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The Ancient Library Alexander the Great -- the Conquests as a source of knowledge The Founding of the Library and the Mouseion The Egyptian Section of the Alexandria Library The Papyri: Evidence of Greek and Egyptian Scientific Interchange The Pinakes -- a Bibliographical Survey of the Alexandria Library The Alexandria Library -- " The Memory of Mankind" Appendix 1 -- The Contents of the Alexandria Library Appendix 2 -- The End of the Library
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Against this background of avid hunger for knowledge among the Greeks, Alexander launched his global enterprise in 334 BC. which he accomplished with meteoric speed until his untimely death in 323 BC.
His aim throughout, had been not only restricted to conquering lands as far as India, bur also to explore them He therefore dispatched his companions, generals as well as scholars, to report to him in detail on regions previously unmapped and uncharted. His campaigns therefore resulted in a "considerable addition of empirical knowledge of geography" as Eratosthenes later remarked. (ap.Strabon 1.2.1; 2.1.6.) The reports he had acquired, survived and motivated an unprecedented movement of scientific research and study of the earth with its natural, physical qualities and inhabitants. The time was pregnant with a new spirit that engendered renaissance of human culture; and it was in this exhilarating atmosphere that the great Library and Mouseion saw the light of day, in Alexandria. |