Ancient libraries, containing the entire depth of knowledge of ancient civilizations, in the old days were sometimes called a repository of wisdom, a haven of thought, but as if some mystical predetermination accompanied the fate of the great libraries of antiquity: some are irrevocably destroyed, while others are hidden so skillfully that they cannot be found even by this day …
Ninivea
One of the first collectors of written sources was the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal, who lived in the 7th century. BC. “The king of kings, the king of the four cardinal points, as his subjects called him, built in Nineveh a huge building for the library, where more than 20 thousand books were kept, which told about the cultural and scientific heritage of the ancient world. In fact, these were sets of clay cuneiform tablets. Many books had 100 or more "unbending pages" made of special clay and fired for strength. Figuratively speaking, such a library did not burn in a fire, and it could not disappear in water. It was not afraid, which is important, neither mice, nor rats But there were more terrible enemies in the ancient texts - ignorance and religious obscurantism of people. When the troops of the Medes and Babylonians in 612 BC took Nineveh by storm, they first of all dealt with the defenders of the city,and then they began to crush the clay tablets. So the books turned into a heap of shards …
The Kuyundzhik hill, on which a grandiose book depository once stood, was excavated by archaeologists only in the 19th century. The miraculously survived fragments of the tablets are now kept in the British Museum.
Pergamum
In Pergamum - the capital of the kingdom of the same name in the northwestern part of Asia Minor - in the II century. BC. learned how to make parchment (before the manuscripts existed in the form of papyrus scrolls), and the books took on a form close to modern. The technology of its production has reached perfection: this material was used for some time for printing books, even after the invention of paper.
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Throughout the ancient world, the fame of the Pergamon Library thundered, which contained over 200 thousand manuscripts and manuscripts. This unique book depository was located in the Acropolis under the protection of the goddess Athena. But even such intercession did not save the library from total plunder, when Pergamum, having lost its independence, became a province of Rome. Commander Mark Antony, one of Julius Caesar's supporters, guided by his own whim, presented almost all the book treasures of Pergamum to the Egyptian queen Cleopatra, trying to appease her after a significant part of the Alexandrian library was burned down through the fault of the Romans.
Alexandria
As a result of the "forceful" merger of the two best book collections of the ancient world, the storage funds of the Library of Alexandria amounted to 700 thousand units. On the shelves of this colossal, even by today's standards, book depositories were collected the rarest Egyptian papyri, scrolls from the East, Delphi's parchment, Plato's manuscripts, and also the works of Aristophanes, Homer, and other outstanding authors that have not come down to us.
The library was part of the Alexandria Museion - the main scientific and educational center of Egyptian Alexandria. It is believed that it was here that Archimedes invented the water pump, Eratosthenes measured the diameter of the Earth, Euclid wrote his main work "Beginnings" (15 books), containing the foundations of ancient mathematics, and Claudius Ptolemy wrote "Almagest" - an encyclopedia of astronomical knowledge of the ancients. Hypatia (Hypatia), a woman mathematician, astronomer and philosopher, also worked here. When the library became crowded in the main building, a branch of Serapeion was built at the temple of the god Serapis, where over 40 thousand manuscripts were transported.
But this magnificent treasury of ancient thought was irretrievably lost.
In 391 A. D. The Roman emperor Theodosius I (the one who banned the Olympic Games, considering them pagan) provoked a pogrom of the library, which was presented to the militant activists of the Orthodox Christian Church as "the temple of Satan."
The last point was put by the warriors of Caliph Omar, who seized Alexandria in 641. And even when the Caliph was informed that some of the seized manuscripts did not contradict the Koran, the conqueror ordered them to be thrown into the fire … libraries of Aristotle and other prominent thinkers, almost completely perished …
Moscow
In addition to the barbarously destroyed, there are hidden libraries. The most famous is the libre of Ivan the Terrible, in, which was based on an extensive collection of books brought to Moscow as a dowry by the niece of the last Byzantine emperor Constantine XI Sophia Palaeologus, who became the wife of Grand Duke Ivan III - the grandfather of Ivan the Terrible. For some unknown reason, on the eve of his death, Ivan III hid the books in the Kremlin catacombs.
His son Vasily III discovered the books by accident and showed them to the theologian Maxim the Greek. After examining the find, he was delighted. However, history fatally repeated itself: before his death, Vasily III, for some reason, also hid the books in the same dungeon under the Kremlin. And again the folios were discovered by the heir - now Ivan IV.
Unlike his father and grandfather, Ivan the Terrible constantly turned to Byzantine books, replenished the collection and took care of the restoration of dilapidated copies. And then, as if following some secret call, the tsar also hid the liberey, so reliably that for more than four centuries it has not been found.
Samarkand
In that historical period of time, when Constantine was just preparing to become the Byzantine emperor, thousands of kilometers from the Bosphorus, in distant Samarkand, the fate of another great library of the Middle Ages was being decided - the library of Ulugbek, the grandson of the famous conqueror Tamerlane. "Iron Lame", who spent 37 years in military campaigns, conquering 26 large
and small kingdoms, was known as a famous patron of sciences, arts and crafts. From long trips, he brought captive scientists, architects, artists, craftsmen to his capital. It was under Tamerlane that Samarkand turned into an architectural pearl, the fame of which resounded throughout the East and far beyond its borders. In addition, he brought the most valuable books and manuscripts from Asia Minor, Turkey, Persia, India …
After the death of Tamerlane, his empire split into two parts: in Khorasan (with the capital in Herat) the son of the conqueror Shahrukh ruled, and in Maverannahr (with the center in Samarkand) - the son of Shakhrukh Ulugbek. Ulugbek got a unique library, which his formidable grandfather began to collect.
Ulugbek was reputed to be one of the most enlightened rulers of the Middle Ages, who gathered around him a galaxy of outstanding Eastern scholars, for example, Kazyzade Rumi, whom his contemporaries called Plato of his time, and Ali Kushchi, who had the no less flattering nickname Ptolemy of the East. Ulugbek devoted the lion's share of his time to scientific pursuits, primarily in the observatory he built himself. Ulugbek's main work "New Astronomical Tables" contained information about 1018 luminaries, which practically did not differ from modern ones.
It is no wonder that not everyone at the court liked the scientific and educational activities of Ulugbek, who in 1447, after the death of his father Shakhrukh, became the head of the Timurid dynasty.
The conspiracy matured literally before our eyes. The traitors managed to win over even Ulugbek's son Abdulatif to their side.
Ulugbek foresaw trouble. He understood that, having come to power, ignorant fanatics could destroy the scientific base he had created. The observatory was doomed, but the library had to be urgently saved. Ulugbek called Ali Kushchi, and he said that in the mountains, not far from the village of Kesh, where he came from, there are many caves where you can easily hide the library. On that and decided. The books - several thousand volumes - were packed into forged chests, and on a dark night the caravan set off …
Meanwhile, tragic events took place in Samarkand. In October 1449 Ulugbek was treacherously killed, and his son took an active part in the crime. The observatory was soon destroyed. Many scientists began to leave Samarkand, moving to Herat.
They say that after the death of Ulugbek, Kushchi left with a caravan to Turkey, where he remained until the end of his days. He allegedly took with him some of the books, but very insignificant. The main library remained in the cache. Kushchi could no longer return for her: a series of upheavals began in Maverannahr …
The traces of the library were completely lost. Its location is still one of the unsolved mysteries of the East.