ZAP’S FACTS!
ANCIENT

The Library of Alexandria once held nearly every book in the world.

Ships docking in Alexandria had to hand over any books on board so scribes could copy them - sometimes keeping the originals.

2 min read
The Library of Alexandria once held nearly every book in the world.
THE FULL STORY

The Library of Alexandria in ancient Egypt was the biggest collection of knowledge in the ancient world. Founded around 285 BCE, it gathered scrolls from across Greece, Persia, India, Babylon and Egypt. Some estimates suggest it held over 400,000 scrolls at its peak.

It had a wild way of growing its collection. Any ship that docked in Alexandria had its books seized, taken to the library, and copied. Sometimes the original was kept and the copy returned - too bad for the ship’s owner. Scholars from across the Mediterranean traveled there to study astronomy, geometry, medicine and poetry.

Hollywood loves the story of a single fire destroying everything, but historians think the truth is sadder and slower. The library faded across 600 years through accidental fires, civil wars, lost funding and political chaos. By around 400 CE, the world’s greatest library was simply gone, and most of those scrolls were lost forever.

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