Burning of Books at the Library of Alexandria

There are so many differing and varied versions of the burning of the Alexandrian library, that one wonders whether anyone really knows what happened at all. However it does seem that there were a number of fires - possibly three, but more reliably one - at different times in history. One informative and relevant website that I came across on this topic, worthy of recommendation due to its content, was that of James Hannam - check out his website: ...so to the library at Alexandria...

The city of Alexandria was founded by Alexander the Great, and after his death in 323BC his generals fought amongst themselves for pieces of his empire. One of the more successful was Ptolemy I from Macedonia, who thereby founded the Ptolemy dynastyat Alexandria. The early Ptolemy's were intellectual men and were very supportive of the libraries development and Ptolemy I, having his own intellectual interest, did what he could to attract intellectuals to the city. It seems that the early development of the library came about through one of these scholars, known as Demetrius of Phaleron, supported by Ptolemy I and subsequently Ptolemy II. The Ptolemy's apparently had a habit of borrowing original copies of books in order to have copies made, but neglected to return them. They also borrowed originals, had copies made and then returned the copies to Athens or wherever they had borrowed them from. Books onboard ships that came into the port were seized, copied and returned to the ships, but kept more often than not. So, by varying ways and means the library grew and brilliant intellectual and scholarly work was carried out there in a 'golden age' lasting for around three centuries.
Further information on the Library of Alexandria itself is available on these videos from Youtube:

Dr Carl Sagan on the Library at Alexandria


The Library of Alexandria


Again, reports vary as to what was actually held in the library, but it seems to have had around 400,000 scrolls in its holdings in 47/48 BC, when Julius Caesar, attacking Alexandria in a battle to take control of it, realised he was about to be cut off by the Egyptian fleet. Realising this would leave him trapped, Caesar ordered his soldiers to clear the wharves with fire and sent fire ships into the harbour. By doing so he was able to reduce the Egyptian fleet to ashes, however the fire spread to the nearby land and subsequently the great library caught fire. Other reports say that there were warehouses housing some 40,000 books at the docks and that these were what caught fire. Possibly these scrolls were new acquisitions for the library that had come into port and were awaiting delivery to the library.

There is little unanimity amongst historians and scholars as to finer details of events regarding the disappearance of this library, due largely to the fact that litte remains to tell the tale and that surviving references in literature appear to contracist one another. However, late in the third century AD somewhere around 391, it seems that the Emperor Theodosius and the patriach Theophilus successfully incited a mob to attack and burn the library. Their motives were Christian as they had been able to convert most of the subjects to Christianity and the contents of the library threatened those of the Bible. Likewise, they encouraged dictatorship and the eradication of ideas by burning books. Other sources say that this is not true and that it was the sister library at the Serapeum that was attacked and destroyed at this time, and that the main library at Alexandria was destroyed in 48 BC.

The story of the final fire at the library did not appear until the thirteenth century, which gives it credit as legend only, but runs along the lines of the Arab conqueror of Alexandria 'Amr' was approached by an unfrocked Christian priest who asked for the books of wisdom, given that they could be of no use to the Arabs. Amr wrote to the Caliph Omar, who replied that the books should be destroyed. The books were sent to the bath houses of Alexandria to fuel the baths and were still being burnt six months later.

Between 320 and 1303, according to Fernando Baez in his A Universal History of the Destruction of Books, there were at least twenty three earthquakes in Alexandria. In the summer of 365, he says that there was a very powerful tremor. Apparently hundreds of objects and pieces of column have been found in the port, by the team from Institut Europeen d'Archeologie Sous-Marine led by Franck Goddio, proving that parts of Alexandria sank and he offers this as one possible hypothesis on the disappearance of the Great Library.

Overall, an unrewarding week for me. For every piece of information that I located, I found another that disproved it and/or dismissed it as legend. It seems that we, the readers, find the legend and myth of the burning of a great library, housing all the knowledge of the world, quite enthralling and possibly it is our imaginations that fuel the whole story. Added to that the youtube video's would not upload. Screams.

REFERENCE LIST:

BOOKS:
Baez, F 2008, A Universal history of the destruction of books: from ancient Sumer to modern Iraq, Atlas & Co, New York.
Macleod, R 2000, The Library of Alexandria: centre of learning in the ancient world, I.B Tauris, London
Canfora, L 1994, The Vanished library, Hutchinson Radius, London.

WEBSITES:
Direct links available in text.

The Burning of Books in Ancient China (213BC).

This week I visited TROVE. Trove is a new free search service based on Libraries Australia. It did not reveal much that was relevant to my blog topic, or that I found new and useful. However, it did return two of the books from my reference list above, when I searched under Book Burning, which affirmed my choice of them as references in the first place. I also went to Wikipedia pages, which I located not through Google, but through the American Library Association's (ALA) webpages. Again, I did not find any new information on them, that I had not already come across in the books. Nevertheless, the page that had information on the burying of scholars and burning of books in Ancient China is listed below as a reference.

Burying of Confucian scholars

For this week I am concentrating on these two books, as their content is so rich and relevant. Here is some of the information that I have found:
When you think about it, book burning is actually as old as books themselves, but ironically books, apparently, are very difficult to burn. Not only that, but they have a very strange habit of surviving. Matthew Fishburn, the authour of Book Burning, states that in his book The Book-Hunter,(1862),John Hill Burton wrote that books were burnt on large wooden stages and in spite of considerable effort, large readable masses were found in the embers. In the end, he says, it was found easier to burn the heretics themselves, than the books they wrote.


The Chinese Emporer burying the scholars.
Links to this page.

Whilst books (tablets, bamboo sheets, papyrus etc.) and record keeping materials relevant to the time were so often destroyed or smashed as rulers, kings and dynasties were conquered, the first record of a book burning that was sponsored by the state is attributed to Zhao Zheng, who became the leader of Qin in 246 BC. He later proclaimed himself to be emperor Shi Huangdi (First Emperor), a title which he felt gave testimony to his majesty. He then became known as Qin Shi Huang - first emperor of the state of Qin.

As an emperor, Qin Shi Huang was reputedly tyrannical and had absolute power, bribing,destroying and/or murdering anyone who opposed him. By his side was his faithful advisor Grand Councillor Li Si, who proposed that all historians records, other than those of their own state of Qin, be burnt. Consequently, in 213 BC, Qin Shi Huang approved the burning of all books with the exception of those on the topics of agriculture, medicine, forestry and prophecy. Funnily enough, the Emperor hid treatises on, meditation, shamanism and alchemy and protected writings on divination. Chinese books in this era were made from strips of bamboo and wood and in 2000, archaeologists in Hunan province unearthed 20,000 bamboo strips with ideograms on them revealing the history of Qin Shi Huang to the modern day world. Therefore, we now know that those who failed to burn their books after thirty days notice, or failed to deliver them to the emperors representatives to be burnt were sent to build the Great Wall of China, the construction of which this ruler is known to have begun.

As all the scholars respected Confucius, Qin Shi Huang had his works burnt as well, and sent men from house to house seizing and later burning mnay books at a bonfire. Famously, he also had around 460 scholars buried alive with their books at Xianyang, and their families suffered 'countless humiliations'. The Emporer created his own Imperial library which burnt to the ground in the civil wars to over throw his heirs that took place after his death.

REFERENCE LIST:
BOOKS:
Baez, F 2008, A Universal history of the destruction of books: from ancient Sumer to modern Iraq, Atlas & Co, New York.
Fishburn, M 2008, Burning books, Palgrave Macmillan, New York.
Battles, M 2003, Library: An unquiet history, W.W. Norton, New York.

WEBPAGE:
2010, Book burning, free online encyclopedia, Wikimedia Foundation Inc, viewed April 2 2010, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_of_books_and_burying_of_scholars