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Greetings
to all!
I would like to take this opportunity to welcome you all to Alexandrian
Archives, a new home for mystical and spiritual contemplation that delves
into the truths behind the philosophies and myths, rather than just
accepting the typically poor scientific explanations.
Although science and archaeology have undoubtedly uncovered large amounts
of invaluable research and information through the years, it has also
fallen into the trap of only stating and accepting theories that agree
with the political and religious "clicks" that typically fund
them. Simultaneously, many of the most extraordinary artifacts and documents
have reportedly been "misplaced" now, or, somehow have "disappeared"
from national archives or world-renowned museums.
Unfortunately, the brave ones that have refused to adhere to this politically
correct behavior have been cast from their scientific community and ridiculed
for their work because they have proved the mainstream wrong. Anyone else
who believes in these truths is subsequently branded as crazy or intellectually
inept by the same societal machines that try to force the masses into
their way of thinking.
Thankfully, history has no regrets in teaching us her secrets, although
they are never attained quickly or easily. With the truth just outside
of our reach, the only thing that mainstream can do to suppress it now
is to hide or destroy this knowledge, the same exact strategy that has
been used for a few thousand years through nearly all civilizations and
religious factions.
Alexandrian Archives will offer up topics for investigation and contemplation,
using much more than just typical scientific information. These topics
are aimed at presenting possibilities and theories that are based off
of many things from combinations of physical proof to uncanny, irrefutable
historical correlations.
With this being the inaugural month of Alexandrian Archives, we felt that
it was only appropriate to begin with a look at the mysterious history
of the "Bibliotheca Alexandrina," better known as the Royal
Library of Alexandria.
A brief history of the great
library is as follows:
The beauty of the area now
known as Alexandria, in northern Egypt on the mouth of the Nile river,
captivated Alexander the Great, (356 -323 BC), so much that he established
the city in his own name at approximately 334 BC. Although he would never
see this city again, with the exception of his burial place, one of his
generals, Ptolemy I, (who was also related to him), claimed control over
Egypt after the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC. Ptolemy I not
only constructed the Great Library of Alexandria and possibly the original
Temple of the Muses, called the "Musaeum", (where the current
word museum comes from), but also began one of the Seven Wonders of the
World, the Great Pharaoh's Lighthouse.
Under the rule of his son, Ptolemy II, the Great Pharaoh's Lighthouse
was completed and the Great Library of Alexandria continued to flourish
and grow into a massive storage epicenter of ancient spiritual and scientific
knowledge. It was renowned for the meeting place of many numerous intellectuals
of the time.
A rule supposedly had also been decreed that whenever scrolls entered
into this area, that the originals were kept and copies given back, (with
just compensation), to the owners so that the original information could
be stored within the Great Library.
Although the Royal Library of Alexandria was not the first, nor the largest
library in history, it was the largest and most magnificent of its time.
For reasons still unknown, however, very little appears to have been written
about its historical notoriety.
One of the few historical facts that can be truly agreed upon by its writers
is the final destruction of the Serepeum, (sister library of the Royal
library), in 391 AD during the persecution of the pagans by the early
Christians. As written by Socrates Scholasticus for the Church records:
"CHAPTER XVI - "Demolition of the Idolatrous Temples at Alexandria,
and the Consequent Conflict between the Pagans and Christians."
"At
the solicitation of Theophilus bishop of Alexandria the emperor issued
an order at this time for the demolition of the heathen temples in that
city; commanding also that it should be put in execution under the direction
of Theophilus. Seizing this opportunity, Theophilus exerted himself to
the utmost to expose the pagan mysteries to contempt.
"And to begin with, he caused the Mithreum to be cleaned out, and
exhibited to public view the tokens of its bloody mysteries. Then he destroyed
the Serapeum, and the bloody rites of the Mithreum he publicly caricatured;
the Serapeum also he showed full of extravagant superstitions, and he
had the phalli of Priapus carried through the midst of the forum.
"Thus this disturbance having been terminated, the governor of Alexandria,
and the commander-in-chief of the troops in Egypt, assisted Theophilus
in demolishing the heathen temples. These were therefore razed to the
ground, and the images of their gods molten into pots and other convenient
utensils for the use of the Alexandrian church; for the emperor had instructed
Theophilus to distribute them for the relief of the poor.
"All the images were accordingly broken to pieces, except one statue
of the god before mentioned, which Theophilus preserved and set up in
a public place; 'Lest,' said he, 'at a future time the heathens should
deny that they had ever worshiped such gods.'"
Although a bloody riot ensued soon after this task was begun, the pagans
dispursed for fear of retribution from the Christian emperor and their
temples were pillaged. Strangely enough, only the Serapeum, (sister library
built to store overflow of information), was mentioned though, not the
Great Library or the Museaeum.
Although there were over a dozen ancient historians, (Plutarch, Callimachus,
and Strabo to name a few), that mentioned the Great Library, there has
never seemed to be much consistency or agreement in their writings, due
to their possible political alignments or the fact that some were writing
up to a hundred years after its destruction. Above and beyond that, if
the Library was as grandiose as it is thought to have been, why then would
there be so few writings about it?
To the casual observer, one may say that either it was not as grandiose
as we believe, or maybe that the information contained within was not
as important as we would like to believe. Stories have swirled for ages
about the mysteries that may have been contained in the Great Library
and Musaeum, from sacred/mystical knowledge to mysterious artifacts that
may have been collected as war spoils by even Alexander the Great himself.
How much of this may be true? Let us take a look into some theories…
First off, we know that it all started with the construction of the Temple
of the Muses, (Musaeum), which was considered a sacred, spiritual site.
Then, very soon after, the Library was built as an extension to this,
similarly like the Vatican's library that exists underground in Vatican
City. As a footnote, it is highly doubtful that in the Vatican library
one would come across cookbooks, romance novels, or comic books filling
the shelves, but then again, no one is allowed to verify that!
It is known that the Library of Alexandria had succumbed to a few other
disasters from earthquakes to Roman power struggles before its formal
destruction, but during the rule of Ptolemy III, another smaller library
was built to sustain the expansion of knowledge, the Serapeum. This was
another storehouse of information that was built in addition, but not
believed to be connected to, the Great Library of Alexandria. The Serapeum
was dedicated to the Greek/Egyptian deity of Serapis, who was the patron
of Alexandria and had underground catacombs that housed numerous stone
reliefs and statues including a great basalt bull that was excavated by
the late Dr G Botti and now resides in the rebuilt museum, Bibliotheca
Alexandrina. Most certainly, the Serapeum is where many pagan rituals
were taught and held in this time, just as the Serapeum of Saqqara was
dedicated to the Apis Bulls dating back to the 18th and 19th Dynasties.
The Egyptians and the pagans were only the first groups to consider this
area extremely important; it soon became a major congregation for Jews
and Christians as well. Everyone who studied at the library found a wealth
of information that was written in one of the three major languages of
the time: Greek/Latin, Egyptian, or Hebrew. Most documents were slowly
translated into all three languages over time for the versatility and
benefit of all who studied there.
The area of Alexandria also quickly became the centre of what was known
as Arianism, named after Arius, a Christian theologian and patriarch of
Alexandria. This was one of the early Christian doctrines that taught
that "Jesus Christ" and "God the Father" were not
the same. The Son was created as a divine being by the Father and therefore
inferior to Him. It also taught that at some point, the "Father"
did not exist but was Himself, created by the "Supreme Will,"
a higher power that all things came from.
Although Arianism attracted much support in Alexandria, and the early
Church initially allowed its teachings, it soon became subject of much
debate and controversy, leading to the first Council Nicaea, and was quickly
put to an end. After stripping Arius of his patriarch status, he and some
of his closest followers were excommunicated and banished for their teachings,
but eventually restored his good relationship with the emperor at a later
date.
Some of the other brilliant minds of their time, as well as ours, which
appear to have studied at the Royal Library, were:
Euclid, (approx. 325 BC - 265 BC), who wrote the elements
of geometry,
Aristarchus, (approx. 310 BC - 230 BC), the first to theorize
that the earth revolves
around the sun, and pioneer of determining the sizes of the sun, moon,
and earth,
Callimachus, (approx. 305 BC - 240 BC), great poet, and
grammarian, also possibly
one of the librarians of the Royal Library, and credited with becoming
the first to write
a catalogue for books classified by topic and author.
Archimedes, (approx. 287 BC - 212 BC), discovered the principles
of density and
buoyancy, known as the Archimedes principle, invented the irrigation device
known as
the Archimedes screw, and developed a myriad of complex mathematical principles
of
which include center of gravity, density, paraboloids, and hemispheres
of geometrical
figures to name but a few. Considered to be one of history's greatest
mathematicians,
Eratosthenes, (approx. 276 BC - 194 BC), produced surprisingly
accurate
measurements of the circumference of the earth and the distance from the
earth to the
sun and moon,
Hipparchus, (approx. 190 BC - 120 BC), the first to accurately
measure the solar year within six and a half minutes,
How did people like these
derive their theories and calculations? That is the question that should
be asked. Many of these people, it is said, used centuries-old information
from the ancient sciences recorded in the Babylonian libraries of Ugarit,
as well as possible information from the library of King Ashurbanipal,
in Nineveh, in addition to many other numerous sources like philosophical
teachings from Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates, which apparently must have
all been housed in the library. Unfortunately, many of the most influential
works that these, and others, had written involving this information have
supposedly been lost to time, or so we are told.
But, were their works and this information really lost to time, or rather,
was it slowly removed from the public's access? Could their syllabuses
have contained much more than just information on math and science that
may have been deemed too dangerous to leave to the general public? As
the world moved from free thinkers to politicians, was some of this information
a threat to the political and religious powers? How, one might ask, could
all of these works be lost, but yet we still derive accurate information
on their lives and studies? To a logical mind, that would suggest that
this "lost information" still exists somewhere.
Another question that begs to be asked is how did these people from the
Hellenistic era of history develop all of these revolutionary, yet accurate
theories of our world and universe in a time that many historians imply
was still heavily barbaric in their nature? In addition, how again could
this knowledge have not been understood and verified until the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries? There are many questions that are neglected,
passed over, or simply not even addressed by modern minds.
Probably the single most noteworthy accomplishment of the Library of Alexandria,
according to history books, was the creation of the Septuagint. The Septuagint
was the Hebrew Testament, (Christian Old Testament), which was translated
into the Greek language. This also allowed for the spread of the Hebrew
religion to many other parts of the world.
One of the most important uses of Alexandria was the ability for multi-lingual
translations of any information contained within its walls. For the first
time in history, works from around the world could be simultaneously translated
for others to study.
This brings us to another interesting point about a crucial artifact that
does not appear to be correlated to the Royal Library, the Rosetta Stone.
Found by Napoleon and his army, in approximately 1799 AD, in the small
coastal city of Rosetta, was a stone that eventually was the single item
that allowed modern day man to understand and translate Egyptian hieroglyphics
once again, the Rosetta Stone. The stone was inscribed with a flattering
decree for the current pharaoh, Ptolemy IV. (As an important note, the
city of Rosetta is located approximately 200 km, (or roughly 124 miles),
north/northeast of Cairo. The ancient city of Alexandria is located roughly
50 km, (or 31 miles), west/southwest of Rosetta.)
Seeing as the stone was painstakingly written in formal and common dialects
of Egyptian hieroglyphics, as well as Greek, not to mention that it is
roughly dated at 196-200 BC, (the height of the Royal Library's existence),
as its creation date, is this another perfect example of the Royal Library's
extreme importance to ancient times as well as ours? You can be the judge.
It is known that valuable information and records were beginning to be
moved around to public, as well as private libraries as early as the first
century A.D. We also now that some very influential pagans that were chased
out of Alexandria had moved on to Constantinople, but again, what happened
to the thousands of scrolls that once graced the walls in Alexandria.
It has been theorized that if Alexandria had not been desecrated, that
we as a civilization may have encountered the industrial revolution as
much as 1500 years earlier than we did, another example of the magnitude
and wealth of information contained therein. Sadly, the world may never
know the true fate of this valuable information, but one thing is for
certain…it is highly doubtful that it was destroyed without copies
being kept somewhere by someone. After all…the writings that talk
about the temple's destruction, only mention the destruction of the pagan
statues and furnishings, but not one word of the scrolls.
~
Hieros ~
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