The fall of Alexandria
The City of Alexandria was built by Alexander the great on an island in Egypt. The formation of the city was such that a natural harbor stood between it and the Nile delta creating one of the most prosperous trading destinations of it's time. Alexanders goal in creating this new cultural center was to collect every scrap of knowledge available and record it in the library he built. By the time it fell the Library at Alexandria held just over half a million papyrus, many of them the sole copy of that work in existence. Texts from Greece, Persia, Egypt, the Orient, and even the barbarian lands to the north were collected. Topics ranging from comedy to medical science, astronomy, to theology were covered.
Alexandria was primarily a place of learning and study that blended without prejudice greek and egyptian culture. Hypatia was a prime example of this. She was an amazingly well read scholar who had her own school and wore the clothing of a learned man, drove her own chariot, and in general ignored the traditional social roles for women completely. She invented the plane astrolabe and made many refinements to it over her abbreviated lifetime. Like I said, amazing woman.
With the rise of Christianity it made sense for religious leaders to migrate to the most influential city of the time to establish a more permanent base of power for themselves and to spread the fledgling religion. Christianity and Paganism co existed rather well in Alexandria for some time until the election of the Bishop Cyril. Cyril sought political power outside the scope of his religious domain and to gain it began to target wealthy and influential pagans. His followers stoned several men to death for defying the dictates of early Christianity but there was little change in the overall population of the city.
The turning point for Cyril was the decision, however it came about, to set his followers on Hypatia. After a particularly pointed sermon a group of the devout intercepted Hypatia on her drive home and pulled her from her carriage. They tore off her cloths and drug her to the nearest temple. With shards of broken pottery they flayed the skin from her body and when they were done, pulled her apart limb from limb. In the wake of this blood bath followers of Cyril broke open the vaults of pagan superiority and set fire to most of the libraries in Alexandria, keeping only that which had been written or sanctioned by the church.
For the price of stupidity and political power the greatest repository of knowledge collected since the dawn of human kind was destroyed. To this day we will never reconstruct the things discovered, written, pondered, and shared by one of the most advanced and cosmopolitan civilizations on the face of the earth.
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I hope that is the info you (the facebook crowd) were looking for. Lemme know if you have any other questions I might be able to answer.
Alexandria was primarily a place of learning and study that blended without prejudice greek and egyptian culture. Hypatia was a prime example of this. She was an amazingly well read scholar who had her own school and wore the clothing of a learned man, drove her own chariot, and in general ignored the traditional social roles for women completely. She invented the plane astrolabe and made many refinements to it over her abbreviated lifetime. Like I said, amazing woman.
With the rise of Christianity it made sense for religious leaders to migrate to the most influential city of the time to establish a more permanent base of power for themselves and to spread the fledgling religion. Christianity and Paganism co existed rather well in Alexandria for some time until the election of the Bishop Cyril. Cyril sought political power outside the scope of his religious domain and to gain it began to target wealthy and influential pagans. His followers stoned several men to death for defying the dictates of early Christianity but there was little change in the overall population of the city.
The turning point for Cyril was the decision, however it came about, to set his followers on Hypatia. After a particularly pointed sermon a group of the devout intercepted Hypatia on her drive home and pulled her from her carriage. They tore off her cloths and drug her to the nearest temple. With shards of broken pottery they flayed the skin from her body and when they were done, pulled her apart limb from limb. In the wake of this blood bath followers of Cyril broke open the vaults of pagan superiority and set fire to most of the libraries in Alexandria, keeping only that which had been written or sanctioned by the church.
For the price of stupidity and political power the greatest repository of knowledge collected since the dawn of human kind was destroyed. To this day we will never reconstruct the things discovered, written, pondered, and shared by one of the most advanced and cosmopolitan civilizations on the face of the earth.
*****
I hope that is the info you (the facebook crowd) were looking for. Lemme know if you have any other questions I might be able to answer.