Library of Celsus

Library of Celsus
Βιβλιοθήκη του Κέλσου
Façade of the Library of Celsus
Library of Celsus is located in Turkey
Library of Celsus
Shown within Turkey
LocationEphesus
RegionAegean
TypeNational library
Part ofAncient Greece, Ancient Rome
History
CulturesGreek, Roman
Site notes
Excavation dates1903–1904, restored 1970–1978
ArchaeologistsVolker Michael Strocka
Conditionpartly restored ruins
Public accessArchaeological site
Façade of the Library of Celsus at sunset

The Library of Celsus (Greek: Βιβλιοθήκη του Κέλσου) is an ancient Roman building in Ephesus, Anatolia, today located near the modern town of Selçuk, in the İzmir Province of western Turkey. The building was commissioned in the years 110s CE by a consul of the Roman Empire, Tiberius Julius Aquila Polemaeanus, as a funerary monument for his father Tiberius Julius Celsus Polemaeanus, former proconsul of Asia,[1][2] and completed during the reign of the Roman Emperor Hadrian, sometime after Aquila's death.[3][4]

The Library of Celsus is considered an architectural marvel, and is one of the only remaining examples of great libraries of the ancient world located in the Roman Empire. It was the third-largest library in the Greco-Roman world behind only those of Alexandria and Pergamum, believed to have held around 12,000 scrolls.[5] Celsus is buried in a crypt beneath the library in a decorated marble sarcophagus.[6][7] The interior measured roughly 180 square metres (2,000 square feet).[8]

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 CE,[9][7] and the façade by an earthquake in the 10th or 11th century.[10] It lay in ruins for centuries until the façade was re-erected by archaeologists between 1970 and 1978.[11]

  1. ^ Swain, Simon (2002). Dio Chrysostom: Politics, Letters, and Philosophy. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. p. 57. ISBN 9780199255214. Nevertheless, in 92 the same office went to a Greek, Tiberius Julius Celsus Polemaeanus, who belonged to a family of priests of Rome hailing from Sardis; entering the Senate under Vespasian, he was subsequently to be appointed proconsul of Asia under Trajan, possibly in 105/6. Celsus' son, Aquila, was also to be made suffectus in 110, although he is certainly remembered more as the builder of the famous library his father envisioned for Ephesus.
  2. ^ Nicols, John (1978). Vespasian and the partes Flavianae, Issues 28-31. Steiner. p. 109. ISBN 9783515023931. Tiberius Julius Celsus Polemaeanus (PIR2 J 260) was a Romanized Greek of Ephesus or Sardis who became the first eastern consul.
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference :3 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference :1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ "Library of Celsus – Lonely Planet". Lonely Planet. Retrieved 2016-10-10.
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference Hanfmann, George Maxim Anossov 1975 65 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ a b "Celsus Library, Ephesos". World History Encyclopedia. Retrieved 2016-10-02.
  8. ^ "Library of Celsus". World History Encyclopedia. 22 July 2018. Retrieved 13 August 2020.
  9. ^ Clyde E. Fant, Mitchell GReddish, A Guide to Biblical Sites in Greece and Turkey, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003, p. 194.
  10. ^ Clive Foss, Ephesus After Antiquity: A Late Antique, Byzantine, and Turkish City, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979, p. 134.
  11. ^ Hartwig Schmidt, 'Reconstruction of Ancient Buildings', in Marta de la Torre (ed.), The Conservation of Archaeological Sites in the Mediterranean Region (Conference, 6–12 May 1995, Getty Conservation Institute), Los Angeles: The Getty Conservation Institute, 1997, pp. 46–47.