Thursday, January 28, 2021

Review of Libraries before Alexandria (ed. Ryholt & Barjamovic)

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW: Libraries before Alexandria: ancient Near Eastern traditions.
Kim Ryholt, Gojko Barjamovic, Libraries before Alexandria: ancient Near Eastern traditions. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2020. Pp. xvii, 491. ISBN 9780199655359 $130.00.

Review by
Bernhard Schneider. mcb170@gmail.com

"Before," means before the Hellenistic period, so the Qumran Library, the Library at Herculaneum, etc. are not included. But there is wide coverage of ancient Near Eastern and Egyptian libraries of the second and first millennium BCE.

I have collected some PaleoJudaica posts on the Library of Alexandria here. For more on the volume on the St Andrews conference mentioned in the review, see here. That post has additional links on ancient libraries. And for a book on ancient Roman libraries, see here.

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