… we don’t know exactly who founded the Library and we aren’t clear on precisely when. What is clear is that it was quite early in the history of what was to become the great city of Alexandria and that its establishment made the city a centre of learning for centuries to come. What should also be made clear, however, is that it was not actually a “library” that was established at all. The “Great Library” that we refer to was a collection of books associated with a religious shrine – the Musaeum or Mouseion. This institution was, as the name implies, dedicated to the Nine Muses: Clio (history), Urania (astronomy), Calliope (epic poetry and song), Euterpe (lyric song), Polyhymnia (sacred song), Erato (erotic song), Melpomene (tragedy), Thalia (comedy) and Terpsichore (dance). The temple to the Muses had a dedicated priest appointed by the Ptolemaic kings and was the centre of a complex that included an exhedra, or hall, with recesses and seats for lectures and private study. According to the only and rather brief surviving description, given by Strabo in the early first century AD, it also included a communal dining hall with kitchens, a dormitory and other residential apartments, extensive gardens decorated with statues and a shaded walk. What we call the “Great Library” was a collection of books gathered to service the scholars who were housed and worked in the Mouseion and it was stored partially in the complex itself and, later, on other sites including at least three “daughter libraries”. The popular image of the Great Library as an echoing hall lined with shelves of scrolls with desks and tables for scholars is almost certainly inaccurate. That kind of library, which is still the model for many traditionally-styled libraries today, was developed much later by the Romans and the Mouseion would instead have had “a colonnade with a line-up of rooms behind … the rooms would serve for shelving the holdings and the colonnade provide space for the readers.” (Lionel Casson, Libraries of the Ancient World, Yale University Press, 2001, p. 34)
The Mouseion at Alexandria was far from the only shrine to the Muses in the ancient world, nor was it the only one with an associated centre of study. Pythogoras had recommended the establishment of a shrine to the Muses for the promotion of learning on his first arrival on Croton, for example and the Seleucid kings built one at Antioch in the late second century BC, with an attendant centre for study and a library. The fact that the Great Library was actually associated with a religious shrine is something that is ignored or glossed over in many modern accounts. [Carl] Sagan […] mentions about how one of the “daughter libraries” was the Serapeum, which was the temple of Serapis, but he skips around this in a rather gingerly manner. He says the Serapeum was “once a temple, but was later reconsecrated to knowledge”. This is nonsense. The Serapeum was always a temple and was not “reconsecrated” to anything. Libraries were often established as adjuncts to temples but it seems Sagan was attempting to distance the “annex” of the Great Library from the temple in which it sat because this did not quite fit his theme of secular knowledge’s superiority to “mysticism”. Like the Serapeum, the Mouseion was a temple with a research institution and a book collection associated with it.
This aside, the Mouseion really was primarily a research institution and its associated book collection – which we will continue to refer to by the shorthand expression the “Great Library” – was clearly one of if not the most extensive in the ancient world (more on that below). Many famous ancient scholars worked in the Mouseion, including Eratosthenes and probably Ptolemy. But several who are often claimed as working there (or even as being “librarians” of the Great Library, no less) clearly did not. Sagan’s hymn of praise says that Hipparchus studied there, but he seems to have only used some of the books from the collection and there is no evidence he ever even visited from his home on Rhodes. Likewise Sagan says Archimedes worked there, but there is no clear evidence for this and what little we know of Archimedes’ life indicates he spent it in Syracuse. Of the others Sagan mentions, Euclid and Herophilos may have studied there, depending on when the Mouseion was established and Dionysius of Thrace is another maybe, though more likely. On the whole, Sagan’s roll call of great scholars is mainly hyperbole and speculation rather than historical fact. The other figure who is regularly invoked as being associated with the Great Library, and even presented as its “last librarian”, is (again) Hypatia. This is despite the fact that both the Great Library and its daughter library in the Serapeum had ceased to exist by her time.
Tim O’Neill, “The Great Myths 5: The Destruction Of The Great Library Of Alexandria”, History for Atheists, 2017-07-02.
March 1, 2022
QotD: The Great Library of Alexandria
February 27, 2022
The Blitzkrieg is Back – WW2 – 183 – February 26 1943
World War Two
Published 26 Feb 2022Erich von Manstein’s Axis counterattack on the Eastern Front begins this week and right away smashes through the Red Army lines, threatening all the recent Soviet gains. The Allies — the Americans — also suffer a big defeat in Tunisia at the Kasserine Pass, though in the Pacific it is the Americans who occupy the Russell Islands.
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February 21, 2022
D-Day – The Biggest Trick in History – WW2 Special
World War Two
Published 17 Feb 2022It’s 1943, the preparations for D-Day have already begun: deceive the Wehrmacht. Here at TimeGhost, we have begun to prepare our D-Day for 2023, and we want you to join us! Find out how in the pinned comment.
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February 20, 2022
Can the Red Army Capture Hitler? – 182 – February 19, 1943
World War Two
Published 19 Feb 2022The Red Army liberates both Rostov and Kharkov this week, but their advancing spearheads are close to an even bigger prize, Adolf Hitler himself. It is the Axis, however, who are both advancing and consolidating in Tunisia, and gearing up for new offensive actions next week.
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February 7, 2022
Justinian I, 527-565: Wars
Thersites the Historian
Published 21 Sep 2017In this video, I look at the wars of conquest waged by the Emperor Justinian and explore whether or not these conflicts advanced the long-term interests of the Byzantine state.
February 6, 2022
Guadalcanal, A New Offensive – WW2 – 180 – February 5, 1943
World War Two
Published 5 Feb 2022This week sees the 10th anniversary of Hitler’s ascension to power in Germany, but while there may be celebrations and speeches in Germany, the Battle of Stalingrad comes to its end with the surrender of the German 6th Army. The Soviets are on the move all over, launching yet more winter offensives. It is the Axis who are attacking in Tunisia, and in the Solomon Islands … well, the Allies aren’t sure what the Japanese are up to.
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February 4, 2022
The Origins of the SAS – WW2 Special Episode
World War Two
Published 3 Feb 2022“Who dares, wins”. Nowadays the British SAS — Special Air Service — is considered one of the best special forces in the world. Yet its wartime origins are shrouded in mysteries and legends. From the first ideas of top-secret “special raiding squadrons”, to the first raids in North Africa accompanying the Long Range Desert Group, the SAS’s beginnings resemble one big experiment. An experiment from which a truly legendary special service would emerge.
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January 30, 2022
Time to Fire Rommel? – WW2 – 179 – January 29, 1943
World War Two
Published 29 Jan 2022The Allies are unable to win in Tunisia, though further east Bernard Montgomery has achieved his goal of driving the enemy out of Libya. To the west, the Casablanca Conference comes to its end and the Allies write a list of their war priorities. The Soviets, however, are on the move everywhere, closing in on Stalingrad, and launching new operations up and down the eastern front, to the dismay and detriment of the Axis forces.
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QotD: Montgomery on the advance after El Alamein
Suddenly I saw a lorry coming up from behind, and on it a large boat; a naval Petty Officer sat with the driver and some sailors were inside.
I stopped the lorry and said to the Petty Officer: “What are you doing here? Do you realise that you are right up with the most forward elements of the Eighth Army, and you and your boat are leading the advance? This is a very dangerous area just at present, and you are unarmed. You must turn round and go back at once.”
He was dreadfully upset. He had been ordered to open up a “petrol point” at a small cove well to the north of Mersa Brega; small naval craft were to land petrol at this point in order that the leading armoured car regiments could refill their tanks; this was the easiest way of getting petrol and oil to them. He explained this to me, looking at me with pleading eyes rather like a spaniel asking to be taken for a walk to hunt rabbits.
He then said: “Don’t send me back, sir. If the armoured cars don’t get their petrol, they will have to halt and you will lose touch with the Germans. Couldn’t I go on with you? I would then be quite safe.”
That Petty Officer was clearly a student of psychology! In point of fact I did not know about these small petrol points for the armoured cars; it was a staff plan and a very good one. I took the naval party forward with me and saw them safely to their cove, where I was their first customer for petrol. I have often thought of that Petty Officer; he was from the Merchant Navy and in the R.N.V.R.; his sense of duty was of the highest order, and Britain will never lose her wars so long as the Royal Navy can count on men like him.
Bernard L. Montgomery, The Memoirs of Field-Marshal Montgomery, 1958.
January 27, 2022
Carthage: The Empire of Melqart
Thersites the Historian
Published 11 Nov 2021In this lecture, we look at why it is so hard to find Punic material remains and where one can search for what little there is left to find.
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January 16, 2022
Food for Leningrad, Breaking the Siege! – WW2 – 177- January 15th, 1943
World War Two
Published 15 Jan 2022Soviet attacks are launched this week to destroy the Hungarians, all while the German desperation at Stalingrad and Velikie Luki continues, but in the far north the Soviets have broken through the siege of Leningrad after 16 months. And the Casablanca Conference begins, a meeting to guide the war’s future progress.
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January 12, 2022
“You feel instantly at home when you arrive in Kenya because Kenya was once everyone’s home!”
When I was in middle school, my favourite teacher was a huge fan of the Leakey family’s discoveries in central Africa, and took every opportunity to show us films on the latest hominid remains uncovered (and by “latest”, it usually meant several years old, as 16mm films distributed through the county school system were rarely all that “new”). I assume she was a frustrated anthropologist herself, honestly, although I found her to be a very good teacher even if she’d “settled” for teaching as a career. In The Iconoclast, Geoffrey Clarfield remembers the late Richard Leakey, “the last Victorian scientist”, who died earlier this month in Kenya:
Richard Leakey at the WTTC Global Summit 2015.
Detail of original photo by the World Travel & Tourism Council via Wikimedia Commons.
Kenyan paleoanthropologist Richard Leakey died on January 2nd at age 77, following an extraordinary career devoted to the scientific exploration of human origins. Richard was once my boss. And although we never became friends, I came to know him fairly well.
He died peacefully in his house overlooking Kenya’s Great Rift Valley, where he’d made his most notable discoveries, and which occupied his imagination from an early age until his final days. It was fitting that he was buried beside his home, amid the same terrain from which he’d dug up humanity’s long-buried early ancestors. As I once heard him say to a group of visitors, “You feel instantly at home when you arrive in Kenya because Kenya was once everyone’s home!” (Essayists are supposed to shun exclamation marks, but this was simply the way the man spoke.)
To an outsider, Richard’s work history may appear to comprise a series of disconnected, sometimes testosterone-driven adventures. By turns, he was a wildlife trapper and animal trader, safari guide, bush pilot, gifted (albeit informally trained) fossil hunter, archaeological excavator, scientific autodidact, museum and civil-service administrator, member of parliament, opposition leader, cabinet minister, conservation activist, Kenyan patriot, fundraiser, public speaker, and prolific writer. The public knew him best as a television and film presenter. But those who knew him privately will also remember him as an enthusiastic team leader and mentor of young talent.
In my case, he helped advance my own project to train young Kenyan researchers to record and document traditional music in the northern part of their country, the Turkana District in particular. When I’d raised funds for this initiative, he brought it under the auspices of the National Museums of Kenya (NMK), of which he was then director.
While he may have seemed like something of an (enormously) overachieving dilettante to some, there was in fact a unity to his life and work. The times being what they are, many will focus on the fact that he was a white man taking a prominent role in a largely black country. But in truth, he likely attracted more scrutiny for being a fervent admirer of Charles Darwin, and a secular atheist, in a religious part of the world. He once published his own edited and illustrated version of Origin of Species, which I read when I was working for him, and his contributions to that volume gave me insight into what I believe was his fundamentally edifying professional motivation. I still have it on my shelf.
Richard emphasized that humankind had evolved in the Great Rift Valley, and from there had spread “out of Africa”, as the saying goes. He also believed that a previously underestimated factor in human evolution had been our species’ relationship to evolving biodiversity and prehistoric climate fluctuation — “paleoenvironments” as they came to be called.
January 7, 2022
Desert War – Dysentery, Disease, and Dehydration – WW2 Special
World War Two
Published 6 Jan 2022North Africa. The Axis and Allies are fighting each other but even more, they’re fighting the desert itself. The men of the desert burn during the day and freeze at night. They do most of their fighting on a litre of water and a packet of army biscuits. What is life in such a hostile environment?
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December 20, 2021
Foreshadowing WW1 – Italo-Turkish War 1911-1912 I THE GREAT WAR
The Great War
Published 17 Dec 2021Sign up for Audible and get 60% off your first three months: https://audible.com/greatwar or text
greatwarto 500-500The Italo-Turkish War 1911 was one of the last classic imperial wars over colonial processions between two great powers. But it was in many ways also a first glimpse into what would come during the First World War: trenches, artillery, combat aircraft, motorboat attacks. This war in Ottoman Libya was fought between the Italian Army and Ottoman-led local Senussi forces.
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John Ozment, James Darcangelo, Jacob Carter Landt, Thomas Brendan, Kurt Gillies, Scott Deederly, John Belland, Adam Smith, Taylor Allen, Rustem Sharipov, Christoph Wolf, Simen Røste, Marcus Bondura, Ramon Rijkhoek, Theodore Patrick Shannon, Philip Schoffman, Avi Woolf,» SOURCES
Askew, William C., Europe and Italy’s Acquisition of Libya, 1911-1912, (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1942)Caccamo, Francesco, “Italy, Libya and the Balkans” in Geppert, Dominik; Mulligan, William & Rose, Andreas (eds.), The Wars before the Great War: Conflict and International Politics Before the Outbreak of the First World War, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016)
Childs, Timothy W, Italo-Turkish Diplomacy and the War Over Libya, 1911–1912, (Leiden: Brill, 1990)
Griffin, Ernest H., Adventures in Tripoli: A Doctor in the Desert (London: Philip Allen & Co., 1924)
Hindmarsh. Albert E. & Wilson, George Grafton, “War Declared and the Use of Force”, Proceedings of the American Society of International Law at Its Annual Meeting (1921-1969) Vol. 32 (1938)
McCollum Jonathan, “Reimagining Mediterranean Spaces: Libya and the Italo-Turkish War, 1911-1912”, in Mediterraneo cosmopolita, 23 (3) 2015.
McMeekin, Sean, The Ottoman Endgame (Penguin, 2013).
Paris, Michael, “The First Air Wars – North Africa and the Balkans, 1911-13”, Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 26, No. 1 (1991)
Stephenson, Charles, A Box of Sand: the Italo-Ottoman War 1911-1912: the First Land, Sea and Air War, (Ticehurst: Tattered Flag Press, 2014)
Tittoni, Renato, The Italo-Turkish War (1911-12). Translated and Compiled from the Reports of the Italian General Staff, (Kansas City, MO: Frank Hudson Publishing Company, 1914)
Uyar, Mesut, The Ottoman Army and the First World War, (Abingdon: Routledge, 2021)
Vandervort, Bruce, Wars of Imperial Conquest in Africa 1830-1914, (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1998)
Wilcox, Vanda, Italy in the Era of the Great War, (Leiden: Brill, 2018)
Wilcox, Vanda, “The Italian Soldiers’ experience in Libya, 1911-12” in Geppert, Dominik; Mulligan, William & Rose, Andreas (eds.), The Wars before the Great War: Conflict and International Politics Before the Outbreak of the First World War, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016)
»CREDITS
Presented by: Jesse Alexander
Written by: Mark Newton, Jesse Alexander
Director: Toni Steller & Florian Wittig
Director of Photography: Toni Steller
Sound: Toni Steller
Editing: Jose Gamez
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Research by: Mark Newton
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December 19, 2021
Guadalcanal Life Expectancy: 30 Days- WW2 – 173 – December 18, 1942
World War Two
Published 18 Dec 2021Just a few weeks ago massive offensives were launched in North Africa and the Soviet Union, against the Axis. These operations and offensives have now morphed into fully fledged campaigns, and the nature of these theatres of the war has been transformed.
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