![\"Trajans](\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/latin\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2015\/04\/800px-Timgad_Trajan.jpg\")
<\/a>Trajans Arch within the ruins of Timgad. Courtesy of WikiCommons and PhR61.<\/p><\/div>\n
Where:<\/span> Timgad (Modern Algeria in the Aures Mountains), Africa<\/p>\n When:<\/span> 250 A.D<\/p>\n History:<\/span>\u00a0The Library at Timgad was a gift to the Roman people by Julius Quintianus Flavius Rogatianus at a cost of 400,000 sesterces (approximately $800,000 U.S dollars) .<\/p>\n Collection Size:\u00a0<\/span>While there is no evidence as to the size of the collection the library harbored, it is estimated that it could have accommodated up to 3,000 scrolls.<\/p>\n Map of the Archeological site of Timgad. Public Library is Purple #46 in the middle of the city.Courtesy of WikiCommons and Dzlinker<\/p><\/div>\n Suggested Dimensions:<\/span>\u00a0The library occupied a rectangle eighty-one feet long by seventy-seven feet wide.\u00a0It consisted of a large semi-circular room flanked by two secondary rectangular rooms, and preceded by a U-shaped colonnaded portico surrounding three sides on an open court.Oblong alcoves held wooden shelves along walls that would likely have been complete with sides, backs, and doors.\u00a0It is possible that free-standing bookcases in the center of the room, as well as a reading desk, might also have been present.<\/p>\n Distinguishing Features:\u00a0<\/span>While the architecture of the Library at Timgad is not especially remarkable, the discovery of the library is historically important as it shows the presence of a fully developed library system in this Roman city, indicating a high standard of learning and culture.<\/p>\n Fate:<\/span>\u00a0In the 5th century, the city of Timgad was sacked by the Vandals before falling into decline. It is assumed the library was destroyed at this time.<\/p>\n \u00a02.) Villa of the Papyri<\/strong><\/p>\n Villa of the Papyri.Courtesy of WikiCommons & Eirk Anderson<\/p><\/div>\n Where:<\/span> Herculaneum, Italy<\/p>\n When:<\/span>\u00a0Circa 1st century A.D (obviously before 79 A.D.)<\/p>\n History:<\/span>\u00a0This villa’s large private collection may have once belonged to Julius <\/a>Caesar’s father-in-law, Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus in the 1st century BC.<\/p>\n Papyrus discovered at the Villa of the Papyri. \u00a0Courtesy of WikiCommons.<\/p><\/div>\n Collection Size:<\/span>\u00a0 Around 1800 carbonized scrolls were found in the villa’s top story. Using modern techniques, previously illegible or invisible sections on scrolls have been unrolled are now being deciphered. It is possible that more scrolls remain to be found in the lower, unexcavated levels of the villa.<\/p>\n Suggested Dimensions:<\/span> Although, this library was not a large public one. It provides insight into a Roman private or semi-public library. The Villa of Papyri is situated north-west of the town and sits halfway up the slope of the volcano Vesuvius without other buildings to obstruct the view.<\/p>\n Distinguishing Features:\u00a0<\/span>The only library known to have survived from classical antiquity- although everything was covered in ash.<\/p>\n Fate:<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0It was buried by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius that destroyed the town in 79 AD, it was rediscovered in 1752.<\/p>\n 3.)\u00a0Library at Elba<\/strong><\/p>\n Palace G at Elba where the palace archive\/ library was found. Courtesy of WikiCommons.<\/p><\/div>\n Where:<\/span>\u00a0Ebla was one of the earliest kingdoms in Syria. Its remains constitute a tell located about 55\u00a0km (34\u00a0mi) southwest of Aleppo near the village of Mardikh.<\/p>\n When:<\/span>\u00a02500 B.C. – 2250 B.C.<\/p>\n History:<\/span> Elba started\u00a0as a small settlement in the early Bronze Age (c. 3500 BC), but it developed into a trading empire. Later, it became \u00a0an expansionist power that imposed its hegemony over much of northern and eastern Syria. However,\u00a0Ebla was destroyed during the 23rd century BC; it was then rebuilt. Then again, it was destroyed at the end of the third millennium BC, which paved the way for the Amorite tribes to settle in the city and form the third Ebla. The third kingdom flourished again as a trade center; however, it was\u00a0finally destroyed by the Hittite king Mursili I in c. 1600 BC.<\/p>\n A clay tablet found in Ebla, Syria. Courtesy of WikiCommons.<\/p><\/div>\n Collection Size:<\/span>\u00a0About 1800 complete clay tablets, 4700 fragments and many thousand minor chips were found.\u00a0The tablets provide many important insights into the cultural, economic, and political life in northern Mesopotamia\u00a0around the middle of the third millennium BC.\u00a0<\/span>They also provide insight into the everyday life of the inhabitants, as well as containing information about state revenues, Sumerian-Eblaite dictionaries,\u00a0<\/span>school texts, an archive of provisions and tribute, law cases,\u00a0<\/span>diplomatic and trade contacts,\u00a0Ebla’s hymns, legends, scientific observations, and magic.<\/p>\n Suggested Dimensions:<\/span> The actual size of the library is uncertain since a majority of the text were found and infrastructure of Palace G was\/is still being determined. While this library may have not been a “public library” in the strictest sense, it holds true to be a Palace Archive that may have been open to the public like public records.<\/p>\n Distinguishing Features:<\/span>\u00a0The tablets constitute one of the oldest archives and library ever found and there is also tangible evidence of their arrangement and even classification. Furthermore,\u00a0there was such a\u00a0sophisticated techniques of arrangement of the texts, coupled with their composition, point to the great antiquity of archival and library practices, which may indeed be far older than was assumed to be the case before their discovery.\u00a0The Ebla Tablets have thus provided scholars with new insights into the origin of library practices that were in use 4,500 years ago.<\/p>\n Fate:<\/span> The library is thought to have perished in a fire, but it was in fact a great way to be destroyed!\u00a0 Many of the tablets had not previously been baked, but when all were preserved by the fire that destroyed the palace, their storage method served to fire them almost as thoroughly as if in a kiln.<\/p>\n 4.) Library of Alexandria<\/strong><\/p>\n The Great Library of Alexandria, O. Von Corven, 1st century. Courtesy of WikiCommons.<\/p><\/div>\n Where:<\/span> Alexandria, Egypt<\/p>\n When:<\/span>\u00a0It flourished as a major center of scholarship from its construction in the 3rd century B.C until the Roman conquest of Egypt in 30 B.C.<\/p>\n History:<\/span>\u00a0The library was created by Ptolemy I Soter, who was a Macedonian general and the successor of Alexander the Great.With collections of works, lecture halls, meeting rooms, and gardens, the library was part of a larger research institution called the Museum of Alexandria, where many of the most famous thinkers of the ancient world studied.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Collection Size:<\/span>\u00a0 At its height, the library was said to possess nearly half a million scrolls, and, although historians debate the precise number, the highest estimates claim 400,000 scrolls while the most conservative estimates are as low as 40,000, which is still an enormous collection that required vast storage space. This library, with the largest holdings of the age, acquired its collection by laborious copying of originals.<\/p>\n Courtesy of Makeameme.com<\/p><\/div>\n Suggested Dimensions:<\/span>\u00a0The exact layout is not known. Classical sources describe the Library of Alexandria as comprising a collection of scrolls, a peripatos walk, a room for shared dining, a reading room, meeting rooms, gardens, and lecture halls. It sounds amazing!The library also\u00a0is known to have had an acquisitions department and a cataloguing department.<\/p>\n Distinguishing Features:<\/span>\u00a0It was\u00a0one of the largest and most significant\u00a0libraries of the ancient world. It was dedicated to the Muses, who were the nine goddesses of the arts ( epic poetry, history, song, lyric poetry, tragedy, hymns, dance, comedy and astronomy). Fun fact:\u00a0Mark Antony supposedly gave Cleopatra over 200,000 scrolls for the library as a wedding gift, taken from the great Library of Pergamum.<\/p>\n Fate:<\/span>\u00a0The library is famous for having been burned, resulting in the loss of many scrolls and books, and has become a symbol of the destruction of cultural knowledge. A few sources differ on who is responsible for the destruction and when it occurred. Although there is a mythology of the<\/i> burning of the Library at Alexandria, the library may have suffered several fires or acts of destruction over many years. One of these fires is even credited to Julius Caesar.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>