List of libraries in the ancient world

The great libraries of the ancient world served as archives for empires, sanctuaries for sacred writings, and depositories of literature and chronicles.

Syria, Iraq, Iran

• The archives and texts at Ebla, ca. 2500 to the destruction of the city ca. 2250 BC, constitute the oldest organized library yet discovered: see Ebla tablets.
• The libraries of Ugarit (in modern Syria), c. 1200 BC, include diplomatic archives, literary works and the earliest privately-owned libraries yet recovered.
• The Library of Ashurbanipal (established 668-627 BC) , in Nineveh (near modern Mosul, Iraq), long considered to be the first systematically collected library, was rediscovered in the 19th century. While the library had been destroyed, many fragments of the ancient cuneiform tablets survived, and have been reconstructed. Large portions of the Epic of Gilgamesh were among the many finds.
• The Academy of Gundishapur in western Iran, established during the Persian Sassanid Empire in the 3rd through 6th centuries AD.
• The House of Wisdom, an Abbasid-era library and Arabic translation institute in Baghdad, Iraq. 8th century AD–1258.

Indian subcontinent

• The great seats of learning in the ancient Indian subcontinent, namely Takshasila (6th to 5th century BC in modern day Pakistan), Nalanda (found on 427 BC and considered "one of the first great universities in recorded history."), Vikramshila (8th century AD), Kanchipuram and other universities, also maintained vast libraries of palm leaf manuscripts on various subjects, ranging from theology to astronomy. In 1193, the Nalanda University complex was sacked by Turkic Muslim invaders under Bakhtiyar Khilji; this event is seen as a milestone in the decline of Buddhism in India.

Africa

• The Library of Alexandria, Egypt, fl. 3rd century BC (c. 295 BC). The date of its destruction is uncertain, but it supposedly housed one of the largest collections in the classical world.

Greece and Rome

• The Library of Pergamum at Pergamum (in what is now Turkey), also in the 3rd century BC, the Attalid kings formed the second best Hellenistic library after Alexandria, founded in emulation of the Ptolemies. When the Ptolemies stopped exporting papyrus, partly because of competitors and partly because of shortages, the Pergamenes invented a new substance to use in codices, called pergamum or parchment after the city. This was made of fine calfskin, a predecessor of vellum and paper.
• Libraries of the Forum, consisted of separate libraries founded in the time of Augustus near the Roman Forum that contained both Greek and Latin texts, separately housed, as was the conventional practice. There were libraries in the Porticus Octaviae near the Theatre of Marcellus, in the temple of Apollo Palatinus, and in the Bibliotheca Ulpiana in the Forum of Trajan.
• Private libraries of Ancient Rome were also considerable: Roman aristocracy saw the library as a point of prestige and many of these were transferred to the monasteries of the medieval years. 
• The Villa of the Papyri, in Herculaneum, Italy is the only library known to have survived from classical antiquity. This villa's large private collection may have once belonged to Julius Caesar's father-in-law, Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus in the 1st century BC. Buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius that destroyed the town in 79 AD, it was rediscovered in 1752, around 1800 carbonized scrolls were found in the villa's top story. Using modern techniques such as multi-spectral imaging, previously illegible or invisible sections on scrolls that have been unrolled are now being deciphered. It is possible that more scrolls remain to be found in the lower, unexcavated levels of the villa.
• The Theological Library of Caesarea Maritima, a late 3rd century AD establishment located in present-day Israel, was a great early Christian library. Through Origen of Alexandria and the scholarly priest Pamphilus of Caesarea, the school won a reputation for having the most extensive ecclesiastical library of the time, containing more than 30,000 manuscripts: Gregory of Nazianzus, Basil the Great, Jerome and others came to study there.
• The Imperial Library of Constantinople, founded in 330 AD, was largely destroyed or burned by crusaders during the Fourth Crusade.
• Library of Celsus was a library of antiquity located in the ancient city of Ephesus, western Anatolia.

See also

• Destruction of libraries