The Final Remains of the GREAT LIBRARY of Alexandria | ATG Highlights

David and Natalie show you a satellite library of the Great Library at the Serapeum of Alexandria in Egypt, the last vestiges of the library, where the final remaining books were stored.
This in an excerpt from the Antiquities Travel Guide, Season 3, episode 12. For the full episode, click here: • In Search of the GREAT...
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[@robjanoffstudio]

Visited here in 2012 but had no idea of the tunnels underneath! Fascinating... Also visited the new library and saw the remaining papyrus fragment. Alexandria is such an incredible part of history. Thanks for the video 👍

[@J_LorraineK]

This question is silly, but I've never been out of the United States: Do you get goosebumps exploring sites like this? The idea that you're actually there must be overwhelming sometimes.

[@WorldofAntiquity]

Absolutely I do!

[@eliotanderson6554]

​@@WorldofAntiquitycan u make video on libraries burned in india Nalanda vikramshila udantapuri and 11 other ancient universities plus the ancient of all universities Takahashila

[@vaibhavbhatt7683]

@eliotanderson6554 @WorldofAntiquity It is believed that the great library of Nalanda burned for 3 months straight. It took 6 months for the red cinders to die out and 9 months for the smoke to settle down. Just imagine the amount of knowledge that was turned to ash 😳.

[@LoudWaffle]

@Eliotanderson @vaibhavbhatt just like Alexandria, most of the stories of Nalanda’s destruction are almost certainly fiction. We know it was once a great Buddhist institute of learning, we know it was attacked by a Mamluk general around 1200 (not why or what state the library was in beforehand), and that there are at least some marks of fire damage on the ruins excavated today. Everything else seems to be popular myth without actual sources, such as a fire (very implausibly) burning for that long, or it being destroyed thrice and rebuilt twice, or the supposed extent of knowledge and manyscripts lost (same reason it’s implausible for Alexandria).

[@marlonjones7192]

Goosebumps and much more. You are so right.

[@Kinetic-Energy117]

Carl Sagan in the 'Cosmos' took cameras to the remains of the Alexandria Library in the 80's. Over 50 years ago. This follow up report by Dr. Miano, is extra credits, a sort of bonus for me. Thnx Doc!

[@petertaysum8947]

2;24 Whether by accident or design, I really like there's no musical soundtrack, just great pictures of these stunning monuments. Thanks for the walk-about.

[@NewNecro]

I wonder if the underground section looked as closely like it does now as when it was originally used. It seems like a natural formation carved out but also feel like it has been vandalized or perhaps eroded throughout centuries so I like to think it'd have been decorated (with perishable materials like wood maybe) but I have no idea.

[@JohnVance]

The column is way the fuck bigger than I was expecting until you stood next to it

[@Incorruptus1]

OMG this is amazing. Without you Doc, I would never ever be able to visit all places I long to wander through. Thank you so much! But neahhhh "..the Romans weren't able to erect megalithic structures.." ;););) Great work Doc, thank you very much!

[@kdeuler]

Thx for this vid. I'd love to see a modern day demonstration of how to erect a stone pillar like this one using only the tools that would have been available to the ancients.

[@heisag]

They had a few methods. One of them, sand, is demonstrated in a video called Raising an Obelisk. Not saying they used the sand method on that pillar though. I think youtube ate my previous comment with a link to the video. If it didn't, i apologize for double posting.

[@LoudWaffle]

People have done so. Ropes, pulleys, and levers. All simple, all tremendously effective at manipulating weight to go where we want it to.

[@fennynough6962]

Standing up of a Massive pillar is on thing, yet to have carved this Rose Granite Masterpiece from an Aswan Quarry, transported over land, & Sea for 100's of miles; was a thing neither Roman no Egyptian could even attempt to do. Underground Megatropolis carved into Bedrook, by Egyptians, Greeks, or Christians to Catacomb their dead! Lol 😂

[@psychette8846]

Very cool. I can finally return those scrolls my ancient ancestors borrowed from the Library. They detail the history of the first kingdom of Atlantis and how to levitate 500 ton blocks of granite with a recorder.

[@schreckpmc]

Pretty interesting.

[@matthewludivico1714]

Great videography. The sphinxes were erected at the same time as the column?

[@gdycbjrirckwwqxc]

Pls make a video on dasrajna battle mentioned in the rigveda

[@Apollo1011]

Is this where Carl Sagan visited when talking about the library in Cosmos?

[@StudioPluche]

Yes.

[@poneill65]

@01:46 "It's 27m high and 9m in diameter" Even to my eyes (My legs are grey. My ears are gnarled. My eyes are old and bent!), that's poppycock! Perhaps you meant circumference. Still it's impressive, even tho it's not; sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health

[@WorldofAntiquity]

Yeah, I meant circumference. Came out wrong.

[@poneill65]

@@WorldofAntiquity No problem, an easy mistake to make,... Circumference is the prefered measure of giant erections

[@WorldofAntiquity]

@@JamesSmith-ui1iu It can't be.

[@WorldofAntiquity]

@@JamesSmith-ui1iu Oh, 9 FEET. Yes, that makes more sense.

[@brewswillas6635]

If you look in the background, you can see a vendor selling ocelot spleens and wolf nipple chips.

[@jeffmccloud905]

love your channel! have you done the "why do Egyptian status have broken noses?" topic yet?

[@Rynewulf]

I think he has, he has a good backlog. I believe its because pointy noses stick out and are fragile

[@salinagrrrl69]

Have you ever reviewed the Osirian? Megalithics like to lost tech all about it. It is weird. When I first saw it it was submerged.

[@Catdad76801]

Carl Sagan did a 'Cosmos' episode on this.

[@JoshJones-37334]

There’s a chapter in Demon Haunted Moon about it too.

[@PRH123]

Would underground be the best environment for storing a scroll...?

[@jlworrad]

What stopped them inventing books? Were they just accustomed to scrolls or was there some technical reason?

[@karldubhe8619]

Custom and tradition is my bet.

[@varyolla435]

"Paper" appears to have been invented in China and did not come to be seen in western nations until Christianity was well in sway across Europe and the Near East. That was long after the destruction of the Library of course. Even with the advent of paper rather than writing on papyrus or animal skin mediums like vellum the invention of the printing press to create your "books" in a modern sense would not happen until the Middle Ages. With the invention of the press - and more people educated so as to be able to read - saw books become more widely available. Prior to that books were hand made and hence expensive such that only wealthy individuals and the Church usually had them.

[@Oriol-oo7jl]

Well a clear advantage of scrolls over books is that they make an optim toilet reading, since you can hang the scroll on the toilet paper hanger Sorry i was kidding. My serious comment is that i can imagine the impact books caused ever scrolls to be similar to when we discovered the electronic books. It's superior than books in many ways (yet i still prefer physical books or even a cool old scroll)

[@comentedonakeyboard]

Allways make a safety copy

[@kwalish]

How do you prevent a famine by suppressing an uprising?

[@WorldofAntiquity]

The protestors were holding the grain and preventing it from being distributed.

[@Oriol-oo7jl]

@@WorldofAntiquity Thanks for the explanation. Actually i was also asking myself how could that be or what your words could mean (one radical hypotethic answer was that if you kill half your population, then your famine problem is halved lol)

[@danorris5235]

Why do so many people doubt the existence of the library itself while offering zero explanation as to why they think that?

[@ShaktiChaturvedi]

Thanks for this ! Currently playing AC Origins and its hard to believe we lost both the library and lighthouse. I plan to visit Alexandria one day 😃

[@TankUni]

I'm afraid I'm going to need to see Alexander the Great's library card before I can believe all this!

[@neoclassic09]

Are you pronouncing the Serappeum correctly? With two Ps I feel like it would be a little different

[@WorldofAntiquity]

Only one p.

[@faithlesshound5621]

*serapeum

[@SMF314]

Same question - I’ve heard it pronounced: Sair’ uh PAY’ um. (“Sair” rhyming with “air”) Are both accepted?

[@SMF314]

Great video - but what a loss. If it once contained histories by some ancient Egyptian “Herodotus”, it would dramatically extend our knowledge of the dawn of civilization.

[@SMF314]

Never mind - some online checking turned up three or four different “correct” pronunciations. 😊 so at this point, it’s essentially personal preference.

[@Liquidsback]

But what of Pergamon?

[@itsnot_stupid_ifitworks]

What...no Idaho?

[@Carlton-B]

Since he is currently doing videos of Anatolia, I wouldn't be surprised if shows that soon.

[@johnbigboote8900]

This library has a more varied history than Swamp Castle.

[@EuroWarsOrg]

That column is the same size as a Falcon 9 rocket from SpaceX. lol

[@LoudWaffle]

The amount of comments bemoaning the myth of the library’s massive destruction are shocking, especially because you’ve done a video debunking the topic, and even in this very video mention that the library’s downfall was likely long and gradual! I think people listen with one ear closed sometimes…

[@zoookx]

Both ears

[@Oriol-oo7jl]

Right. But the myth is so dreamy... I mean it have it all: Human stupidity, great loss, mystery of lost knowledge (ALWAYS superior to ours, ofc)... The reality is always more boring and dull (well, it's not, but you know what i mean)

[@russell2952]

It's not 9m in diameter if it's only 27m tall.

[@WorldofAntiquity]

Whoops, circumference.

[@newman653]

9m in diameter ? or do you mean circumference !.

[@varyolla435]

*LIbrary:* _a building or room containing collections of books etc......."_ A lot of nonsense has formed over the years around the destruction of the Library and what that supposedly meant as far as claims of "lost knowledge" - which of course supposedly means lost civilizations of alleged advanced understanding. This however is stereotypical argumentum ad ignorantiam folks. So remember above when you hear this twaddle. The Library was not the source of the information it contained as much as = merely a repository of knowledge which originated elsewhere. The Ptolemies would buy books + copy books from others + sometimes be claimed to steal books + and as the video speaks to books would be added from other libraries such as what Marc Anthony did. This means that the destruction of a library - while tragic - would not necessarily means an erasure of claimed knowledge as what it contains came from elsewhere. Being in a library certainly would make accessing said knowledge easier it being in a central location. Ultimately however what the library contained = existed elsewhere - albeit the information would be dispersed. Moral of the story: the internet you now use contains a wealth of knowledge about human civilization. If the internet went down however the information it contains still exists because = we put it there..... It will simply be spread out again is all. Remember that when folks try to "extrapolate" fantastical assertions about supposed "lost" knowledge etc.. Yes sometimes knowledge can be lost. In actual practice however a lot of it remains in various forms spread out among the civilizations in question. Central repositories simply make accessing it easier it all. Enjoy your day folks.

[@LoudWaffle]

Book worms have annihilated more ancient knowledge than any supposed destructions of entire libraries 😆

[@Oriol-oo7jl]

VERY well said ! Time ago i was also worried about all the knowledge that may have been lost over time, but nowadays i think more of a kind of Natural Selection of the ideas or something, meaning that if knowledge is useful it will pass by to next generations one way or another, or it will be discovered again in time (or maybe not, sadly)

[@ATtravel666]

There is no way the ancients could have moved something the size of "Pompey's column". The only way that could have been done was by aliens. Do your own research!!! Ignore what "main stream" historians conspire to tell you. Sarcasm alert. The proper comment - Visiting historical sites has always left me with a sense of awe at what our ancestors could achieve and how all of the great works can be reduced to almost nothing over time. Yet, the traces give us a light to illuminate the greatness of the past.

[@ProjectPaladin]

So, what you're saying is that the pillars were errect by aliens, right?

[@Pados_music]

Wrong. Just because you have no idea about architecture of the ancient times, doesn't mean people were idiots.

[@WorldofAntiquity]

I think he was kidding, Pados.

[@Pados_music]

@@WorldofAntiquity Hard to say sometimes, probably he was kidding.

[@ProjectPaladin]

@WorldofAntiquity Oh, kidding, am I now? Well, yes, of course. Poe's Law in action once again. That being said, thank you for your service, sir. Your work is very much appreciated.

[@methylmike]

so its not fake

[@CatfishWilly17]

I've known a lot of Christians throughout life, I doubt they know Christians left little chance for other religions to survive, kinda why it's so popular today

[@varyolla435]

_"Pavlovian conditioning"_ is behind the ubiquity of religions in human culture. Think about how people typically come to embrace religious belief. Answer: as children they are most often pushed into religion by their parents - who in turn were pushed into it by the grandparents....... = and round and round the hamster wheel goes with each passing generation. Hence children who lack the cognitive capacity for "critical thinking" + who instinctively trust adults around them - as a likely survival mechanism stemming from evolution = assume as true what they are told to carry that forward. Then via a culture replete with religious references they per "confirmation bias" validate what are conditioned beliefs over the course of their lives. Moral of the story: Neurobiology 101 = our brains form memory engrams most easily owing to _"repetition."_ This is why as an example children in school are taught via rote. It is also coincidentally behind _"brainwashing"_ if misused. Yet the longer a person believes a thing to be true - even outright lies = the "more real" the belief can become in their minds. In the case of beliefs which act to give the individual "comfort" those tend to be more aggressively pursued - not unlike how things which give us pleasure can become addictive as our brains are hardwired to embrace such. So religions which are premised upon "proselytizing" - be it accomplished willingly or forcibly - set up the paradigm above. A particular religious belief such as Christianity via _"groupthink"_ mercilessly stamps out all "competitors" to establish itself in a population = and Pavlovian conditioning takes it from there going forward....

[@recursr1892]

What kind of knowledge was stored in this library? What was it famous for? Nice teaser, welcome more context. May be religious text as the christians went after it ?

[@jps101574]

Knowledge is the biggest threat to organized religion today and obviously it was the same back then.

[@mrdotkg]

The Hindu way of living encourages debates and questioning to find one's own truth. All of hindu text are conversation and debates between intellectuals.

[@jps101574]

@@mrdotkg I should have probably specified the Abrahamic religions.

[@ostsan8598]

Nope, you're wrong.

[@vaibhavbhatt7683]

The great library of Nalanda was destroyed by Persian invaders specially Bakhtiyar Khilji. It burned for 3 months straight and took 6 months for the cinders to die down and 9 months for the smoke to settle. So yeah, Abrahamic religions have a bad history to their name.

[@varyolla435]

If by "knowledge" you mean "education" = absolutely....... Religions as a rule represented belief paradigms created around central figures which served to unite groups of people under a central tenet so as to control them. It was further used to try to explain what could not otherwise be explained at the time and it's "lure" was promising believers "something better" down the line in exchange for acquiescing to the belief. Naturally this meant religious beliefs primarily appealed = to the lower rungs of the socioeconomic spectrum. If you remove "want" in the form of improving the lives of people + you improve their ability to think for themselves via educating them = the attraction of religious belief wanes for most.

[@carlosdiaz2688]

How come the lost civilization People never talk about it Shows the ancient were Smart like us .

[@LoudWaffle]

??

[@user-ll7eb9yd5d]

Conviniently "forgot" the real ending aka Omar the Conqueror and the muslim conquest.

[@carlosaugustodinizgarcia3526]

The real ending was the fourth crusade.The imperial library of Constantinople preserved a lot of ancient works from antiquity. All lost by the french and venetians crusaders who also destroyed inumerous statues from classical Greece.

[@shaunroscoe5617]

Rome ordered the destruction of the library money's on Constantine the 2nd

[@ThePeaceableKingdom]

Yes, but you left off the ending. First Caesar, then the Christians, and finally Omar the Conqueror...

[@harrykouwen1426]

I'm sure you can find a sponsor to profide you on your travels with a good light portable flashlight that has a 180 degrees sphere light bright enough for your viewers to see what you're filming....

[@daliborbobr6331]

all that knowledge that the ancient aliens gave to humanity was lost in that library 🙂

[@thhseeking]

And all of the buildings they erected, like Notre Dame de Paris, Chartres, Rouen, Salisbury, Westminster, the Parthenon...the evidence is there! Just ask the "History" channel 🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@carlosdiaz2688]

What a Column.. Jesus Freaking Christ

[@UberGringo]

"But then the Christians showed up"....

[@carlosdiaz2688]

I Bet it’s intact somewhere We need to find it.. Not Lost not burned .. Just hidden then lost We need to use the space age Science instruments that we have Not pointed at the Stars but The earth .. The laser tech Had already changed the books All that stuff is hidden Where is the Egyptians library ?