Hi everyone,
The photo above is of the Library of Celsus, an ancient Roman construction in Ephesus, Turkey. Commissioned in the 110s AD by consul Gaius Julius Aquila as a funerary monument for his father Tiberius Julius Celsus Polemaeanus, it was not completed until after Aquila's death. The library is thought to be the third largest in the ancient world, behind only the libraries at Alexandria and Pergamum and it is believed to have held 12,000 scrolls. Celsus himself is buried beneath the library in a marble sarcophagus.
The library operated from its completion around 117–135 AD until 262 AD. The main floor functioned as a reading room, and shelves set into niches along the walls held papyrus book rolls that visitors could read. The interior of the library and its contents were destroyed in a fire that resulted either from an earthquake or a Gothic invasion in 262 AD. The façade was destroyed by an earthquake in the tenth or eleventh century and lay in ruins until re-erected by archaeologists between 1970 and 1978.
I would love to visit Ephesus but I have yet to visit any of the archaeological sites in Turkey. Hissarlik, identified as the likely site of the city named Troy, is another one which is definitely on the bucket list!
- Helen
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