The Library of Alexandria
12 Mar, 2009
020 Library and information sciences
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Library at Alexandria. Founded by King Ptolemy in the 3rd century BC the library was the first attempt to collect all the knowledge of the ancient world in one place. Scholars including Archimedes and Euclid came to study its grand array of papyri. the legacy of the library is with us today, not just in the ideas it stored and the ideas it seeded but also in the way it organised knowledge and the tools developed for dealing with it. It still influences the things we know and the way we know them to this day.
Guests
- Simon Goldhill
8 episodes
Professor of Greek at the University of Cambridge - Matthew Nicholls
4 episodes
Lecturer in Classics at the University of Reading - Serafina Cuomo
6 episodes
Reader in Roman History at Birkbeck College, University of London
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Programme ID: b00j0q53
Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00j0q53
Auto-category: 020 (Library and information sciences)