Page 39 - STOLEN LEGACY By George G. M. James

Beyond this are the remains of a hall 133 feet broad by 100 feet long, supported by 48 columns,
twelve of which are thirty-two feet in height and 21 feet in circumference. On different parts of
the columns, and the walls are represented acts of homage by the king to the principal Deities of
the Theban Pantheon, and the gracious promises which they make him in return.

In another sculpture the two chief Divinities of Egypt invest him with the emblems of military
and civil dominion, i.e., the Scimitar, the Scourge and the Pedum. Beneath, the twenty-three sons
of Rameses appear in procession, bearing the emblems of their respective high offices in the
state, their names being inscribed above them. Nine smaller apartments, two of them still
preserved, and supported by columns, lay behind the hall. On the jambs of the first of these
apartments are sculptured Thoth: the Inventor of Letters, and the Goddess Saf, with the title of
'Lady of Letters'; and 'President of the Hall of Books', accompanied the former with an emblem
of the sense of sight, and the latter of hearing.

There is no doubt that this is the "Sacred Library" which Diodorus describes as the inscribed
"Dispensary of the Mind". It had an astronomical ceiling, in which the twelve Egyptian months
are represented, with an inscription from which important inferences have been drawn respecting
the chronology of the reign of Rameses III.

On the walls is a procession of priests, carrying the Sacred Arts, and in the next apartment, the
last that now remains, the king is presenting offerings to the various Divinities. (Ancient Egypt
by J. Kendrick Bk. I p. 128–131. Report of French Commission).

C. Museum and the Library of Alexander were used as a University.

The Museum and Library of Alexandria were so famous in ancient times, that we wonder why
more information concerning this centre of learning, has not come down to us. A few references
to authoritative sources might no doubt help to enlighten us on this matter. From Sedgwick's and
Tyler's History of Science, chapter 5 pages 87–119, we learn that the subjugation of Egypt by
Alexander the Great in 330 B.C. had checked the further development of Greek civilization on
its native soil.

That after the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C., his vast empire was divided among his
generals, and that Alexandria, the new Egyptian capital fell to Ptolemy. That the city, barely ten
years old, soon became the centre of the learned world, and that by 300 B.C., the Museum (i.e.,
the seat of the Muses), was founded, and became a veritable university of Greek learning. That to
the Museum was attached a great library, with a dining hall and lecture rooms for professors, and
this became a school of philosophers, mathematicians and astronomers. Here for the next 700
years, science had its chief abiding place.

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Stolen Legacy: Greek Philosophy is Stolen Egyptian Philosophy by George G. M. James
The Journal of Pan African Studies 2009 eBook