Origin of the Library

The origin of the library is as old as that of the library itself deed. As human beings saw the need to document things, they also understood the importance of save those documents for posterity.

The word library comes from the Greek Biblion (book) Y thekes (box). But it wasn't the ancient Hellenic people who created these wonderful temples of culture and knowledge, but we must go back even further, specifically almost three thousand years. Therefore, if you want to know the origin of the library, we invite you to continue reading.

The origin of the library: linked to the temples

As far as we know, writing was born in the fruitful Mesopotamia, which, broadly speaking, occupied what are now the territories of Iraq and Syria. It was the fourth millennium BC and was pictographic type, that is to say, that it represented objects by means of drawn icons. From all that we have told you, it will not be difficult for you to deduce that the library was also born there at that time.

Mesopotamia, the first libraries

As happened in other times, for example in the Middle Ages, the temples and monasteries they were places of worship, but also of conservation of knowledge. It was the religious who first used writing to record facts related to their activity, but also other economic and administrative aspects related to their community life.

And also the first ones who started to save those documents. Therefore, the first libraries were dedicated to archiving these texts. Namely, they would be more files than libraries. Those primitive scribes made it on clay tablets, thanks to which they were better preserved. Among those first libraries were those of cities such as Mari, lagash y Ebla, as well as Ashurbanipal.

This Assyrian monarch was a great patron of the arts and letters. And also the creator of the Nineveh Library, perhaps the first in history similar to those we know today. Because not only documents were stored in it, but also other texts of a literary nature. For example, it kept very complete versions of the 'Poem of Gilgamesh'. It is the oldest known epic composition and deals with the adventures of the homonymous king, monarch of the Sumerian city of uruk.

The fact is that the Ashurbanipal cult set out to house in the Library of Nineveh all the written texts of the known world in its time. Therefore, it was the first book house in history. But, as you understand, all these statements are based on the archaeological remains that have been found. Because Egyptians and Greeks also had libraries.

Libraries of Ancient Egypt

Therefore, it seems that the origin of the library was in Mesopotamia. But, as we have just told you, the Egyptians also had theirs and, above all, they made their contributions to the world of the written word.

To begin with, they adopted the papyrus to write their documents and, when these were very long, they used scrolls. In addition, they modernized the writing and even had a kind of primitive shorthand. It was the call hieratic writing, in which they represented words by signs or hieroglyphs. But you will be more interested to know that in Ancient Egypt there were two kinds of library centers.

The book houses

We could tell you that they were the equivalent of the first Libraries of Mesopotamia. Because these were places where administrative documents were filed. For example, accounts of the state or official institutions.

The houses of life

These places were the schools of Ancient Egypt, where the youngest received education. But they also possessed writings collections that pupils could copy, as medieval monks, for example, would later do.

Ancient Greece, vital in the origin of the modern library

The ancient Greeks also had their libraries. In fact, they gave a big boost to these types of centers. As the Greek writing was already alphabetical, their knowledge became very widespread and, with it, access to reading and books.

Regarding libraries, we could tell you that, broadly speaking, they were already like the ones we know today. They were not linked to religious centers or official bodies. For the first time, they were independent institutions. In addition, the Greek cults, as did the Assyrian Ashurbanipal, proposed to host in their libraries all the knowledge of his time. And some of its book houses have gone down in history for their splendor and richness of volumes.

The Library of Alexandria

This is the case of the famous Library of Alexandria, created in the XNUMXrd century BC and which was one of the most important of antiquity. As you know, Alexandria is in Egypt, but the creation of its library was due to the Greeks when, after the conquest of Alexander the Great, they ruled the land of the pharaohs.

This library was integrated into the so-called museum, a cultural center dedicated to the muses where there was everything necessary for the greatest writers and scientists of the ancient world to live. At first, it housed the texts on papyrus scrolls, but later it incorporated codices and it is estimated that he had almost half a million works archived.

It is believed that it disappeared because of a terrifying fire. And, indeed, this occurred, but today it tends to be thought that the Library of Alexandria was decaying over time until it was closed.

The Pergamon Library

The other great book house of the Greek world was the Pergamon Library, near the Aegean coast. It was also created in the second half of the XNUMXrd century BC. Its founder was the king Attalus I, a great collector of art and books. But it would be his son Eumenides II, who would give it the splendor that it came to enjoy.

In its most prosperous stage, it had about three hundred thousand volumes, preferably philosophical and closely linked to the stoicism. Unlike the previous one, it kept its copies on papyri, a material so called, precisely because it was invented in Pergamum. And, according to the Roman writer Pliny the Elder, in this library were housed as a treasure for posterity the works of Aristotle.

It is believed that this library disappeared precisely when the Alexandria fire occurred. Because the rulers decided to send the volumes of the first to the latter.

Rome, the first public library

The Romans copied many things from Greece, including libraries. However, they are responsible for the popularization of these centers. Because the writer and politician Gaius Asinius Pollio created the first public library of history in the XNUMXst century BC.

Furthermore, also the Roman empire it featured large book houses. Among them, Palatina and Octaviana libraries, due to Augusto, and the Ulpia Library of the emperor Trajan. All of them had two sections: that of the Greek texts and that of the Latin works.

The Middle Ages: the decline of libraries

With the fall of the Roman Empire, there was a terrible cultural decline, to the point that knowledge took refuge in the monasteries. Therefore, these centers were the only ones that had libraries, some as important as those of Reichenau, Mount Casino o San Millan de la Cogolla, the latter in Spain.

In this way, the monasteries became safeguarding the cultural heritage of humanity. They preserved and copied the texts for posterity. Thanks to this, in the last centuries of the Middle Ages, with the appearance of universities, all these works were known and could be kept in their new book houses. But, with that, we come to modern world and this is no longer the subject of an article on the origin of the library.