Celsus library: Did you mean...?

Abbeys were a striking feature of medieval urban and rural landscapes. Their layout and architecture reflected their purpose as cut-off monastic retreats which, conversely, also served and inspired their local communities. Although evolving...

Seshat (also given as Sefkhet-Abwy and Seshet) is the Egyptian goddess of the written word. Her name literally means "female scribe" and she is regularly depicted as a woman wearing a leopard skin draped over her robe with a headdress of...

Leo Africanus (al-Hasan ibn Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Wazzan al-Fasi al-Granati, 1485-1554) was a diplomat, merchant traveller and scholar who famously voyaged from Timbuktu to the Niger River and wrote 'The Description of Africa' (La Descrittione...

Did you know that the prototype of a library’s card catalog was invented over 2000 years ago by Callimachus of Cyrene? This video is all about the great scholar and poet Callimachus of Cyrene who revolutionized library science and literature...

Ton Dionos tou Kassiou Romaikon historion biblia pente kai eikosi = Dionis Cassii Romanarum historiarum libri XXV Published: Excudebat Henricus Stephanus, 1592 CE John Adams Library at the Boston Public Library

The history of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, Volume 1, by Gibbon, Edward, London, 1777. John Adams Library (Boston Public Library)

A maintenance worker painting the Sydney Harbour Bridge in 1945, photo by Alec Iverson. Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales and Courtesy ACP Magazines Ltd.

This hymn to the goddess Ishtar is written in Sumerian; after every line in Sumerian, the text is translated in Akkadian. Such translations have been invaluable to modern scholars. They reflect how the Sumerian language had become difficult...

The title page of an early edition of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon (1737-1794), first published in 1776. (John Adams Library at the Boston Public Library)

Kena Upanishad, verses 1.1–3, partially 4 (opens with salutations to Ganesha) The thick text is the Upanishad scripture, the small text in the margins and edges are an unknown scholar's notes and comments in the typical Hindu style of...