The famed Library of Alexandria was begun by Ptolemy I Soter and finished by his son Ptolemy II Philodelphos. Their goal was to create a single repository where the whole of human wisdom could be collected. Towards that end they employed the best scholars of the time to translate obscure foreign texts into Greek, assemble definitive editions of Homer and the Attic dramatists, and produce new methods for interpreting and cataloguing the material. The Ptolemies were zealous in their acquisition of knowledge – any ship that set into Alexandria’s port was searched for new books, copies were made and given back to the owner while the original was deposited in the Library. Nor were they above piracy and warfare to fuel their bibliomania, especially against the Attalid Kings of Pergamon who had created a Library to rival the one in Alexandria. At one point the main Library was estimated to contain over a million scrolls (though some scholars put the number as low as 500,000, a still considerable amount when you consider that each scroll could contain the complete works of several authors) – and that’s not even counting the supplementary Library that had to be built within the temple of Serapis, which is thought to have contained an additional 200,000 scrolls!

Our Library here at Neos Alexandria is on a much humbler scale, but we hope that it will still prove helpful in your quest to gain knowledge. We have broken it up into several sections:

Primary Sources: We feel that the best place to start is with what the ancients themselves had to say about a given topic. These anthologies cover several different topics and are grouped alphabetically by the author when that is known.

Bibliographies: (1) General overview of Greece, Egypt, Rome, and contemporary polytheist religion; (2) Alexandria, its history, culture, and rulers. Also see: Our LibraryThing catalog

Online Resources: These have been grouped topically to aid in research. It should be noted, however, that inclusion of a link to a site does not imply acceptance of all of the author’s claims or conclusions, a guarantee of factual information, or support for a particular organization or individual. Approach everything you find online – including the material here at Neos Alexandria – with a healthy dose of skepticism.

Bibliotheca Alexandrina: a series of books dedicated to the ancient gods of Greece and Egypt. Each volume will contain essays, poetry, devotional material, original artwork, etc. focused on a particular divinity. These anthologies will be a collaborative effort drawing on the combined resources of the different elements within the modern Hellenic and Kemetic polytheist communities, in the hope that we can come together to praise our gods and share our diverse understandings, experiences and approaches to the divine. In addition to that, through the Bibliotheca Alexandria we intend to bring out important new works by contemporary Hellenic and Kemetic polytheist authors covering diverse topics such as theology, ethics, history, and the modern forms of worship used to honor the ancient gods.