The Library of Alexandria: Who Really Destroyed It? | History for Sleep

In the harbor of Alexandria, every ship that docked was searched, not for weapons or gold, but for books. Any scroll found on board was taken to be copied, and the original was often kept. This was how the kings of Egypt built the greatest library the ancient world had ever seen. Tonight, in a calm and detailed documentary of about 2 hours and 40 minutes, we follow the entire story of the Library of Alexandria. We begin with Alexander the Great marking out a new city with barley flour on the shore of Egypt, and with Ptolemy, the general who dreamed of gathering all the knowledge of the world in one place. We walk through the Museum, the Lighthouse of Pharos and the halls of papyrus scrolls, and we meet the scholars who worked there: Euclid, Eratosthenes measuring the Earth with a shadow, Callimachus and the first library catalogue, the doctors, the engineers and the poets. Then we follow the long decline: a cruel king who drove the scholars away, Julius Caesar and the fire of 48 BC, Cleopatra, the Roman centuries, the fall of the Serapeum and the death of Hypatia. Was the Library really destroyed in one terrible night? The truth is slower, stranger and more human. Finally, we see how some of that knowledge survived, through Byzantine monks, the House of Wisdom in Baghdad, the Archimedes Palimpsest, the rubbish mounds of Oxyrhynchus and the burned scrolls of Herculaneum, now being read again by modern science. Narrated slowly and gently for sleep, study or quiet relaxation. No sudden music, no loud ads in the middle. If you enjoy long, quiet journeys through the past, subscribe to The Quiet Almanac and tell me in the comments where you are listening from tonight. CHAPTERS 0:00 Introduction 0:05:50 Alexander the Great 0:08:36 Alexander in Egypt 0:09:23 Founding a City 0:12:27 The Death of Alexander 0:13:42 Ptolemy Takes Egypt 0:16:38 A Vision of Learning 0:18:22 The Museum 0:20:03 The Library 0:22:11 The Lighthouse 0:24:32 A City of Many Peoples 0:27:30 The God Serapis 0:28:41 Papyrus 0:33:04 Gathering the Books 0:33:54 The Books from the Ships 0:34:30 The Athenian Originals 0:36:30 Translating the World 0:37:56 The Septuagint 0:40:01 Aristotle's Lost Books 0:42:51 How Many Books? 0:44:22 Pergamon and Parchment 0:46:45 The First Librarians 0:49:06 Callimachus 0:51:44 Apollonius of Rhodes 0:53:49 Accents and Commas 0:56:03 A Day in the Museum 0:57:49 Euclid 1:00:09 Measuring the Earth 1:04:43 Archimedes 1:06:05 The Doctors 1:08:15 The Engineers 1:10:03 The Decline of the Ptolemies 1:11:54 Ptolemy the Potbelly 1:14:37 The Rise of Rome 1:16:45 Cleopatra 1:18:32 Caesar in Alexandria 1:22:03 The Fire 1:24:44 Antony and Cleopatra 1:27:53 Roman Alexandria 1:31:51 Claudius Ptolemy 1:33:44 The Slow Decline 1:35:03 The Crisis of the Third Century 1:39:03 The Rise of Christianity 1:41:18 The Fall of the Serapeum 1:44:55 Hypatia 1:49:19 The Arab Conquest 1:54:41 Who Really Destroyed It? 1:58:41 What Was Lost 2:00:55 One Hour in the Library 2:07:16 How Knowledge Survived 2:12:32 The Archimedes Palimpsest 2:15:06 Oxyrhynchus 2:16:51 Herculaneum 2:20:55 Alexandria After the Library 2:22:42 The Rosetta Stone 2:26:15 The New Library of Alexandria 2:31:47 A Day in the Life of a Scribe 2:37:42 Epilogue #history #historyforsleep #libraryofalexandria