Libraries were rare in ancient times. After all, most people couldn't even read. If by chance they were trained to do this, then it was difficult to find the written word, because they were usually carved on hard tablets or painstakingly copied onto papyrus (this had to be done every few years, because the ink faded and mistakes were made in the writing process). Therefore, the presence of a library (or archive) was important matter. This indicated that the city was cultured and educated. However, apart from the famous Library of Alexandria, most of us will not be able to name any other ancient library. Today we are going to change that. Check out 25 Incredible Ancient Libraries You Should Know About.
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25. The Library Of Alexandria was one of the wonders ancient world, and it was brutally destroyed by a fire that broke out around 48 BC. e. (no one knows for sure) when Julius Caesar himself set fire to the harbor in hopes of defeating an invading army. There is nothing in this story that is not tragic and sad.
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24. Bodleian Library - Home scientific Library Oxford University(University of Oxford) in England. It was founded in 1602 when Thomas Bodley donated money and part of his own collection to replace books and documents that were destroyed in another of many upheavals. The Bodleian Library currently holds approximately 11 million volumes, not including online publications and journals, and is regularly used by students and scholars.
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23. The Library at Timgad was a gift to the Roman people from Julius Quintianus Flavius Rogatianus. Nobody knows exactly when it was built, and its architecture is rather boring - it has rectangular shape. It is estimated that there were about 3,000 scrolls in the library, but what is important is that this library showed that the Roman city had a developed library system, which indicates high level learning and culture.
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22. In the ruins of a temple in the ancient Babylonian city of Nippur, several rooms were found with clay tablets inside, which indicated that the Nippur temple had a well-stocked library dating back to the first half of the 3rd millennium BC.
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21. The Qing Dynasty lasted from 221 to 207 BC. e., but its influence on the region was lasting. After all, that's where the name "China" came from. For much of that time, the government has been very careful with the library as it has been trying to control access to information (these people wouldn't have survived in the age of the internet). All books that the government did not like were burned, as were some scholars. Despite the overbearing and cruel government, which burned everything they considered unnecessary, many people walled up books in the walls of their houses to save them. The purpose of the government was not to destroy information, but to control it, and for this purpose a new writing system was created, but ordinary people reading was encouraged. This alone has been a unifying fact in China for centuries.
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20. Library on the Greek island of Kos (Kos) - good example early provincial library. During the Ptolemaic dynasty, Kos became a center of learning and science. Hippocrates - the great physician - came from Kos and he probably studied here.
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19. Temple of Edfu (Edfu) in Ancient Egypt, consecrated to God Horus, looking like a falcon, was located on the west bank of the Nile at Edfu, in upper Egypt. Next to the yard was small room, built between 237 and 57 BC. BC, which contained papyrus scrolls, and the inscriptions on the walls speak of "many chests of books and large leather rolls" - this means that the temple had its own library of bound books. Quite rare for that time.
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18. The Academy of Gondishapur in the ancient Iraqi city of Gondishapur was the intellectual center of the Sassanid empire, and it is believed that not only theology, natural sciences, mathematics and philosophy, but also medicine were taught here. Gondishapur also had a hospital, which in the 6th and 7th centuries was perhaps the world's most important medical center.
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17. In ancient times, Baghdad in Iraq was the center of knowledge and culture, and here was perhaps the most famous library - the House of Wisdom, founded in the ninth century. Some of the earliest and most famous scientists and mathematicians of the Middle East frequented him. The House of Wisdom was destroyed in 1258, because of... the Mongols.
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16. The Kingdom of Ebla was one of the first known Syrian Kingdoms. It began as a small settlement that arose in the Bronze Age, and then it was built and destroyed several times over the following centuries, before finally being destroyed in 1600 BC. The Library at Ebla was found to contain over 1,800 clay tablets and many more tablet fragments. It is not clear if this was a public library or the royal personal library, but it remains the oldest library - its tablets are about 4,500 years old.
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15. Theological Library Of Caesarea Maritima. Once in Caesarea, located between Haifa and Tel Aviv on the Mediterranean coast in northern Israel, there was the Theological Library of Caesarea, which was part of the Christian Academy (Christian Academy) of the city. The academy and library were the center of Christian and Jewish education and the source of texts, and also contained Greek literature, both historical and philosophical. The library supposedly had over 30,000 manuscripts. It was destroyed by the Arabs in the 7th century.
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14. Constantinople was the heart of a glorious Byzantine Empire before being brutally taken over by the Ottomans in 1423 (some of us still can't get over it). But before they could get to it, the Imperial Library of Constantinople, including the Scriptorium, which transcribed and transcribed ancient papyri, was destroyed by the fourth crusade, in the 1200s (we also cannot with this leave Constantinople alone!).
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13. The Library Of Pergamum was founded around 170 BC. e., during the reign of King Eumenes II (Eumenes II), in a place that is now known as Bergama (Bergama) in Turkey. Some historians believe that the library may have been built to compete with the Library of Alexandria. It was said to hold over 200,000 volumes, it had a large main reading room with shelves, and like the other libraries on this list, there was space between the outer and inner walls to protect precious writing from moisture and temperature fluctuations.
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12. The Temple of Apollo Palatinus in ancient Rome had its own library. In accordance with the classical tradition, Greek and Latin works were kept separately, and the library itself was large enough to hold meetings of the Senate. The librarian was an educated former slave - Gaius Julius Hyginus (C. Iulius Hyginus).
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11. Perhaps one of the most famous libraries in the ancient world, the Ulpia Library (Bibliothea Ulpia) was one of the most famous Roman libraries, it survived until the second half of the fifth century AD. We know it lasted this long from the writings of Venantius Fortunatus dated 576 AD.
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10. In 1303 (already during the Middle Ages), after the death of Pope Boniface VIII (Pope Boniface VIII), the Papal Library was moved to Avignon, France, where it became the basis for the famous Vatican Library, which in currently housed in the Vatican, it holds over 1 million printed books and about 75,000 manuscripts (and presumably secret archives).
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9. Aristotle's library was a private collection and very little is known about it. A first-century geographer named Strabo wrote of her: "The first man, as far as I know, collected books and taught the kings in Egypt how to organize a library." Some believe that the collection of Aristotle became the basis of the Great Library of Alexandria.
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8. In 1200 BC ancient city, located on the territory of modern Syria, Ugarit (Ugarit), boasted not one, but five libraries. Two of them were private, which is even more impressive. Most of the collections were large clay tablets, and their contents, written in at least seven different characters, covered many fields (including fiction).
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7. Timbuktu is located in Mali (Mali) in West Africa, and in the times of the Ancient World and the Middle Ages it was a famous intellectual center, which was full of libraries, as well as famous University(this was before you could go online, so having a University was a big indicator). More than 700,000 manuscripts from these libraries have been rediscovered, and they deal mainly with Islam and Islamic subjects.
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6. The University of Taxila was located in ancient India, in a place known as the country of Gandhar (now Pakistan). Founded around 600 BC BC, it offered education in 68 subjects, and at one point over 10,000 students from all over the ancient world studied here, and the university library was very highly regarded. The site of the University of Taxila is now a protected area where archaeological work is being carried out.
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5. Nalanda University in Bahir, India, from about 400 AD was one of the most important intellectual centers in the ancient world, and its library was called "Dharmaganja (Treasury of Truth)". It had nine floors, and the monks copied manuscripts non-stop so that pundits would have their own copies—an unheard-of luxury in the ancient world. Turkish invaders burned down the university in 1193.
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4. The Celsus Library in Ephesus was one of the largest libraries in the ancient world, containing about 12,000 handwritten books. There were many outer walls designed to protect the precious books from moisture and temperature fluctuations, but unfortunately the library was destroyed by fire in the third century AD, although parts of the surviving front wall were rebuilt in the fourth century.
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3. Named after the last Great King of the New Assyrian Kingdom and its founder, the Royal Library of Ashurbanipal was built around 650 BC. e. King Ashurbanipal was passionately fascinated by the written, or rather carved word, so in 1849 more than 30,000 cuneiform tablets and their fragments were recovered from the ruins of the library. Now they are safe in the British Museum (British Museum). This library and its (re)discovery was very important to study ancient history Middle East.
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2. The Villa of the Papyri is located in Herculaneum, Italy. It is one of the few classical libraries still surviving today. It was discovered by archaeologists in 1752 and contained more than 700 charred scrolls. It is assumed that the estate, of which the library is part, belonged to Julius Caesar's father-in-law, Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caaesoninus.
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1. The Al-Qarawiyyin Library in Fez, Morocco is possibly the oldest library in the world. In 2016, it was restored and opened to the public. The library first opened in 859 (no, we didn't miss the number, there are only 3 of them), but was closed to the public for a very long time. The architect in charge of the restoration project, Aziza Chaouni, herself a Moroccan native, ensured that the newly restored library reopened its doors to the public.
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What world libraries of the past and present can be attributed to the largest treasuries of human thought? For the entire time of the existence of our civilization, there were not so many of them - and the most famous of them have sunk into oblivion.
THE BEGINNING OF TIME
The most ancient libraries are called the storage of clay tablets of the Assyro-Babylonian civilization. They are over four and a half thousand years old. The first repository of papyrus books appeared only 12 centuries later. They became the library of Ancient Egypt, founded during the reign of Pharaoh Ramses II. Another no less famous "ancient book depository is associated with the name of Alexander the Great. The emperor founded a city in the Nile Delta and named it after himself.
Later, a library was built there, which was called Alexandria. It was headed by the largest scientists: Eratosthenes, Zenodotus, Aristarchus of Samos, Callimachus, and others. By the way, it was under Callimachus that for the first time in history a catalog of existing manuscripts was created in it, later regularly replenished. Thanks to this, it became the first prototype of the modern library familiar to us. By various estimates it contained from 100 to 700 thousand volumes.
In addition to the works of ancient Greek literature and science, which formed its basis, there were books in oriental languages. Many of them have been translated into Greek. Thus, interpenetration and mutual enrichment of cultures took place. The library was visited by ancient Greek mathematicians and philosophers, in particular Euclid and Eratosthenes.
In those days, it overshadowed even one of the recognized wonders of the world - the Pharos lighthouse, located in the same place, in Alexandria. Unfortunately, the library has not survived. Some died in a fire as early as 48 BC, during the capture of the city by Julius Caesar. It was finally destroyed in 646 AD, during the time of the Arab caliph Omar the victorious, who captured Egypt. It is he who is credited with the words: "If these books repeat the Koran, then they are not needed, if not, then they are harmful."
However, there is an encouraging version that the funds of the Library of Alexandria were not destroyed, but the Arabs took possession of them as winners. It is no coincidence that at present UNESCO has developed a plan for the restoration of the Library of Alexandria, first of all, the period of Antiquity and early Christianity. For this, the collection and copying of surviving manuscripts from neighboring countries will be carried out.
WHO CREATED THE IVAN THE TERRIBLE LIBRARY?
The disappeared library of Ivan IV the Terrible, also known as "Liberia" (from the Latin liber - "book"), still haunts historians, researchers of antiquity and all sorts of adventurers. For several centuries, it has been the source of numerous rumors and speculations. It is also interesting that although a collection of rare books is named after Ivan the Terrible, it came to Moscow long before the birth of the tsar. On the contrary, under Grozny, the priceless treasure was lost, and perhaps forever.
Before entering Russia, the Byzantine emperor Constantine XI was the owner of the book collection. After the capture of Constantinople by the Turks, the emperor fled to Rome with his niece, Princess Sophia Paleologus. At the same time, the main part of the library, which included folios in ancient Greek, Latin and Hebrew, was taken there on a ship. The library, which had been collected bit by bit for millennia, arrived in Moscow as a dowry of Sophia, who was married to the Grand Duke of Moscow Ivan III (grandfather of Ivan the Terrible).
In addition to books related to spiritual and church topics, scientific treatises and poems of the ancient classics occupied a significant place in it. Liberia was rumored to contain books on magic and sorcery practices. Priceless tomes, which told about the history of human civilization and the origin of life on Earth, stood apart.
Many researchers believe that the basis of the main book collection Ancient Russia became just part of the lost Alexandria Library. Sources report that even under the Grand Duke of Moscow Vasily III - the son of Ivan III and Sophia Paleolog and the future father of Ivan the Terrible - all manuscripts were translated into Russian.
The same sources indicate that this was done by the learned Athonite monk Maxim the Greek (1470-1556), a well-known publicist and translator of that time. He was discharged from Constantinople with a specific goal: to translate books from languages unknown in Russia into Church Slavonic, which he did long years. And so that he could not tell anyone about what he had seen, he was never released from Russia again.
Later, the royal library was constantly replenished by Ivan the Terrible - he personally bought books brought from all over the world. There is a hypothesis that the tsar was able to get the legendary book collection of Yaroslav the Wise, which was kept for several centuries in the dungeons of St. Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv.
However, some experts express doubts about the scientific value of the lost library of Ivan the Terrible. So, academician D.S. Likhachev, one of the world's largest experts in Ancient Russia, believed that its significance was greatly exaggerated, since "a significant part of this collection was church books that Sophia Paleolog brought to Russia from Byzantium to pray in her own mother tongue". The academician also believed that it would be more important for us to save the book treasures that are perishing today.
850 KILOMETERS OF SHELVES
One of the most famous libraries of our time is the Library of Congress in Washington DC. Its dimensions are really grandiose: the total length bookshelves is 850 km! They (as of 2003) contain over 130 million items of storage (books, manuscripts, newspapers, maps, photographs, sound recordings and microfilms). The annual growth of the fund is from 1 to 3 million units.
This library is the largest in the world in the history of mankind. The birth of the book depository is attributed to January 24, 1800, when, at the initiative of US President John Adams, Congress allocated 5,000 dollars to complete it. It is noteworthy that the library's Russian fund contains over 200 thousand books and more than 10 thousand different magazines. A huge number of Russian printed publications for the period from 1708 to 1800 are stored here, as well as many works of Russian fiction of the 19th century.
The famous library of the Krasnoyarsk merchant GV Yudin is also located there. It includes books on history, ethnography, archeology, handwritten texts on the exploration of Siberia, all of Pushkin's lifetime editions, and even a complete collection of Russian journals of the 18th century! The merchant sold his unique book and magazine collection to the Library of Congress in 1907.
FIFTH IN THE WORLD
Today, UNESCO considers major libraries with funds exceeding 14 million items. This condition corresponds to 24 book depositories of the world. In this honorary list, Russia is represented by six book temples - three such libraries are located in Moscow, two in St. Petersburg and one in Novosibirsk.
The basis of the largest Russian State Library in the country was laid by the famous private collection of the State Chancellor, Count N. P. Rumyantsev. By decree of Nicholas I of March 23, 1828, with the library included in it, it came under the jurisdiction of the state. In 1831, it was opened as a public institution in St. Petersburg. And after 30 years, the museum was moved from St. Petersburg to Moscow and began to work in accordance with the "Regulations on the Moscow Public Museum and the Rumyantsev Museum" approved by Alexander II.
STORAGE OF MYSTERIOUS KNOWLEDGE
Of great interest is the world's oldest Vatican Apostolic Library. It was founded in the 15th century by Pope Nicholas V. Today, its holdings include about 1,600,000 printed books, 150,000 manuscripts, 8,300 incunabula, more than 100,000 engravings and geographical maps, 300,000 coins and medals. The Vatican Library also houses the richest collection of Renaissance manuscripts.
It is not without reason considered a repository secret knowledge humanity. There are rooms in the library where neither journalists, nor historians, nor specialists in other sciences are allowed, although a huge number of ancient and medieval manuscripts makes it the most attractive to historians of all time.
Alexander VOROBYEV
Babylonia became the successor of the Sumerian culture, and then Assyria. For many centuries, Assyrian rulers waged successful wars with neighboring states. At the beginning of the 7th century BC. e. they subjugated Babylonia, part of Asia Minor and even Egypt. A well-trained Assyrian army played a big role in the conquest of new lands: the famous Assyrian chariots, cavalry and infantry.
Ancient Nineveh, founded in the 5th millennium BC, became the capital of a powerful state. e. The residence of the Assyrian rulers was different large quantity palaces. Built on hills, surrounded by high walls, they struck with luxurious finishes. Numerous sculptures, gold and marble surrounded their owners. At the entrance to the palaces there were statues of winged bulls with human heads, which were supposed to protect them from evil deities.
One of the last Assyrian rulers was Ashurbanipal (668 - 626 BC), a highly educated king for his time - literate, able to read and write. His father, the Assyrian king Esarhaddon (680 - 669 BC), according to some researchers, originally wanted to make a high priest out of his son. And the priests were highly educated people for their time - they had to be able to read cuneiform and know the sacred texts.
Ashurbanipal did not become a priest, but his love of reading remained with him for the rest of his life. On two of the tablets subsequently found by archaeologists, it was written in his hand that he knew the languages and scribal art of all masters of writing, attended meetings of scribes, decided challenging tasks with multiplication and division. It is not surprising that it was this ruler who, two and a half thousand years ago, collected in his palace in Nineveh the richest library of tens of thousands of cuneiform tablets.
In the 7th century BC e. Ashurbanipal subjugated a vast territory to his power. By his personal command, throughout the forty years of his reign, many experienced scribes who knew several languages traveled throughout the Assyrian state. They searched for ancient books in the libraries and temples of Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Akkad, Lars and, if it was impossible to take the originals, made copies of them.
On most of the copies, marks have been preserved confirming its accuracy: “According to the ancient original, written off and verified.” If the original from which the copy was made was erased from time to time or was illegibly written, then the scribes marked: “Erased” or “I don’t know”. The scribe had to replace the obsolete signs on the ancient texts with modern ones, it was allowed to shorten a very long text. “... Look for rare tablets stored in the local archives,” the king’s order read, “of which we do not have copies in Assyria, and bring them to me ... No one dares to refuse to give you the tablets ...”
In a fairly short period of time, Ashurbanipal managed to collect one of the first libraries in the world, distinguished not only by its size, but also by the completeness of its funds, and which even today is one of the best treasuries known to mankind. In her fund, she had tens of thousands of cuneiform tablets not only about the ancient states of Assyria and Babylon, but also about all branches of knowledge known at that time. There was literature on geography and history, grammar and law, mathematics and astronomy, medicine and natural science, religious and theological literature was well represented in the funds: collections of witchcraft spells against evil spirits, diseases, evil eye and damage; penitential psalms and confessional questionnaires.
The royal library, as evidenced by the entry on one of the tablets, was most likely open for wide use, and was kept in exemplary order. There were inventory records and a catalog, systematization of funds was carried out. The name of the work, the room and the shelf where it was stored were indicated on the tile, the number of lines in the tablet was noted.
If the work did not fit on one plate, then the last line of the previous entry was repeated on the next. At the bottom were the opening words of the piece itself. Tablets that belonged to one work were kept together, in a separate wooden box or clay chest, and placed on special shelves in a systematic manner. A label with the name of the branch of knowledge was attached to the shelf.
During excavations, scientists found copies of the first cuneiform textbooks, compiled in the 18th century BC. e., various dictionaries, including Sumero-Akkadian. In fragments, the “Textbook for Prince Ashurbanipal” was preserved - a bilingual educational dictionary. The Babylonian book of Genesis, the epic of Gilgamesh with the legend of the flood, various legends and myths were found.
The total number of tablets found by scientists was about 20 thousand. The bulk of these unique clay books is stored in the British Museum (London).
It was compiled for 25 years in the Assyrian capital of Nineveh by order of King Ashurbanipal (VII century BC). It also served as a state archive.
After the death of the king, the funds were scattered among various palaces. The part of the library discovered by archaeologists consists of 25,000 clay tablets with cuneiform texts. The opening of the library in the middle of the 19th century was of great importance for understanding the cultures of Mesopotamia and for deciphering cuneiform writing. 
Ashurbanipal intended to create a library that was supposed to exhaust all the knowledge accumulated by mankind. He was especially interested in the information necessary for governing the state - on how to maintain constant communication with the deities, on predicting the future from the movement of the stars and from the entrails of sacrificial animals. That is why the lion's share of funds were texts of conspiracies, prophecies, magical and religious rituals, mythological tales. The bulk of the information was extracted from the Sumerian and Babylonian texts by specially organized teams of scribes.
The library had a large collection of medical texts (with an emphasis on healing through sorcery), but the rich mathematical heritage of Babylonia was inexplicably ignored. There were numerous lists of literary epic legends, in particular, tablets with the epic of Gilgamesh and the mythological translation of Enuma Elish, as well as tablets with prayers, songs, legal documents(for example, the code of Hammurabi), economic and administrative records, letters, astronomical and historical works, records of a political nature, lists of kings and poetic texts.
The texts were written in Assyrian, Babylonian, a dialect of the Akkadian language, and also in Sumerian. A great many texts are presented in parallel in Sumerian and Akkadian, including encyclopedic editions and dictionaries. As a rule, one text was stored in six copies, which today greatly facilitates the work of deciphering the tablets. To date, Ashurbanipal's library is the largest collection of texts in the Akkadian language.
The foundation of the library took place on the orders of the Assyrian ruler Ashurbanipal, who was distinguished by a great interest in texts and knowledge in general. Ashurbanipal's predecessors had small palace libraries, but none of them had such a passion for collecting texts. Ashurbanipal sent numerous scribes to different regions of their country, so that they make copies of all the texts they come across. In addition, Ashurbanipal ordered copies of texts from all major temple archives, which were then sent to him in Nineveh. Sometimes, during military campaigns, Ashurbanipal managed to capture entire cuneiform libraries, which he also delivered to his palace.
The librarians of Ashurbanipal did a great job of cataloging, copying, commenting and researching the texts of the library, as evidenced by numerous glossaries, bibliography and commentaries. Ashurbanipal himself gave great importance organizing the library. His name was written on each tablet (a kind of ex-libris), the name of the original tablet from which the copy was made was given in the colophon. The library had hundreds of waxed-page codices, which made it possible to correct or rewrite text written on wax. Unlike cuneiform tablets (which are only hardened during fires), wax tablets are short-lived. They have not survived, as well as the scrolls in the library - parchment and papyrus. Judging by the ancient catalogs, no more than 10% of all funds collected by Ashurbanipal have survived to this day.
A huge array of cuneiform texts has come down to our days solely thanks to Ashurbanipal's passion for the written word. In many cases, ancient Mesopotamian writings have survived only in copies made by order of this ruler. Some of the texts presented are thousand years of history(although the tablets themselves are not very ancient, under normal conditions they have rarely been preserved for more than 200 years).
Ashurbanipal himself was proud that he was the only Assyrian ruler who could read and write. On one of the tablets, his personal record was found:
“I studied what the wise Adapa brought me, mastered all the secret art of writing on tablets, began to understand predictions in heaven and on earth, participate in discussions of pundits, predict the future together with the most experienced interpreters of divination by the liver of sacrificial animals. I can solve complex difficult tasks on division and multiplication, constantly reading masterfully written tablets in such a complex language as Sumerian, or as difficult to interpret as Akkadian, familiar with antediluvian records in stone, which are already completely incomprehensible.
Ashurbanipal's own notes (probably compiled by the best scribes) are of high literary quality.
A generation after Ashurbanipal, his capital fell under the blows of the Medes and Babylonians. The library was not plundered, as is usually the case in such cases, but turned out to be buried under the ruins of the palaces where it was kept.
In 1849, the British archaeologist Austen Henry Layard found most of the library (which was kept in the northwestern palace on the banks of the Euphrates). Three years later, Layard's assistant, the British diplomat and traveler Hormuzd Rasam, found the second part of the library in the opposite wing of the palace. Both parts were removed for storage in British museum. The opening of the library allowed scientists to get a first-hand idea of the Assyrian culture. Prior to this, Assyria was known only from the works of Herodotus and other historians of Hellas, and the Persians, in turn, served as their source. The greatest sensation in the scientific community was made by the discovery of the Epic of Gilgamesh with a presentation biblical history about the global flood.
When extracting the tablets from the wreckage, careful accounting of the place of their discovery was not carried out. In the British Museum, both parts were placed in a common depository, so it is now impossible to judge which tablets were found where. Scientists are still working on sorting individual fragments (“joints”), cataloging and deciphering texts. The British Museum is working with Iraqi scientists to establish a museum-library in Iraq, where reproductions of the original tablets are to be displayed.
The emergence of libraries as repositories of written monuments dates back to the 3rd millennium BC. When excavating the old cities of the states of the Ancient East - Assyria, Babylonia, Urartu - archaeologists find special rooms for storing books, and sometimes the books themselves. However, the written monuments of those times can be called "books" rather conditionally: they were clay shards, papyrus or parchment scrolls.
Libraries have served science, education and culture for many centuries. The first information about the existence of libraries dates back to the heyday of the culture of the peoples of Mesopotamia, located on the territory of modern Iraq, to the time of the existence of the state of Sumer. The oldest texts date back to about 3000 BC. The most ancient texts of Mesopotamia are written in the Sumerian language. The first libraries arose as collections of various kinds of state, economic and other documents. These institutions served as libraries and archives.
The next stage in the development of libraries is the palace libraries or libraries of rulers. the most ancient from among those that have survived to this day, it is considered a library owned by the king Hittite kingdom- Hattusilis III (1283 - 1260 BC). At the beginning of the 20th century, archaeologists discovered about 11 thousand cuneiform tablets here, indicating that this library contained official documents (royal messages and appeals), chronicles, and ritual texts. Unlike the Sumerian tablets, these "books" bear the name of the author, his address and title, and even the name of the scribe. There is reason to believe that there was also a catalog compiled by the names of the authors. A feature of the Hittite tablets is the authorship of literary and scientific works. Hittite librarians and archivists created the science of book preservation. The cuneiform texts of the catalogs of the Hittite library have been preserved, in which there were notes about the lost documents. Labels were used for individual works. All this testifies to the order that was maintained by the librarians in the storage of clay books.
The largest and most famous of the libraries of the Ancient World - library of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal(668-631 BC). In this cuneiform library, which included the richest collection of Babylonian literature, according to various estimates, from ten to thirty thousand clay books were kept, each of which had a cuneiform stamp: "The Palace of the King of Kings." Ashurbanipal's library had a universal character. The fund contained lists of kings, royal messages, lists of countries, rivers, mountains, commercial materials, works on mathematics, astronomy, medicine, dictionaries and works on grammar. AT separate room were religious texts.
There is information about the "disclosure" of the library fund. Special tiles indicated the name of the work (by its first line), the room where it was located, and the shelf on which it was stored. Clay tablets were used for writing. "Books"-tablets were kept in special clay jugs. On each shelf there was a clay "label", the size of a little finger, with the name of a particular branch of knowledge.
A letter, a book were highly revered in Egypt, libraries were considered the focus of wisdom. The Egyptians had a god of the moon and wisdom - Thoth, who also patronized scribes; the goddess Seshat is the patroness of libraries; god of knowledge Sia. The profession of a scribe was very honorable, not without reason noble nobles and officials loved to be portrayed in the pose of a writer, with a scroll in their hands. There is evidence that indirectly indicates that people performing the duties of librarians (although they were not professional librarians in the modern sense) were also surrounded by honor: on the banks of the Nile, the tombs of two librarians, a father and a son, who served under Pharaoh Ramses (about 1200 BC). This suggests that in ancient Egypt the position of librarian, like many other government positions, was hereditary.
From the second half of the XIV century BC. in ancient Egypt, there were libraries at the temples serving the priests. These libraries were called the "house of the book" (or "God's house of the book") and the "house of life". The first concept, which was used until the beginning of the Ptolemaic era, referred to the temple libraries. The position of the custodian of the library (“house of life”) was state-owned and was inherited, since it could only be occupied by those admitted to the possession of “higher knowledge”.
One of the most famous temple libraries was that of the Ramesseum Temple, founded around 1300 BC. pharaoh Ramses II (c. 1290 - 1224 BC). At the entrance to the library of Ramses there was an inscription - "Pharmacy for the soul." The doors and walls of the library depicted gods patronizing writing, knowledge, and libraries. The book depository contained religious works, prophecies, fairy tales, stories, medical treatises, didactic teachings, and works on mathematics.
In Egypt, papyrus was used for writing. Books from it were kept in boxes and tubular vessels. Many papyri have survived to this day, but no complete libraries have been preserved, since papyrus is a less resistant material than clay. With the advent of papyrus, there were more and more scribes-librarians. Thus, the libraries of the Ancient World performed the function of collecting and storing documents, and the librarians of that time were both scribes, collectors, and custodians of documents. The archival beginning is expressed in the fact that the documents were available only in a single copy. These documents were copied, as evidenced by the name of the scribe; the work was long and expensive. Documents were systematized, catalogs also existed in libraries. In addition, the libraries of the Ancient World did not perform the function of providing access to the library's funds; they could be used by a very limited circle of "initiates". In terms of service, the library of the Ancient World provided access to the funds of a very limited circle of users: in the Ancient East - the ruler himself and his entourage, in Ancient Egypt - priests and a narrow circle of initiates.
During antiquity in Ancient Greece the word "library" appears from the Greek words biblion (book) and theke (repository). The ancient library can be considered both as a public (for readers of a certain circle), and as an institution serving science. The foundation of the first major library in ancient Greece dates back to the 4th century BC. and associated with the name of Aristotle (384 - 323 BC). He owned a unique library of about 40,000 scrolls. One of his most famous students, Alexander the Great, took part in the creation of this library.
Libraries of antiquity become, in a certain sense, publicly available, though only for certain sections of society. They also begin to play the role of scriptoria - institutions that not only made copies of documents, but also had the obligation to provide copies that guarantee the authenticity of the texts. At the same time, libraries appeared, in a meaning close to the modern one.
The richest and most famous book collection of antiquity was the Library of Alexandria of the Ptolemaic kings, founded at the beginning of the 3rd century BC. the king of Egypt, Ptolemy I Soter (323 - 283 BC). The Library of Alexandria was the richest and most complete library of that time. The main task The library was a collection of all Greek literature and translations of works of other peoples into Greek, and the most diverse - from the works of Greek tragedians to cookbooks.
Imagine what kind of erudition (and physical endurance!) You had to have to serve the eighth wonder of the world - the Library of Alexandria, which consisted of more than 700,000 scrolls of handwritten books! But only a few people worked there. They had to be literally universals, since in the Alexandrian Library, in addition to the book depository and reading rooms, there were also an observatory, zoological and medical museums - their maintenance was also part of the duties of librarians.
The largest scientists headed the Library of Alexandria: Erastosthenes, Zenodotus, Aristarchus of Samos and others. The Library of Alexandria developed rules for the classification and inventory of funds. One of the leaders of the library, Callimachus, compiled a huge bibliographic dictionary “Tables and descriptions of teachers (or poets) through the ages and from antiquity”. Although only small fragments of 120 volumes have come down to us, the frequent references to the "Tables ..." in ancient Greek documents make it possible to judge the content and significance of the work done. Describing books, Callimachus gave the opening words of each work, and then reported all the information he knew about the author. The library had a staff of copyists who copied books. The catalog of the library compiled by Callimachus was regularly updated. The Library of Alexandria became the largest cultural and scientific center ancient world. Readers came to work on the scrolls and receive copies of works of interest from many parts of the Hellenic world.
The work of librarians was characterized by a clear specialization - they kept records of new acquisitions, worked with the fund, and were engaged in ensuring the safety of books (a unique system for ensuring the safety of the library fund was created in the Alexandria Library; first of all, it was protected from dampness). The librarians had assistants whose duties included accounting for new manuscripts, parsing and reviewing manuscripts, and copying texts. There were people who kept order, for the protection of manuscripts from moths and dampness.
In accordance with the classification system, scientific literature was divided into five sections: "History", "Rhetoric", "Philosophy", "Medicine", "Legislation". A special section was also allocated - "Miscellaneous". Within each section, the books were arranged by author's name, attached short biography the author and a list of his works. Next to the title of each work were the first few words of the text, the number of scrolls, and the number of lines in each scroll.
The work in the library was clearly organized: the servants kept a clear record of new arrivals, worked with the fund, were engaged in ensuring the safety of the fund, classification and inventory. The fund was divided into main and double; the doublets were stored in another building on the other side of the capital.
