| | Year | | Event | Keyword |
| | -100 | | 1st C. AD By the end of this century, the form of the book had | CODEX |
| | largely changed from the scroll to the codex. |
| | -100 | | Nash Papyrus, oldest known biblical fragment, containing the | NASH PAPYRUS |
| | Hebrew text of the ten commandments. Acquired in Egypt 1902 by |
| | W.L.Nash and now in Cambridge University Library. |
| | -39 | | Libertas. Asinius Pollio establishes first public library in Rome at the | LIBERTAS TEMPLE |
| | Libertas Temple |
| | -28 | | Augustus. Under the reign of emperor Augustus two large libraries | AUGUSTUS |
| | were founded, the Palatine and the Octavian library |
| | 47 | | The great Library of Alexandria was damaged by fire | ALEXANDRIA LIBRARY |
| | when Julius Caeser besieged the city. It was said at one time to |
| | contain copies and translations of all known books (scrolls), |
| | between 400,000 and 500,000. It was later ravaged by civil war in |
| | the late 200s AD and by 400, nothing was left. |
| | 70 | | Ancient cells at centre of new dispute over Dead Sea Scrolls | Dead Sea Scrolls |
| | FROM CHRISTOPHER WALKER IN JERUSALEM |
| | |
| | A NEW dispute about the origins of the Dead Sea Scrolls erupted |
| | yesterday after an Israeli archaeologist claimed that a cluster of |
| | stone cells he unearthed in the Judean hills was a settlement of the |
| | |
| | Essenes, the scholar-monks who wrote them. |
| | Yizhar Hirschfeld said that about 25 members of the sect lived in the |
| | |
| | settlement, on the slopes overlooking the Ein Gedi kibbutz. He told |
| | journalists on a tour that the Essene residents raised a now extinct |
| | |
| | tree called balsam, whose aromatic sap was used to make perfume |
| | - a |
| | favourite in ancient Rome and even of Queen Cleopatra in Egypt. |
| | Standing on a ledge about 200 yards above the kibbutz, Mr |
| | Hirschfeld |
| | argued that the sect lived in cells made of limestone boulders |
| | pushed |
| | together to make cave-like rooms big enough for one. A communal |
| | kitchen and a ritual bath were nearby. "They may have been |
| | scholarly, |
| | but what we see from this site is that they were mostly engaged in |
| | |
| | agriculture," he said. Explaining why the monastic order might have |
| | |
| | sought refuge in the barren cliffside, he added: "It was not for the |
| | bread, but for the soul that they came here." |
| | Abraham Rabinovich, an Israeli expert, wrote in the Jerusalem Post: |
| | |
| | "Should Hirschfeld's identification be accepted by the scholarly |
| | community, it would bolster the contention of those who, like |
| | himself, |
| | say that the site of Qumran, 20 miles to the north, where the Dead |
| | Sea |
| | Scrolls were found, was not the Essene settlement described by |
| | ancient |
| | 100 | | Ulpia. Bibliotheca Ulpia founded by Trajan, also serving as imperial | ULPIA |
| | archive |
| | 104 | | Papermaking discovered in China by Ts'ai Louen (date is not very | TS'AI LOUEN |
| | specific: it may have been 105. Name also written as: Ts'ai Lun) |
| | Material used: plant bark, discarded cotton and old fishnets. |
| | January 17, 2003 | Page 3 of 32 |