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King TUT JR.
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Alexandria, EGYPT WHO BURN IT & WHY ??
November 9, 2006 - 02:31 PM
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The
second largest city in Egypt, Alexandria has an atmosphere
that is more Mediterranean than Middle Eastern; its ambiance
and cultural heritage distance it from the rest of the country
although it is only 225 km. from Cairo.
Founded by Alexander the Great in 331 B.C., Alexandria became
The setting for
the stormy relationship between Cleopatra and Mark Antony,
Alexandria was also the center of learning in the ancient.Since the 19th century Alexandria has played a new role, as
a focus for Egypt's commercial and maritime expansion. This Alexandria has been immortalized by writers Generations of immigrants from Greece, Italy and
the Levant settled here and made the city synonymous with
commerce, cosmopolitanism and bohemian culture;
if such a thing could exist."
    
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King TUT JR.
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Re: Alexandria, EGYPT WHO BURN IT & WHY ??
November 9, 2006 - 02:46 PM
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48 BC- 640 AD: The Library of Alexandria in Egypt (along with the vast majority of its irreplaceable
treasures of human history and knowledge) is repeatedly damaged, then finally destroyed, in a series of man-made catastrophes. Humanity now loses yet another enormous piece of its collective memory, knowledge, and history. Human civilization's substantial amnesia in regards to its past grows by perhaps several entire magnitudes with this latest blow.
Alexandria's information is aggressively collected from roughly 300 BC through 640 AD (a range of almost 1000 years): master copies of some works are sometimes bought, sometimes stolen; many scrolls from Persian, Indian, African, and Hebrew sources are translated into Greek; original works of documentation are generated from the Library's own local research labs/theaters focusing on subjects like chemistry, botany, astronomy, zoology, and anatomy, as well its sister university classes relating to mathematics, physics, biology, engineering, geography, medicine, and literature. Unfortunately, increasingly large chunks of the library are lost beginning around 48 BC. At its height, the complete Library may have consisted of as many as 550,000 volumes.
_The Tragedy of Alexandria, Feats and Wisdom of the Ancients_, Library of Curious and Unusual Facts, Time-Life Books, 1990]
A harbor fire started by Roman soldiers accidentally destroys several thousand volumes of the library in 48 BC. Fanatical Christians burn and pillage much of the Library and its contents in 391 AD. Around 640 AD Islamic Arab fanatics complete the destruction, burning the remaining books in order to heat their bath water over a period of months.
Humanity may never recover (or realize the full extent of) all the knowledge and history lost at Alexandria. Note the knowledge store erased here is a major portion of that native to both the Eurasian
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BEN HUR
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Re: Alexandria, EGYPT WHO BURN IT & WHY ??
November 9, 2006 - 04:20 PM
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Julius Caesar
First, let us read the legendary account:
It is often said that the Romans were civilised but their most famous general was responsible for the greatest act of vandalism during antiquity
. Julius Caesar was attacking Alexandria in pursuit of his archrival Pompey when he found himself about to be cut off by the Egyptian fleet.
Realising that this would leave him in a desperate predicament, he took decisive action and sent fire ships into the harbour. His plan was a success and the enemy fleet was quickly aflame. But the fire did not stop these and jumped onto the dockside which was laden with flammable materials ready for export.
Next it spread in land and before anyone could stop it, the Great Library itself was blazing brightly as 400,000 priceless scrolls were reduced to ashes. As for Caesar himself, did not think it important enough to mention in his memoirs.
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BEN HUR
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Re: Alexandria, EGYPT WHO BURN IT & WHY ??
November 9, 2006 - 04:23 PM
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Some regard the death of Hypatia as the final destruction of the Library. Others blame Theophilus for destroying the last of the scrolls when he razed the Temple of Serapis prior to making it a Christian church. Still others have confused both incidents and blamed Theophilus for simultaneously murdering Hypatia and destroying the Library though it is obvious Theophilus died sometime prior to Hypatia.
The final individual to get blamed for the destruction is the Moslem Caliph Omar. In 640 AD the Moslems took the city of Alexandria. Upon learning of "a great library containing all the knowledge of the world" the conquering general supposedly asked Caliph Omar for instructions. The Caliph has been quoted as saying of the Library's holdings, "they will either contradict the Koran, in which case they are heresy, or they will agree with it, so they are superfluous." So, allegedly, all the texts were destroyed by using them as tinder for the bathhouses of the city. Even then it was said to have taken six months to burn all the documents. But these details, from the Caliph's quote to the incredulous six months it supposedly took to burn all the books, weren't written down until 300 years after the fact. These facts condemning Omar were written by Bishop Gregory Bar Hebræus, a Christian who spent a great deal of time writing about Moslem atrocities without much historical documentation.
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BEN HUR
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Re: Alexandria, EGYPT WHO BURN IT & WHY ??
November 9, 2006 - 04:34 PM
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OTHER POINT Some regard the death of Hypatia as the final destruction of the Library. Others blame Theophilus for destroying the last of the scrolls when he razed the Temple of Serapis prior to making it a Christian church. Still others have confused both incidents and blamed Theophilus for simultaneously murdering Hypatia and destroying the Library though it is obvious Theophilus died sometime prior to Hypatia.
The final individual to get blamed for the destruction is the Moslem Caliph Omar. In 640 AD the Moslems took the city of Alexandria.
 Upon learning of "a great library containing all the knowledge of the world" the conquering general supposedly asked Caliph Omar for instructions. The Caliph has been quoted as saying of the Library's holdings, "they will either contradict the Koran, in which case they are heresy, or they will agree with it, so they are superfluous."
So, allegedly, all the texts were destroyed by using them as tinder for the bathhouses of the city. Even then it was said to have taken six months to burn all the documents. But these details, from the Caliph's quote to the incredulous six months it supposedly took to burn all the books, weren't written down until 300 years after the fact.
These facts condemning Omar were written by Bishop Gregory Bar Hebræus, a Christian who spent a great deal of time writing about Moslem atrocities without much historical documentation.
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NaBeeel
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Re: Alexandria, EGYPT WHO BURN IT & WHY ??
November 9, 2006 - 10:09 PM
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he loss of the ancient world's single greatest archive of knowledge, the Library of Alexandria, has been lamented for ages. But how and why it was lost is still a mystery. The mystery exists not for lack of suspects but from an excess of them.
Alexandria was founded in Egypt by Alexandria the Great. His successor as Pharaoh, Ptolomy II Soter, founded the Museum or Royal Library of Alexandria in 283 BC. The Museum was a shrine of the Muses modeled after the Lyceum of Aristotle in Athens. The Museum was a place of study which included lecture areas, gardens, a zoo, and shrines for each of the nine muses as well as the Library itself. It has been estimated that at one time the Library of Alexandria held over half a million documents from Assyria, Greece, Persia, Egypt, India and many other nations. Over 100 scholars lived at the Museum full time to perform research, write, lecture or translate and copy documents. The library was so large it actually had another branch or "daughter" library at the Temple of Serapis.
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NaBeeel
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Re: Alexandria, EGYPT WHO BURN IT & WHY ??
November 9, 2006 - 10:11 PM
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The first person blamed for the destruction of the Library is none other than Julius Caesar himself. In 48 BC, Caesar was pursuing Pompey into Egypt when he was suddenly cut off by an Egyptian fleet at Alexandria. Greatly outnumbered and in enemy territory, Caesar ordered the ships in the harbor to be set on fire. The fire spread and destroyed the Egyptian fleet. Unfortunately, it also burned down part of the city - the area where the great Library stood. Caesar wrote of starting the fire in the harbor but neglected to mention the burning of the Library. Such an omission proves little since he was not in the habit of including unflattering facts while writing his own history. But Caesar was not without public detractors. If he was solely to blame for the disappearance of the Library it is very likely significant documentation on the affair would exist today.
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NaBeeel
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Re: Alexandria, EGYPT WHO BURN IT & WHY ??
November 9, 2006 - 10:12 PM
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The second story of the Library's destruction is more popular, thanks primarily to Edward Gibbon's "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire". But the story is also a tad more complex. Theophilus was Patriarch of Alexandria from 385 to 412 AD. During his reign the Temple of Serapis was converted into a Christian Church (probably around 391 AD) and it is likely that many documents were destroyed then. The Temple of Serapis was estimated to hold about ten percent of the overall Library of Alexandria's holdings. After his death, his nephew Cyril became Patriarch. Shortly after that, riots broke out when Hierax, a Christian monk, was publicly killed by order of Orestes the city Prefect. Orestes was said to be under the influence of Hypatia, a female philosopher and daughter of the "last member of the Library of Alexandria". Although it should be noted that some count Hypatia herself as the last Head Librarian.
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NaBeeel
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Re: Alexandria, EGYPT WHO BURN IT & WHY ??
November 9, 2006 - 10:21 PM
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The final individual to get blamed for the destruction is the Moslem Caliph Omar. In 640 AD the Moslems took the city of Alexandria. Upon learning of "a great library containing all the knowledge of the world" the conquering general supposedly asked Caliph Omar for instructions.
The Caliph has been quoted as saying of the Library's holdings, "they will either contradict the Koran, in which case they are heresy, or they will agree with it, so they are superfluous." So, allegedly, all the texts were destroyed by using them as tinder for the bathhouses of the city. Even then it was said to have taken six months to burn all the documents.
But these details, from the Caliph's quote to the incredulous six months it supposedly took to burn all the books, weren't written down until 300 years after the fact. These facts condemning Omar were written by Bishop Gregory Bar Hebræus, a Christian who spent a great deal of time writing about Moslem atrocities without much historical documentation.
So who did burn the Library of Alexandria? Unfortunately most of the writers from Plutarch (who apparently blamed Caesar) to Edward Gibbons (a staunch atheist or deist who liked very much to blame Christians and blamed Theophilus) to Bishop Gregory (who was particularly anti-Moslem, blamed Omar) all had an axe to grind and consequently must be seen as biased.
Probably everyone mentioned above had some hand in destroying some part of the Library's holdings. The collection may have ebbed and flowed as some documents were destroyed and others were added. For instance, Mark Antony was supposed to have given Cleopatra over 200,000 scrolls for the Library long after Julius Caesar is accused of burning it.
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hekatea
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Re: Alexandria, EGYPT WHO BURN IT & WHY ??
January 14, 2007 - 01:21 AM
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Based on what I know, the reason is political and religious. The library contains the best and most comprehensive information including magic and sorcery, and this is the reason why they burned it.
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prieten47
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Re: Alexandria, EGYPT WHO BURN IT & WHY ??
January 14, 2007 - 07:16 PM
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Why are all these posts almost word for word identical? Are you guys cutting and pasting from Wikipedia or somewhere? Well, at least we now know that religious fundamentalists, both Christian and Muslim, destroyed the library. What a shame!
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NaBeeel
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Re: Alexandria, EGYPT WHO BURN IT & WHY ??
January 18, 2007 - 11:50 AM
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for word counting FOR fredex126 ???
48 BC- 640 AD: The Library of Alexandria in Egypt (along with the vast majority of its irreplaceable
treasures of human history and knowledge) is repeatedly damaged, then finally destroyed, in a series of man-made catastrophes. Humanity now loses yet another enormous piece of its collective memory, knowledge, and history. Human civilization's substantial amnesia in regards to its past grows by perhaps several entire magnitudes with this latest blow.
Alexandria's information is aggressively collected from roughly 300 BC through 640 AD (a range of almost 1000 years): master copies of some works are sometimes bought, sometimes stolen; many scrolls from Persian, Indian, African, and Hebrew sources are translated into Greek; original works of documentation are generated from the Library's own local research labs/theaters focusing on subjects like chemistry, botany, astronomy, zoology, and anatomy, as well its sister university classes relating to mathematics, physics, biology, engineering, geography, medicine, and literature. Unfortunately, increasingly large chunks of the library are lost beginning around 48 BC. At its height, the complete Library may have consisted of as many as 550,000 volumes.
_The Tragedy of Alexandria, Feats and Wisdom of the Ancients_, Library of Curious and Unusual Facts, Time-Life Books, 1990]
A harbor fire started by Roman soldiers accidentally destroys several thousand volumes of the library in 48 BC. Fanatical Christians burn and pillage much of the Library and its contents in 391 AD. Around 640 AD Islamic Arab fanatics complete the destruction, burning the remaining books in order to heat their bath water over a period of months.
Humanity may never recover (or realize the full extent of) all the knowledge and history lost at Alexandria. Note the knowledge store erased here is a major portion of that native to both the Eurasian
This post was edited on: 2007-01-22 at 02:58 PM by: wahooe
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NaBeeel
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Re: Alexandria, EGYPT WHO BURN IT & WHY ??
January 18, 2007 - 11:57 AM
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Number of words allowed: 400 OK
 
SO WHAT IS YOURS OVER 400 WORD COME FROM , //??????????
TO FREDEX126, MAKE YOUR SELF CLEARS.
   YES . TO SEE THAT HAPPEN ???
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