Wednesday, December 28, 2016

Library of Celsus, Turkey

 

The Library of Celsus is an ancient Roman building in EphesusAnatolia, now part of SelçukTurkey. It was built in honour of the Roman Senator Tiberius Julius Celsus Polemaeanus (completed sometime between 117 and 120 AD) by Celsus' son, Gaius Julius Aquila (consul, 110 AD). The library was "one of the most impressive buildings in the Roman Empire" and built to store 12,000 scrolls and to serve as a mausoleum for Celsus, who is buried in a crypt beneath the library in a decorated marble sarcophagus. The Library of Celsus was the "third-largest library in the ancient world" behind both Alexandria and Pergamum.

The interior of the library was destroyed, supposedly by an earthquake in 262 A.D., (though other evidence points to a fire during a Gothic invasion in that same year) and the façade by another earthquake in the tenth or eleventh century A.D. It lay in ruins for centuries, until the façade was re-erected (anastylosis) by archaeologists between 1970 and 1978. Source: Wikipedia 









 



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