Libraries before Alexandria

Ancient Near Eastern Traditions

Kim Ryholt editor Gojko Barjamovic editor

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Oxford University Press

Published:14th Nov '19

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

Libraries before Alexandria cover

The creation of the Library of Alexandria is widely regarded as one of the great achievements in the history of humankind - a giant endeavour to amass all known literature and scholarly texts in one central location, so as to preserve it and make it available for the public. In turn, this event has been viewed as a historical turning point that separates the ancient world from classical antiquity. Standard works on the library continue to present the idea behind the institution as novel and, at least implicitly, as a product of Greek thought. Yet, although the scale of the collection in Alexandria seems to have been unprecedented, the notion of creating central repositories of knowledge, while perhaps new to Greek tradition, was age-old in the Near East where the building was erected. Here the existence of libraries can be traced back another two millennia, from the twenty-seventh century BCE to the third century CE, and so the creation of the Library in Alexandria was not so much the beginning of an intellectual adventure as the impressive culmination of a very long tradition. This volume presents the first comprehensive study of these ancient libraries across the 'Cradle of Civilization' and traces their institutional and scholarly roots back to the early cities and states and the advent of writing itself. Leading specialists in the intellectual history of each individual period and region covered in the volume present and discuss the enormous textual and archaeological material available on the early collections, offering a uniquely readable account intended for a broad audience of the libraries in Egypt and Western Asia as centres of knowledge prior to the famous Library of Alexandria.

The material presented provides an insightful overview that, together with detailed case studies and analyses, raises new questions and provokes fresh ideas that will doubtless foster continued study to further progress our understanding of the role and nature of libraries and the past practices of collecting texts of tradition. * Kathryn E. Piquette, University College London, LIBRARY & INFORMATION HISTORY *
This volume ... brings together a substantial body of knowledge that is examined skilfully * Kathryn E. Piquette, Library & Information History *
... the immediate appeal is to other archaeologists, classicists, linguists, and ancient historians who rely on primary sources to fill in the knowledge gaps of sparsely documented premodern life. But the book also implies numerous possibilities for multidisciplinary scholarship in the library and archival studies fields, particularly regarding resource description and access, the historical relationship between our institutions and social power, and the evolution of recorded human communication. * Bradley Wiles, University of Wisconsin Madison, Libraries: Culture, History, and Society *
The volume is valuable for specialists but also a useful introduction into the topic of ancient libraries for an interested broader public... * Bernhard Schneider, Bryn Mawr Classical Review *

ISBN: 9780199655359

Dimensions: 235mm x 161mm x 32mm

Weight: 968g

512 pages