The Egyptian city of Alexandria was once the most magnificent city on the Mediterranean. It was a city of wonders, whose culture was the envy of the Greek world. Tragically many of Alexandria’s ancient treasures have been lost to time. Of all of these lost wonders none has been more deeply mourned than the Great Library of Alexandria. For generations people have lamented the day that the Library was consumed by fire. But when was that day exactly? It turns out the time and circumstance of the Library’s demise is surprisingly controversial. Tune-in and find out how stolen corpses, Cleopatra’s marble head, and an old friend of the pod all play a role in the story.

Works Cited

Canfora, Luciano, and Martin Ryle. The Vanished Library: a Wonder of the Ancient World. Vintage, 1991.

Casson, Lionel. Libraries in the Ancient World. Yale Univ. Press, 2002.

MacLeod, Roy M. The Library of Alexandria: Centre of Learning in the Ancient World. I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd, 2014.

Ovenden, Richard. “The Real Lesson of the Burning of the Library of Alexandria.” Time, Time, 17 Nov. 2020, time.com/5912689/library-of-alexandria-burning/.

Stille, Alexander. The Future of the Past: the Loss of Knowledge in the Age of Information. Picador, 2003.Traill, David A. Schliemann of Troy: Treasure and Deceit. St. Martin’s Griffin, 1997.