Interestingly, I just visited what I believe is generally regarded to be the first community-owned public library in the world: the Biblioteca Maletestiana in Cesena, Italy, established 1447. It had books in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, all chained to their desks so that patrons couldn't walk off with them. And the chains worked: the books are still there.
Ancient public library discovered in Germany
11–20 of 40 posts
Re: Ancient public library discovered in Germany
#12Just the walls of the library, not the library itself, the papyri.
Re: Ancient public library discovered in Germany
#13What the article doesn't really clarify: Cologne was a Roman colony . The full name was Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium. "Colonia" means "colony" but it's also the highest tier of recognition Roman cities could have. Cologne was the Eastern-most Roman city of its kind in "Germania". A side-effect of all of this is that you can't really dig anywhere in Cologne without encountering some Roman artifact or ruins (unle…
Since "colonia" originally denoted any Roman outpost established in conquered territory, you can't invoke the word as a singularly significant element of the city name.
Mainz was also part of Germania and is much further East.
The current extent of modern Köln is much wider than that of the Roman city of 20,000 people, so you'd have to dig in very specific places to find Roman artifacts.
Re: Ancient public library discovered in Germany
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
If a truly large archive were found then who’s to say that it could survive long enough to be properly studied? There are multiple sources of untouched ancient texts today which aren’t much studied. Off the top of my head, I’ve heard there are chests full of (roughly 1000-year-old) Arabic manuscripts littering the Archbishop’s palace in Toledo, largely untouched due to a lack of interest/number of scholars (and perha…
This reminds me of one of the episodes of the documentary series "Endangered Civilizations". From the description[1]: > 9. The Books Under the Sand > During the time of trans-Saharan trading, its strategic location along the caravan route enabled it to prosper. It was also the gathering place for the pilgrims from western Sahara as they began their journey to Mecca. It had already attained the position as a prestigio…
While not incredibly high-resolution, ground penetrating radar (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground-penetrating_radar) is often used in archaeology to try and find buildings/artifacts without digging anything up.
Re: Ancient public library discovered in Germany
#15They didn't mention it, but I'm assuming that no scrolls or actual library knowledge is recoverable from the site? Whenever I listen to history people talk about all the sources that have been lost, I dream that someday someone will uncover an ancient time capsule under their house and find a pristine collection of lost works that some wise person squirreled away for future generations.
If a truly large archive were found then who’s to say that it could survive long enough to be properly studied? There are multiple sources of untouched ancient texts today which aren’t much studied. Off the top of my head, I’ve heard there are chests full of (roughly 1000-year-old) Arabic manuscripts littering the Archbishop’s palace in Toledo, largely untouched due to a lack of interest/number of scholars (and perha…
At least for cuneiform tablets, somewhere I read most of them are utterly boring, mostly inventory and transactions. Maybe you could pass years sifting through it to finally find something valuable.
Re: Ancient public library discovered in Germany
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
If a truly large archive were found then who’s to say that it could survive long enough to be properly studied? There are multiple sources of untouched ancient texts today which aren’t much studied. Off the top of my head, I’ve heard there are chests full of (roughly 1000-year-old) Arabic manuscripts littering the Archbishop’s palace in Toledo, largely untouched due to a lack of interest/number of scholars (and perha…
At least for cuneiform tablets, somewhere I read most of them are utterly boring, mostly inventory and transactions. Maybe you could pass years sifting through it to finally find something valuable.
In the aggregate that data might be incredibly valuable, and valuable in a way that might not be obvious to the gatekeepers of these materials. You never know what people can do with more data until you put it out there.
But neither do the people who might do something with it, which I guess is why there's little funding for such endeavors. You need somebody with the money and conviction to make the gamble.
Re: Ancient public library discovered in Germany
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
If a truly large archive were found then who’s to say that it could survive long enough to be properly studied? There are multiple sources of untouched ancient texts today which aren’t much studied. Off the top of my head, I’ve heard there are chests full of (roughly 1000-year-old) Arabic manuscripts littering the Archbishop’s palace in Toledo, largely untouched due to a lack of interest/number of scholars (and perha…
At least for cuneiform tablets, somewhere I read most of them are utterly boring, mostly inventory and transactions. Maybe you could pass years sifting through it to finally find something valuable.
"Dammit Zuel, this is the last time I'll give you grain on credit. Bring the camels next week or else!" scribles another tally onto the tablets.
Re: Ancient public library discovered in Germany
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
If a truly large archive were found then who’s to say that it could survive long enough to be properly studied? There are multiple sources of untouched ancient texts today which aren’t much studied. Off the top of my head, I’ve heard there are chests full of (roughly 1000-year-old) Arabic manuscripts littering the Archbishop’s palace in Toledo, largely untouched due to a lack of interest/number of scholars (and perha…
At least for cuneiform tablets, somewhere I read most of them are utterly boring, mostly inventory and transactions. Maybe you could pass years sifting through it to finally find something valuable.
Give me a civilizations inventory and transaction log and I'll show you their economy, and society.
Re: Ancient public library discovered in Germany
#19They didn't mention it, but I'm assuming that no scrolls or actual library knowledge is recoverable from the site? Whenever I listen to history people talk about all the sources that have been lost, I dream that someday someone will uncover an ancient time capsule under their house and find a pristine collection of lost works that some wise person squirreled away for future generations.
Well ancient and pristinely preserved do not really usually go together... but Villa Papyri, near Pompeii, almost gets you there.
The villa's name derives from the discovery of its library, the only surviving library from the Graeco-Roman world that exists in its entirety.
It contains over 1,800 papyrus scrolls.
The scrolls are coarbonized and rolled up, but each scroll gets very slowly unrolled, read, studied and preserved in the National Library in Naples.
With the use of new technologies the analysis of the scrolls is becoming faster and allowing the recover more and more of the works. It’s possible to go visit both the ruins of the villa and the scrolls.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villa_of_the_Papyri
Re: Ancient public library discovered in Germany
#20They didn't mention it, but I'm assuming that no scrolls or actual library knowledge is recoverable from the site? Whenever I listen to history people talk about all the sources that have been lost, I dream that someday someone will uncover an ancient time capsule under their house and find a pristine collection of lost works that some wise person squirreled away for future generations.
There are probably quite some private storages of old sources. For example I really like to see the restricted libary/archiv of the Vatikan etc. To finally have the proof, that all history was planned by the Illuminati and Aliens... Or more likely to find out some shocking previously unknown heresy of some saints/popes I did not know anyway. But more seriously, I think it is unlikely to find a sealed old libary somew…
There definitely were Roman public libraries.
Plinus reports that Pollio built the first public library in Rome around 30 BC. He was a patron of Virgil.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaius_Asinius_Pollio_(consul_4...