A cupboard of the Pinakes
Laws
νόμοι
Known: attested Attested class: named, with a numbered third table, in Athenaeus 13.585b.
How to read this cupboard: each hole holds a work the evidence puts in the Library's orbit, at the age it arrived, and an empty hole means a lost work and nothing else. Works written in the city by people not attested as Library scholars lie on the table of the city; works of the Egyptian milieu and witnesses to the city lie on the ledge. The closed door stands for the books no one can now name.
Laws
- Not yet in Alexandria in this age.Fate unknown in this age.
- Not yet in Alexandria in this age.Fate unknown in this age.
Behind this door: what the Library held under this class that no one can now name. Our shelves hold 185 works. The ancient claims for the whole collection run from 40,000 to 700,000 rolls, and modern estimates are much lower (see the Ledger of Numbers). The doors are not drawn to scale.
On the table: written in the city
This class through time
- I Founding: 0 in the city
- II Collection: 3 in the city, 3 arriving
- III Librarians: 3 in the city
- IV Purge and Fire: 3 in the city
- V Roman: 3 in the city
- VI Serapeum: 4 in the city, 1 arriving
- VII Last Schools: 4 in the city
This cupboard in the show
- Translation History: Hebrew to Greek to Latin, episode 17, at 27 minutes 18 secondsTranscriptTranslation history: Hebrew to Greek to Latin, around the word Lucifer.Known: probable
- Translation History: Hebrew to Greek to Latin, episode 17, at 27 minutes 18 secondsTranscript“henistic Judaism gave us two really important things for the western esoteric tradition. It gave us merba mysticism and it gave us the septuagent.” (intended: Septuagint)Known: probable
Correction
- What was said
- The Septuagint means seventy books.
- What the sources say
- It is named for the seventy (or seventy-two) translators of the legend. Merkavah mysticism is not shown to be Alexandrian.
Reference
- Letter of Aristeas 46–50
- Kabbalah, Merkavah & Platonic Parallels, episode 22, at 22 minutes 17 secondsTranscript“We have the Septuagen translation from around then”The Torah was translated in the 3rd century BCE; the rest over the next two centuries.Known: probable
+ 12 more, each on its roll's tag.