A greatness reborn

Humanist, Sept-Oct, 2004 by Brian Trent

It's 2,000 years ago, and a visitor to Egypt is lost. He was visiting the city of Alexandria, a teeming metropolis set in the green, wet Nile Delta overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. Now he's stumbling through a maze of dark corridors inside the city's library with an oil lantern as his only guide. The walls are honeycombed with deep slots that hold books and scrolls; he glances at their titles only to move on, searching for a good treatise on mathematics. Before he can shout for a staff member to rescue him, he turns his light onto the aisle corner and finds what he's seeking. On the wooden panel above one slot, Greek lettering is meticulously carved reading Elements of Geometry by Euclid.

Founded in 323 BCE, the Great Library of Alexandria was the world's premier study center, an antediluvian Internet, a repository for every book in the Western world, and a laboratory for creative minds to debate politics or test the latest inventions. Then, after standing for seven centuries, it fell victim to two hideous episodes of intolerance that erased it from the world map.

Flash forward to June 2003 CE. An international conference on science and mathematics education is held in Alexandria, in the conference room of a new Great Library. Experts from the global community arrive to discuss the necessity for scientific education in developing countries.

Is this a miracle of rebirth? A renaissance, occurring in the fractured, largely theocratic Middle East?

Or is it all a charming delusion?

On October 16, 2002, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak announced a veritable re-creation of the fabled Great Library of yesteryear or, more accurately, a modern incarnation, called the Bibliotheca Alexandrina. "Egypt has exerted all efforts to make the new Bibliotheca Alexandrina a civilized message in its roots, mode, content, and international in its role and research," Mubarak said at the unveiling ceremony. An unexpected sentiment, it seems, given the prevailing history of his nation.

As the old library was the crowning intellectual jewel of the Ptolemaic and Roman Empires, attracting visitors from around the ancient world, so has the Bibliotheca Alexandrina had a prodigious start. At the unveiling ceremony held in the building's Great Reading Hall, representatives from several Middle Eastern and European nations were present: Queen Rania of Jordan, French President Jacques Chirac, Queen Sofia of Spain, and Greek President Costis Stephanopoulos. Even China has expressed an interest in contributing to the new library; earlier this year, Chinese Deputy Foreign Minister Yang Wen Chang spoke with the library's board of directors about his country's desire to showcase Eastern civilization's achievements in one of the halls. And in keeping with the promise of multicultural dialogues, it should be noted that international contributions to the Bibliotheca Alexandrina's construction were reported to be $100 million, roughly half of the total cost.

At the unveiling ceremony, President Mubarak made a symbolic toast to the success of this bold endeavor. Will it last?

The Ancient Library

In 332 BCE the young Macedonian King Alexander the Great arrived in Egypt. For ten years, the country had been occupied by Persia, the world's reigning military heavyweight at that time. The Persians hadn't been magnanimous overlords. Under their rule, Egyptian males were massacred and homes and temples plundered. The arrival of Alexander changed all that. He was already a superstar of antiquity, having led his peerless army into an unbroken string of victories across Asia Minor, when he decided to turn west and free Egypt. The Persians, who had already lost territories to Alexander, fled to Mesopotamia to regroup. Alexander chose to winter in the liberated Egyptian nation; there, his weary troops could recover from months of incessant battle and the young conqueror could enjoy the praise of the natives and be received as their savior. Before he left them for adventures further east, the Egyptians presented him with the crook and flail of pharaoh and hailed him as a god on earth.

While in Egypt, Alexander toured the entire country along the snaking length of the Nile, but when he reached the green delta where the river emptied into the Mediterranean, he decided the nation needed a new metropolis. While attendants followed at his heels, Alexander paced out the length of his new city and sprinkled fistfuls of grain to draw its shape. As he was completing the vast outline, he glanced back and had a dreadful surprise. Birds had descended on the grain-trail, devouring their fall. Fearful of what he felt was an ill omen, the conqueror was quickly reassured by his soothsayers: "It is a good sign. Your city will feed many mouths."

And many minds. True to the soothsayers' words, the city named Alexandria soon flourished and, by the time the Romans conquered Egypt in 30 BCE it was known as the breadbasket of the world. Yet its most notable feature wasn't its grain stores but its library.