Cleopatra and the Great Library

8/13/2019 Cleopatra and the Great Library

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Cleopatraand theGreat Library of AlexandriaKathleen FurmanHUMN 100-6980

Professor Elizabeth PenningtonMarch 26, 2010


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The REAL Story ofCleopatra

and theGreat

Libraryof Alexandria Egypt


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Julius Caesar has just discovered that his Cleopatra has fallen in love with MarcusAntonius. Blind with rage, Caesar gives his centurions an incredible task

Centurions.Cleopatra has betrayed me with Marcus Antonius. She must be taughta lesson. I will take away the one thing she values more than male companionship. Icommand you to take a garrison to the Great Library and burn it to the ground!!!!


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Meanwhile

Marcus Antonius, look!My historians have made

an incredible find.Scrolls -that they

verify have been writtenby Socrates!

No one has ever foundanything written by himbefore!

We must immediatelysubmit them to theGreat Library for

preservation. I will sendmy courier with thescrolls right away.


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Cleopatras courier arrives at the Library and watches in horror as it burns


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My Queenmy respected Marcus AntoniusI bring grievous news. TheGreat Library has burned, and Caesar is the cause. He is the one who

ordered it, I heard it from Brutus himself!

The courier rushes back to Cleopatras palace and enters, breathless


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The knowledge of the entire world.the written history of humancivilizationmy beloved Libraryin ashes because of a jealous tyrant.


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I cannot live with this sorrow. The world has ended.The loss is too great to bear.

Caesar and Rome have betrayed civilization.


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Clever asp! Hasten my end. With my death, I protest aloud to all present the destruction of the Great Library. Beware, Caesar, forBrutus knows your crime, and I have commanded him to avenge me.

Your death will be witnessed by the entire Senate.


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Julius Caesars jealousy and anger destroyed thousands of papyrus scrolls -- knowledge collected from countless scholars, scientists, philosophers

and artists. Caesar not only caused Cleopatra to take her own life, he alsohastened his own demise. Cleopatra s last act was to plot with Brutus the

murder of Caesar, thus avenging the librarys destruction. The real story of Cleopatra and the Great Library of Alexandria

is now told.


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AfterwardOkay, so I played with history. But at least its better than destroying

history. Much speculation has been offered regarding who was behindthe destruction of the Library of Alexandria. The fact remains that an

incredible amount of writings, drawings and other writtencommunication was lost forever with the burning of this tangible

directory of human existence. Who knows perhaps lost books of theBible, or Torah, or Quran vanished in smoke. Perhaps the secrets

behind the building of the pyramids existed in the Library. Maybetranslations of Aramaic, Hebrew, Greek and other languages were

available. Its been speculated that Socrates never wrote anything.How do we know? If he put a stylus to papyrus, it might just have

existed in the Great Library. The main message of this presentation isthat the preservation of human history is vital. Even if some created

work is controversial, it should be preserved. One never knows who orwhat will have the power to destroy those works or destroy the

people who created them. I have a bumper sticker that says:

First they burn booksthen they burn people


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A Few Scholarly NotesThe Great Library of Alexandria actually consisted of two libraries, the mother library in the Brucheionpalace area and the daughter library, located in the temple of Serapis (Heller -Roazen, 2002). These twolocations might explain the multiple theories of the Librarys destruction.

Three main theories about the Librarys demise seem to be popular among historians. The most populartheory seems to be that Julius Caesar was the culprit; it is thought that he inadvertently burned a part ofthe library in 47 B.C. (Thiem, 1979).

Another suspect wasTheodosius, the Christian Roman emperor. In his article The Great Library of AlexandriaBurnt , author Jon Thiem points out that another scholar indignantly recounted how the Christians inTheodosiuss reign had devastated the library.

The other major suspect was Caliph Omar, the leader of the Islamic Empire at the time. Omar supposedlyclaimed that if the historic books of the Greeks agreed with Islams teachings, it was not necessary to retainthem; if they disagreed with Islam, they should be obliterated (Thiem, 1979). Omars involvement in the

burning of the library is disputed, however. Asma Afsaruddin states in his article that intellectual tolerancewas a hallmark of Islam and reminds the reader that many Greek, Roman and Egyptian writings werepreserved by translating them into Arabic (Afsaruddin, 1990).

It seems that the loss of the Great Library will remain a mystery for a long time to come.


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How I Did ItI sketched in pencil and colored pens andmarkers, then outlined my final proofs in

ink and erased the pencil marks with a

plastic eraser to get a reasonably cleanillustration. Then I scanned my drawings.

I added color and corrections inPhotoshop and saved the illustrations in

JPEG format. Then I dropped them intothe PowerPoint presentation.


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BibliographyAfsaruddin, Asma. The Great Library at Alexandria. American Journal of Economics and Sociology . 49.3

(1990):291-292. JSTOR. Web. 22 Mar. 2010.Thiem, Jon. The Great Library of Alexandria Burnt: Towards the History of a Symbol. Journal of the History of Ideas .

40.4 (1979): 507-526. JSTOR. Web. 22 Mar. 2010.Heller- Roazen, Daniel. Traditions Destruction: On the Library of Alexandria. October. (2002). 133-153. JSTOR.

Web. 22 Mar. 2010.

Image: http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/ffximage/2008/04/21/EgyptNileSailboats Image: www.amarnawest.com/.../photo?photoid=56541335 (Egyptian pillars)Image: http://shop.discoveringegypt.com/ (Luxor Temple)

And finally I have to give credit to the Manga University website (http://www.howtodrawmanga.com/), sinceI didnt know anything about drawing anime until a few days ago. Their online lessons are spectacular and easy tounderstand. These lessons enabled me to develop my characters, Cleopatra in particular, with a lot of sketching.There are many other websites that also offer lessons on drawing anime , and if you are interested in this form ofart, I encourage you to visit as many anime/manga sites as possible.
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/ffximage/2008/04/21/EgyptNileSailboatshttp://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/ffximage/2008/04/21/EgyptNileSailboatshttp://www.amarnawest.com/apps/photos/photo?photoid=56541335http://shop.discoveringegypt.com/http://shop.discoveringegypt.com/http://www.amarnawest.com/apps/photos/photo?photoid=56541335http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/ffximage/2008/04/21/EgyptNileSailboatshttp://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/ffximage/2008/04/21/EgyptNileSailboats

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