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10:43:00 AM EDT
Hearing Rocky Raccoon -- The Beatles
More Geekery
It look as if they may have found the remains of the Library of Alexandria, which was one of the great repositories of knowledge in the ancient world, and which was destroyed by the Romans because they were just like that.
Announcing their discovery at a conference being held at the University of California, Zahi Hawass, president of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, said that the 13 lecture halls uncovered could house as many as 5,000 students in total.
A conspicuous feature of the rooms, he said, was a central elevated podium for the lecturer to stand on.
"It is the first time ever that such a complex of lecture halls has been uncovered on any Greco-Roman site in the whole Mediterranean area," he added.
"It is perhaps the oldest university in the world."
What would be really cool would be if they has managed to find some of the manuscripts the library housed -- copies of works by Ptolemy and other great thinkers of the time. Alas, they're all gone now: Burned in a fire. Even those that would have survived that famous conflagration would be unlikely to have survived 20 centuries of decay. But think what it would be like to have one of those scrolls in your own hands. All ashes and dust.
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5/13/04 11:45 AM
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