The boring truth about the Library of Alexandria
Modern writers make different claims about who destroyed the Library of Alexandria. Some blame Julius Caesar while others blame a Christian mob or the invading Arabs. But who is really responsible for the Library's demise?
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The image used in the thumbnail and chapter titles is "Incendie Alexandrie" by Hermann Goll, 1876 (commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...)
0:00 Introduction
1:56 Two libraries
3:49 The Museum
4:25 Peaked in the 200s BC
5:15 Decline
8:55 Papyrus
10:36 Julius Caesar
16:05 The Serapeum
20:46 Muslims
21:08 Three points
FOOTNOTES
[1] For a reality check on what we do and don't know about the Library of Alexandria, see Roger S. Bagnall, “Alexandria: Library of Dreams,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 146, no. 4 (December 2002), 348-62. On the methods of acquiring books, see also S. Johnstone, “A New History of Libraries and Books in the Hellenistic Period,” Classical Antiquity 33, no. 2 (October 2014), 364-65.
[2] Bagnall, “Alexandria: Library of Dreams,” 351-56; Diana Delia, “From Romance to Rhetoric: The Alexandrian Library in Classical and Islamic Traditions,” American Historical Review 97, no. 5 (December 1992), 1458-59.
[3] The location of the Museum is not known for certain, other than that it was part of the palace complex and close to the harbor: P. M. Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria, 3 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), 1:15; Delia, “From Romance to Rhetoric,” 1450. On ancient museums as temples to the Muses: Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria, 1:312-13.
[4] Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria, 1:315.
[5] Johnstone, “A New History of Libraries.”
[6] Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria, 1:318-19, 333-35.
[7] Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria, 1:86.
[8] Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria, 1:85.
[9] Bagnall, “Alexandria: Library of Dreams,” 358-59.
[10] The view that Caesar's fire did not affect the Museum Library is based in part on the phrase “storerooms of books” in Cassius Dio (42.38). However, see Hendrickson's comments in “The Serapeum: Dreams of the Daughter Library,” Classical Philology 111, no. 4 (2016), 460-61.
[11] Plutarch, Caesar 49.3; Gellius, Attic Nights 7.17.3.
[12] Strabo describes the Museum at 17.1.8.
[13] Lionel Casson, Libraries in the Ancient World (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2001), 47; Bagnall, “Alexandria: Library of Dreams,” 357-58; Hendrickson, “The Serapeum,” 461.
[14] For an introduction to the Serapeum, see Hendrickson, “The Serapeum.”
[15] Orosius says the book chests were emptied but doesn't say what happened to the books (Histories against the Pagans 6.15.32).
It was me. Sorry 😔
It happens.
It’s alright man, just don’t do it again.
Someone left the humidifier on too long…
Make an apology video. Add some burning books for flavour.
There were scrolls with some of my favorite fanfics in there. Not gonna lie, kind of a dick move.
This video format is so refreshing. No unnecessary, overly-dramatic music, just straight facts
Not facts. Literally just his opinion
@@mattk8810those are certainly not opinions. He is stating and discussing facts.
Just the fact he adheres to the BC/AD convention is refreshing.
@@mattk8810where facts are known, he states accordingly. Where there is conjecture, he discusses openly, and with reasoned analysis. This is how it's supposed to be done, and stands in sharp contrast to the deluge of propagandistic revisionism the culture currently wallows in.
@@ironymatt I can't understand why anyone feels strongly about BC/AD or BCE/CE at all.
Don't fall for the title folks, the title is totally fake. There's really nothing boring about this video. It's superbly presented, well articulated and informative all the way through.
I would say that the title is very good because it goes against the common narrative that laypeople often hear of the fabled library and its destruction. The contrast is maybe even more attention grabbing for the target audience than "YOU WON'T BELIEVE THE INCREDIBLE FACTS OF HOW THE GREAT LIBRARY OF ALEXANDRIA WAS KILLED". It definitely was for me. I love titles and thumbnails that both work to grab my attention in the information saturated YT feed but also are fully honest and accurate. It is an art form to destil the essence of a video down to a few words and a picture. In computer science and programming, it's said that naming things is one of the three hardest things as well, so it is a very cross disciplinary art.
Reverse click bait, for shame
Wow I just imagined so many ways that free speech could die!
How is that related?@@uncertaintytoworldpeace3650
@@Kenionatusthe naming schemes in programming and computer science are undoubtedly the absolute worst in existence... genuinely a crime against language
I’m so tired of the clickbait. This wasn’t even boring.
😂😂😂
Boring history is good history. People tend to remember history in highlight reels but most of the actual history is just like the time we experience daily, continuous, detailed, nuanced and contains a lot of small causalities.
Casualties kinda a sus word man. It means death and destruction but Comes from the word casual which means ‘relaxed and unconcerned.’ Also British shoes apparently?
Wait we Americans wear shoes too. I hate that damn British nonsense
So what? It’s pointless to remember shit that happens all of the time. Literally it is a waste of brain power. You remember the turning points and changes because those are important pieces of information.
People today tend to put on a way more emotional lens when thinking of ancient times, even when it’s totally misplaced. That is probably the fault of Hollywood overdramatizing all of history Like I can call it right now that they will totally misrepresent Napoleon in that new Ridley Scott movie because movies just have to be sensationalistic today, and also aim to be as mainstream as possible to maximize ticket sales. It will be physically impossible for them to make that movie without applying some "good vs evil" angle on it
@@Icetea-2000 If they were making an honest depiction, it would still be impossible to not apply “good vs evil” simply from the perspective of the character roster. He is Napoleon, after all.
A personal theory of mine is that all these ancient scholars kept reading about how awesome this library in Alexandria was, but were incredibly disappointed when they actually went to see it. Then there was some bitter old person at the library who said stuff like "kids these days can't appreciate a good book. Back in my day this library was great! Any female born after 193 can't cook..." and the scholars just believed them in order to save face.
"Any female born after 193 can't cook..." lol why did ur thought process go there XD?
@@flamingmanureAfter the emperor's wife was poisoned in 192 by his concubine during the annual feast, the emperor made reading cookbooks by women punishable by death. Many women died that year, and even more people died of starvation. Even after all of these events though, your mom was still fat.
@@flamingmanureit’s a ai voice meme. Just search “Bernie sanders any female born after 1993”
I actually laughed out loud- nicely said! 🤣 Also probably exactly right!
Like the Paris syndrome many foreign tourists experience when they're disappointed by what they find in Paris..
People should value more these kinds of videos edited for people with competent attention span, fluff-less, and where narrator doesn`t take 20 minutes to get to the point. This is actual content worth watching
That might be a little unfair to say. Different presentations appeal differently to different neurotypes. I can digest "monotropic" content very easily because I'm an autist, for example, but something more frenetic might be necessary to retain focus for someone more neurotypical, and something very frenetic might (I think?) be more digestible to someone with ADD or ADHD. (Though I do like having little title cards to help refresh focus every now and then. Its like having paragraph breaks, but auditory instead of visual.) Obviously its a problem that youtube's algorithm tends to reward frenetic videos, that hedges people like you and me out a bit. So I can understand the frustration.
Yes, it's so refreshing to not have MTV effects.
"What really happened to the Library of Alexandria. Something something something first, then something something something next, because something something something the reason (WOOOOWWW). What do you guys think of..." repeat from the top ad nauseam
@@peppermintgal4302i have to applaud your display of vocabulary, i had to google frenetic to figure out it basically means energetic 😂
@@peppermintgal4302They should make a version of this video with a “swoosh” sound effect every 2-3 when there’s a graphical overlay animated onto the screen, with an obnoxious loop of music playing throughout to muddy up the voice - and WAY more shouting.
It's so weird to me to see a video without an intro that I assumed the guy talking at the start was some other historian being quoted beforw the REAL video starts. It's very refreshing. You've earned a sub from me.
Points from the video • The Library of Alexandria was 1 of 2 Libraries 📕📗 • The Library 2 was A Library at The Museum of Alexandria nearby.📗 4:43 Modern articles name people who lived in the Early Ptolemaic period. • Zenodotus, Callimachus, Apollonius, Eratosthenes, Aristophanes, 4th Century BC 300 BC - 200 BC 3rd Century BC 200 - 100 BC • Aristarchus lived into 150 BC approximately 5:15 Decline - Extremely little records of the library itself - limited information 6:00 Egypt was prosperous in the 3rd century under Ptolemy II and Ptolemy III 7:40 The Legendary Library was not the only library in existence 8:13 Library of Pergamum, Asia Minor, existed and some Greek talents went there. 9:00 Papyrus documents were found in a dry condition, but Alexandria Greece is a humid place. 10:42 Julius Ceasar set fire to the land, and that fire 🔥 may have burnt some of the Library of Alexandria’s Books. 📕 11:21 Plutarch and Gellius both say Julius Ceaser burned down the entire Library of Alexandria📕 12:22 They saw the Library of Alexandria as a declined Library as something of the past. 13:38 Strabo notes that Alexandria’s Library was large in the 4th Century. 15:00 The Library was in decline before Julius Ceaser came along and set fire 🔥 to it. 16:06 Serapeum Library had the largest library in the city, but it was not The Legendary Library of Alexandria. 19:18 Serapeum Temple Structure. Maybe the Christians sacked this Serapeum Library. 20:50 Musli 21:07 1. The Library’s ending did not cause a dark age 2. 1 library destroyed does not cause the catalysmic loss in hunan inowledge 3. Complex Causes, this has several different factors
Alexandria, Egypt*
I love you mate, you're always helpful!
Lol it's a 20 min video what's the point of highlights? Why don't you do this for The Little Platoon or History Time (multi-hour uploaders) lol
So the library did exist, did have lots of information stored in it, and was burned down. Yet people go around saying "you know its a myth right?"
@@pyramidion5911The myth is that all of the world’s knowledge was stored in a single library in Alexandria and humanity was set back 1,000 years or whatever because this single library burned down.
Pretty much every "This one specific thing happened that changed the course of history!" claims are never as dramatic and usually was just a gradual decline or regular change of whatever that thing is that got romanticized through history.
Godwins law makes me write "but Hitler"...
Titanic did kill alot of important people though
I dont know man. Being dismissive of the past seems kind of ignorant in itself. Some things do change history and to think everything would play out the same no matter what happens is assuming a lot.
Big Bang.
@@ninab.4540I have been involved that safety was thought of during the titanic's construction. And it looks like I worded my comment weird. I meant to see "plans in case the titanic did start sinking". Old comment: And the reasons why it did kill a lot of people is because of the lacking safety requirements in case the ship did sink. The titanic is more a spark than the cause of safety reforms. They were needed for a very long time. And now, this "unsinkable" ship has sunk and because they didn't think it could ever sink they didn't have enough lifeboats for everyone.
This was excellent. My next question would be…when did the ‘story’ of the library of Alexandria become fictionalized and popularized?
I don't know specifically when the "story" came to be, but the way I usually hear about it is when radical atheists are trying to belittle Christians in discussion by claiming that Christianity and/or religion in general "hold science back" like how they "burned the wealth of Human knowledge in Alexandria". My bet is the "Alexandria library burning story" became fictionalized and popularized from the modern religious vs nonreligious debates.
For me, it was Cosmos (1980), a brilliant 13-part PBS television show hosted by Carl Sagan. He emphasised that it's destruction ended an enlightened era of civilization, that had it survived into the 20th Century we would now have space ships returning from the nearest planets.
it just human nature to fantasize especially among the uneducated citizen
Carl Sagan really like spreading pseudoscience huh
@@backalleycqc4790 I remember that show. Loved it. I was thinking farther back in time though. For instance, the reenactment of the crucifixion of Jesus or the ‘Passion’ started around the 12th Century AD and stirred up a lot of anti semitism during these re-enactments. People can create whatever narrative they want around an event. So with something like the Library, I wonder if the story was written and created by the winners…whoever that was.
Museum. MUSE-um. I feel stupid for staring at this word all this time. It makes sense now. It was where you went to obtain instruction on the worship of your deity, there being no line between spirituality and science in this time. Fantastic channel. Keep up the excellent work.
Also the word "music" comes from the Muse's the nine daughters of Zeus protectors of art and sciences
The main problem with the theory that there were tens of thousands of books in Alexandria is that these figures are often given in scrolls _Volumina_ and tablets _Tabulae._ However, our modern minds tend to equate a single scroll with a single book _Codex,_ which couldn't be farther from the truth. An individual codex can hold the contents of many, many, scrolls. Caesar's Bella Gallica, or the entirety of Plato, or even the Bible could fit into a single codex, while many dozens of scrolls would barely be enough to house the same amount. Some of the biggest medieval codexes could hold the entire Bible, famous commentaries, pertaining philosophical works, zodiacs, calendars, and lengthy hagiographies. All of which would have easily taken the space of a single scroll shelf in a 1st century library, as opposed to a single 13th century book. As such, even if we were to take these numbers seriously, the actual quantity of literature these scrolls represent (and the loss of knowledge their neglect/destruction supposedly brought) is dramatically less than what we are often led to believe, or, at the very least, way more comparable to the litterary production of subsequent eras such as the XIth to XIVth century period (which we are often led to think were less litteraly prolific, because of such confusions and the general culturo-historical bias that led the glorious works of antiquity to be better preserved and passed along by the so-called "humanists" and "enlightened", than the lowly and superstitious scribbles of the brutish medievals, whose work was ironically the only reason those same humanists, who coined the "Dark Ages", were able to marvel at Cicero, Vitrivius, Caesar and such). Furthermore, I find it strange that most historians would take the claims of a library holding tens of thousands of scrolls at face value while dismissing equally dubious claims of battles fielding hundreds of thousands of soldiers as unrealistic, while both could be the exact same kind of propaganda. Books/scrolls historically had value, and it wouldn't be strange for a powerful city such as Alexandria to brag about how much knowledge they physically owned. Give it a few hundred years, and you end up with rumours of a fabled library that housed hundreds of thousands of books, while the reality is far less remarkable.
Great points
I never thought of that. That’s actually a very good point.
This argument has already been accounted for by ancient and modern historians. According to modern historian Roger Bagnall, it was the 12th century Byzantine historian and scholar, John Tzetzes, who wrote that scrolls of the Library were either "mixed" (i.e., more than one book on a papyrus scroll) or "unmixed" (i.e., only one book per scroll). So Tzetzes reported the Library contained: 400,000 "mixed", 90,000 "unmixed". The total estimated holdings were of more than 490,000 volumes of papyrus books--although some might say closer to 700,000-800,000 individual titles.
@doctorabutros The problem with the "mixed/unmixed" terminology is that we don't know what Tzetzes actually meant. This is still debated. Let alone the problem that he was writing several hundred years after the fact, and had probably no certainty, or even idea, of what he was talking about. If "mixed" refers to scrolls housing several works, which is the most likely option, then the problem remains the same : these same works, in all their length, could be cramed easily in a modest Codex portion. An average Greco-roman scroll would've been three to four meters long. This was the point where going further meant that the thing became unwieldy. Of course, longer scrolls existed (up to twenty meters), but they were the exception. On the other hand, a mere 100-page medieval book of average width could reach a comparative length of 15 meters, 30 when inscribed on both sides of the pages. Which is enough for three to six scrolls, mixed or unnmixed. All that in the palm of your hand... My point is that housing the knowledge of the library of Alexandria would've taken way fewer books than it did scrolls, and that is a huge reason we should be skeptical of the "400,000 scrolls" figure, because it isn't representative of the actual amount of knowledge produced and written down. There is a reason scrolls fell out of favour, and books replaced them : they are limited in size, duration, and practicality while books are virtually not.
The “Dark Ages” is what Big Renaissance wants us to think.
The timeline visualization was super helpful. And love the structured way of your explanations.
This guy is informative without being tedious. Just gives you the bare information directly. Rare now a days.
Since the statute of limitations is finally out, I put a cigarette out in the bathroom wastebasket.
Where did you get tobacco before the discovery of Americas?
Don't be silly, it was a waste papyrus basket.
@@lloyddale3818, There were 700,000 books in that library. All written before 48 B.C…Can you imagine what we could’ve learned from that Library?
@@hamobuthey’ve found tobacco and things from the Americas in Pharaohs tombs
Erudite, articulate, absolutely engaging. Reminds me of my best university professors. And (as some have mentioned in comments) all without stylish graphics, musical accompaniment and the whiz-bang b.s. we've been accustomed to seeing in every history video. The human voice, speaking intelligently, pulling threads together, shedding light, elucidating the facts with the right tone, pacing and level of complexity - this is how it was done for thousands of years. Beautiful.
i really hope you get big one day on youtube. i am a big history lover and i think your way of explaining things, not just objectively but in complete absence of assumptions that most people, even historians, tend to make. just a really phenomenal way of explaining things!
Thank you!
It was destroyed when they murdered hypatia
Know all the important Pagan learning places were burned by the Christians that's why they say the library Alexander Alexandria was burned. The truth is much worse
Hypatia was the Library of Alexandria symbolic thing from the evil that the Christians did
@@youtubebane7036 No.
I would bet the financing of the library lasted for 1 or 2 Egyptian rulers, and after that it was either severely reduced or they didn't get outside financial support from the government. Then it declined for a few hundred years as the books degraded. It was just some pharaoh's pet project as a public work.
I think you're right. What evidence we have suggests that later head librarians were just political appointees who probably took the job for the pay without caring about scholarship.
@@premodernist_historyso..can u make a video on nalanda raxila udantapuri etc.. 43 universities destroyed by Islamic invaders in india Nalanda is said to have 9 million books?? This is not golden age nostalgia I feel kind of like we have those strictures even today in large scale spread over which was destroyed in mainly around 1000 ad range So isn't it possible ??
Exactly, budget cuts. Not exciting but most realistic.
Exactly, budget cuts. Not exciting but most realistic.
Wow I find this very relieving to learn. I’ve always heard it described as one of the most tragic events in human history that the knowledge lost “set humanity back 1,000 years”.
You may also be relieved to learn that the so-called "Dark Ages" weren't several hundred years of 0 human progress, without which we would live in a futuristic utopia today, but in fact a period of time in which lots of scientific discoveries took place.
@@a.velderrain8849 They happened in Muslim countries so they don’t count. 🗿 /s
Not humanity, just Europe. The Islamic Empire and China had amazing brake throughs, meanwhile Europe had dirt, crusades and Christianity lol. In other words, Europe back then was like a boomers perception of the Middle East now: better to avoid. Meanwhile the Middle East, if you were a business man, was very prospective.
@@a.velderrain8849Either that or 300ish years of history have been faked.
@@a.velderrain8849 Dark Ages were still fairly crappy for the people that call it that. Sure some progress happened in fits and starts, but living standards were markedly down. Walls and public amenities were set far back.
People talk about the knowledge lost in the "library of Alexandria", but oddly enough, you hear very little about the almost complete destruction of several libraries full of Mezoamerican codices during the Spanish conquest. We literally have just a handful of texts left from several different Mezoamerican cultures. That's a much larger tragedy than the different burnings of the different libraries of Alexandria over centuries, when most of those books had copies in other libraries. It's always sad when knowledge is lost.
I've been hearing--reading--about it since I was perhaps 12. My school system was very conservative, yet all of this was taught whether it made white people look bad or not. We were made to understand our history. My county was about 99% white back then, and the most conservative in all of Ohio. The truth, as far as it was understood, was valued. Still, there wasn't time to linger on it in a basic American history class, but we were very aware of how the Spanish explorers wrecked the also-bloodthirsty Aztec and Mayan civilizations. We also got a solid dose of what colonization did to the aboriginal Americans. Not pretty, but truth, and sometimes very ugly truth, presented matter-of-factually (with a hint perhaps of "we should never let this happen again.) Then again, that was more than four decades ago.
This is a standard part of American curriculum. Iirc it's mentioned in openstax as well.
Timbuktu manuscripts in Africa too!
Why does he sounds like somone loving telling children that Santa isn't real? 🤔
Knowing there probably wasn't a single terrible event that put us back hundreds of years in knowledge is surprisingly comfortable
Though cumulatively...
Now we just know that this kind of event happens all the time, in the background without our knowledge, and can only be identified in hindsight.
Hey sleepy one they are doing the same thing right now.
@@crazycat1345 whos they
Why? Even if it was true, so what?
I absolutely love the format of your videos. Just a sit down talk, no stupid editing tricks, no filler, just a discussion of history where you present what you have synthesized from your readings. It's refreshing.
You might like some of Sean Mungers videos if you havent heard of him. This is my first video from this guy and he has a really similar approach as Munger. Im going to enjoy going through this guys backlog
@@hannahbrown2728 Interesting, I will check him out if you check through premodernist's backlog haha
Someone didn't want to pay their late fees.
but... but... someone on social media told me the great burning of the library of alexandria set humanity back 1000 years.
Found this channel a few days ago and man I'm LOVING it. Please keep this format, I love listening to you explain and give your own thoughts etc. Really feels like I'm being taught one on one 👍 great job
The other great misunderstanding is that people tend to believe that books (scrolls) could last forever. But they did not and could not. The books could only survive then through the repeated expense of copying them. Even if the library were as large as is often claimed, there were no resources to preserve that many works through copying. What happened then is similar to what happens now. The best and most useful books tend to survive. Books that are second-rate or duplicate knowledge by other better authors tend to fade away. Even when a work is considered of great value like Livy's history of Rome, the size of the work (originally 142 books) tends to work against its continued existence.
It's honestly one of the reasons why when people say Christianity set humanity back during the dark ages I get really mad, most of our sources of ancient documents came from Christian monasteries because they were uniquely equipped to both store and copy documents being some of the few people who could understand Latin by that time. Honestly people should thank Christianity for saving what they could, especially considering all the destruction viking raids would do to monasteries in northern Europe and raids from the moors in the south.
Level headed and rational commentary on the mythos of the Library of Alexandria. And NOT at all boring.
My personal favorite is “ I think”. Herein shows his opinion, which I admire and respect.
I love the presentation of history in a digestible way. I enjoy watching the content you put out. Much love!!
First time someone says the obvious about the unfortunate location in the harbor's humid air. On the southern edge of the med the humidity can become really oppressive, depending on the location. Of course that worked to decompose the scrolls much faster.
I was on a Navy ship that docked at Alexandria back in 1988. No books were taken. I never did find the library.
i think the last point is the most important takeaway. just like people focus on one single event like the defenestrations of prague as a cause for a war the reality was much more complex and war wouldve happened without this one event escalating it. in that case is was basically just the official declaration of a war many nations were able to forsee.
Defenestration is one of those words that should not ever have been, yet we are somehow all the richer for it
@@ironymatt endometriosis Like Marge, I just think it's neat
Defenestration is my favorite word of all time. 👍💪🤎
Great video as always! Thanks for the shoutout.
Good concise lecture. I was already scoffing at people who mourn the loss of the Library of Alexandria, because nearly ever library until the invention of electric lighting caught fire multiple times throughout history, it's just what happens when you have a building full of flammable material and your only lighting source besides the sun is fire.
When did your neanderthal father begin writing and mathematics in the caves??? Never. He became a greek later on and had to learn from the ethiopians he called TITANS. That’s amazing history how the races were separate.
@@harvardarchaeologydept3799 What the fuck
@@harvardarchaeologydept3799afro centrics are so boring
This is a great video, subscribed for more!! It’s always nice to hear someone with education and passion on a topic talking about it more in depth than you hear elsewhere. Plus the format is nice:)
Listen I need to let you know every time you drop a video it brings me so much joy. It’s the balance for me in your explanations no agenda just good food for thought
Thank you!
The pergamum library was medically focused as they also had the hospital of galen. It was given to Cleopatra 6 by Anthony as a wedding present. So it was merged with, likely, the sarapeion collection.
Great comment! (BTW Antony's great love was Cleopatra VII - not the "6th" - but that whole numbering system is a modern day conceit.) The most famous queen of the ancient world was Cleopatra Thea Philopator (69 BCE - 30 BCE). But you correctly note that Antony gifted Cleo the Pergamum collection - something that enraged the people of that city - and that marvelous collection became part of Alexandria's library.
Really appreciate you linking Al Muqaddimah's video!!!
Thanks for that video. It becomes more and more unbearable how many people on internet forums and sites are behaving like experts on the topic of the library and mourn its ignorant and short-sighted "destruction" by whatever evil force, all to appear like sophisticated people, while those rumors and legends don't even touch the truth. Having an actual expert setting the facts straight is a breath of fresh air, actually.
I cant reiterate enough how much i look forward to each of new video, always learn so much in such an engaging way
Thanks!
One thing I love in history is when these kingdoms that we would call ancient have museums. Over 2000 years ago people were still interested in uncovering, preserving, and understanding the past. In a couple thousand years, there could be museums about the "ancient countries" that we are currently in. There are even attempted restorations of old paintings that were done hundreds of years ago, and today we're trying to preserve them better with our more modern tools. It would have been more fun if the "Great Library of Alexandria" was this legendary facility of knowledge, but it's just as cool to see the ways in which these now ancient kingdoms were very similar to our modern world. Through the thousands of years of history, we always have been and always will be humans living our lives.
I don't know how you did it, but you managed to keep my attention the entire time. Very well presented.
I learned so much in a single video. Instant sub. Thank you. Off to listen to Al Muqaddimah.
Just another reminder that reality (and history by correlation) is often a lot more complicated, boring and less sexy than we like to imagine. 'There was a great library in a time long past that lost to fire/a Roman dictator/a religion we don't like.' ... is a lot more sexy than... 'If you don't maintain your papyrus scrolls and you store them in a humid environment then they will rot over 100's of years.'
Incredibly midwit take. The idea that all those stories are all fictitious and that the scrolls all just rotted (because no one thought to recopy them?) is absolutely historically baseless. The stories are probably exaggerated, but there is very likely truth in all of them: There was a library in Alexandria, whether it was held in one or multiple places, and at multiple times looters and disasters destroyed some or all of the books in that library. It is very unlikely that any of the supposed perpetrators are entirely innocent. The multiple dates of destruction poses no contradiction at all. People have been known to rebuild things after their destruction.
@@joemerino3243 Profound braindead take as your explanation weaslewords around the reality of a slow decline
@@joemerino3243the problem isn’t that these events didn’t happen. The problem is that people greatly exaggerated events in history that aren’t as dramatic as we think.
i'd also like to see a video detailing the other myths you described in the introduction, Love this channel!
I like how you just got straight to the point, and gave the perfect amount of detail throughout. More educational content should be like this 👍
This video made me fall in love with your YT channel
Love your style of content, it's super informative.
this is my new favorite history channel just straight up facts and nothing overly dramaticized
Love this content. Incredibly informative and insightful. I wish I had you for a history professor!
I just discovered your channel and binge watched all of it. Please post more!!!
Not boring at all. Clear and concise. I just blindly assumed Carl Sagan knew his topic when he spread the story about the fire.
I'm actually hoping to do a video just about Carl Sagan's use of history. Not soon though, unfortunately. Probably some time next year.
@@premodernist_historyplease do. Im a big fan of Carl. I would love to see a rebutal of his ideas, and I'm sure he would to.
Thank you so much for the lucid explanation! Would love you to do a similar treatment of the Library of Ephesus 🙏
This feels like I'm in class and the professor brought a professional for a brief lecture, in the best way possible
Just discovered this channel, I have a knowledge nourishing binge ahead of me!
I just stumbled upon your channel, I love it so much. You should have millions of subscribers, I’m sure it will come
This was really helpful and actually clear and doesn't feel like your biased to some opinion unlike many sources who talk about this topic, Thanks for making this video
👌
Even “boring” truth is FAR more interesting than fiction! Great video!!!
I am stunned by how much I learn from you! All those - incidental to the main topic - are like diamonds. Thank you so much!
Another banger of a video, this channel is excellent ❤
Great analysis! Learned a lot that I didn’t know.
Love this format - it's so pure! Thanks!
I love your videos! So informative, fascinating, and well-researched!
About 17 min in and I had to tap out. His thesis has been proven. Love this dude
You just make history fun. Fun to hear about, fun to learn about, fun to think about. No nonsense. Thanks.
So Carl Sagan got it wrong when he talked about the Library of Alexandria in one of the episodes of "Cosmos." In fact he not only talked about it, he actually walked through it, thanks to the magic of the special effects available in 1980. But that was more than 40 years ago. We now have CGI, and it looks like we've learned a lot more about the history of the Library of Alexandria. That's a certain kind of progress, I suppose.
So happy I found this channel. Keep at it please. You are awesome.
A most excellent examination of an often misconstrued and sensationalized historical event(s)! New subscriber here and fellow historian. Thank you for putting out such excellently straightforward content.
So glad I subbed last time a video dropped. I had forgotten about the channel until I saw this in my feed. An absolute delight to feel like I'm having a thoughtful well-researched conversation with someone about a time period I love. Appreciate all the great insight.
I have around 300 subs, and here and there I forget a channel and the algo doesn't front up. I have to go down my list to catch up on some. Been a month or so for me on this channel. Here's a depressing observation- several of who I subbed have died, become disabled, or straight disappeared*. Mitten Squad I feel bad for and wish I knew enough to help. Was my favorite. *I'm '07 KZhead. I've witnessed the gamut.
never change your format. excellent.
I just discovered your channel. It's wonderful to see well thought and written lectures like this❤
He looks like a hedgehog and I love him.
Glad I was already subbed because this was a great video and very informative. Any chance that you’ll eventually make a similar vid on the 1258 siege of Baghdad and/or the sacking of the House of Wisdom in particular? The idea of a great edifice of amassed knowledge (such as a library) being destroyed and thus setting a culture/civilization/the world back (in some ways forever) is just so horrifically fascinating. It’d be interesting to hear your approach to clarifying or covering this instance of this topic.
That's a good idea for a topic. I'll add it to the list.
Just came across this. Excellent coverage & analysis! Prof of US history here, this is a fine introduction to the presence of inaccuracy/exaggeration in much of historic memory, and to the concept that history rarely pivots upon single events.
Really cool video. There are similar questions about libraries/repositories like Nalanda and Tibet. Would love to see a follow up if possible talking about those also
Very interesting! You can see from this explanation that the reputation of the library must be based on the level of copying of the stored manuscripts, so rather than physical size, the amount of human activity associated with the library, the number of scribes copying, the amount of papyrus being produced, processed, and shipped, the attraction of scholars, this is the reason for the legend of the library, this broad amount of activity happening in Alexandria during the Ptolemaic heyday. It’s remarkable, the Hellenic period just prior to the Roman Empire more and more is coming to be understood as what we might term “modern”, there is not much difference between us and them other than technological and social theory advancements that can be dated directly in an unbroken legacy from this age.
If I've learned anything about history, is that it is always more complex than I had ever imagined. Anyone who offers a simple explanation of history is probably trying to sell you something. ;)
This 100%
Been stumbling upon these videos lately and I very much enjoy the way you present. Love finding quality channels Also you seem SO familiar but I can't quite place it. And it's driving me nuts. You look just like some actor
Just discovered this channel, liked and now subbed. Love the style of presentation very much.
Love your work and your insights. So lucky to be a (albeit distant) student!
Thank you for watching!
Kendall 👿🤔 gone in a FLASH 😳
This guys content slaps. 10/10. I love this style. I cam even just throw it on while i drive and listen.
Cool.
This is an amazing video! I love your delivery.
great vid, I'm a bit of a casual enjoyed of history but your vids really hit the spot for me
So excited to watch this
Thanks for yet another great video. A sober assessment of the historical accounts of the decline of that famous library.
New subscriber here. 😃 This topic, as well as the video format and delivery, won me over.
This guy does some of the best historical insight I've ever heard on this platform
“You can tell how middle-class you are by how aggrieved you are and how much you wince every time someone mentions the fact that the library of Alexandria burnt down. Ahh! Grr! Oh if only it hadn't! Agh!” Lindybeige
People cling to the dramatic versions of the tale, particularly that the library was burned down by religiously-motivated throwbacks, because they want to justify their view of religiously-motivated people as throwbacks. The religious people of ancient times were just as enlightened as any of their secular contemporaries, and the secular people of ancient times were just as hidebound, bigoted, and anti-intellectual as their religious counterparts of the same era.
Yeah, and the burnt library is where they hide all their "evidence" for whackjob fantasies like Atalantis, and the space-aliens that built the pyramids, and all the super advanced ancient civilisations that disappeared without trace. There WAS evidence for those things! There WAS! It was just burned in the library, by "them!"
Well, there’s an unfalsifiable opinion easy to throw around. Anything back that up at all?
Nice video, and very interesting. Like sitting in on a college lecture, but one on one. I enjoyed this!
These are among the best videos on KZhead, and I HAVE watched them all
What is the painting of the introduction screen, it’s pretty sweet? I would sure appreciate it if someone could tell me the name and artist.
It's "Incendie Alexandrie" by Hermann Goll. You can find it on Wikimedia Commons.
Thanks.@@premodernist_history
Hey you need to stop whatever has been keeping you busy. Quit your job and other hobbies and neglect your friends and family. Just please make more videos.
Excellent video. I appreciate and respect the resources listed at the end. Thank you.
Same. This is probably the first cited video format like this I've watched on KZhead. Made me feel intellectual again!
You are pleasant to listen to and you speak very well.
Another great vid! This is so fascinating because had you not dispelled this myth I wouldn't even think about it. Makes me want to question a lot more about history...
He didn't dispell anything. It's his OPINION and what he THINKS. He says as much many times. Just like every other theory we do not truly know so taking anyone's opinion as fact is incredibly ignorant
@@gotworc I don't care what your unsolicited comments or opinions are, nobody is talking to you.
@@gotworc you should instead work on making content for your empty clips channel. Who has a clips channel for a low effort channel 😂😂😂
Very informative video. Thank you!
This is very informative. I didn't know these details about "The Library of Alexandria".
Nice video. Thanks. History is always more complex than the stories people tell each other huh