by the Christian
mob because of her heresy -- seeking knowledge.
-- 

Martin Taylor
{allegra,linus,ihnp4,uw-beaver,floyd,ubc-vision}!utzoo!dciem!mmt