Here's the statue of Cleopatra in Zagh'loul Square. It's part of a very tall statue of the leader of Egypt's 1919 revolution, Sa'ad Zagh'loul:

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You'll notice parts of the Cleopatra statue are very shiny. That's because Cleopatra's little descendants like to climb on the statue and sit in her lap:

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I DVR'd every episode and got the Fox Now app just so I could get my Cosmos fix after this week.

He even offered the fundies a little bit of Christian history to soothe their throbbing butthurt: the thriving Jewish community in classical Alexandria was responsible for translating the Tanakh into the Greek version from which most modern translations of the Old Testament are based: the Septuagint.

Unfortunately, while he mentioned Hypatia, he didn't delve into the particulars of her death: that she was skinned alive by a mob of Christians led by the now-Saint Cyril; or, that the Christians then went on to destroy Alexandria's Serapeum, which housed hundreds of ancient scrolls, the surviving remnants of the Library of Alexandria.

Though that may have pissed off both Xian and Jewish viewers. Ha!

The script was very careful to say that the translation was done "at the Library." Which is almost certainly true, since that was the major function of the Alexandria Library: collating, comparing and correcting ancient texts to produce definitive versions.

Here's the usual woo version of how the Septuagint was written. And the woo is right there in the name, since "Septuagint" means "seventy." Though we get a little Creationist Math thrown in, since the count is off by two:

Recognizing the awesomeness of the Jewish god, Ptolemy II decided to produce a Greek version of the Jewish scriptures.

Ptolemy invited the 6 greatest scholars from the 12 tribes of Israel to Alexandria for the task. They were housed on Pharos Island and left alone. Each of these 72 scholars independently produced his own translation. And when they were done, ALL 72 VERSIONS MATCHED EACH OTHER EXACTLY! They did not differ by as much as one letter!

More realistic/reasonable version: by the time of Ptolemy II, Alexandria's Jewish community mostly spoke and wrote Greek. Very few people were still around who could read the Jewish Scriptures in the original Hebrew.

Either on his own initiative or at the request of the Jewish community, Ptolemy II had their scriptures translated into Greek.

I doubt that any traditional, conservative Jewish scholar would have wanted to stay on Pharos Island. It was encrusted with graven images - statues of Greek gods and heroes. e.g., the Lighthouse itself was topped with a huge golden statue of Apollo.

And if Jewish scholars from the outback were brought in, we can be sure that Ptolemy's spy network kept a close watch on them for subversion. The Alexandria Library was a "museum" in the exact traditional sense of the term - a Temple of the Muses. As a temple, it came under the jurisdiction of the priesthood. Which ruled hand-in-glove with the Ptolemies.

I spent many a happy hour crawling around the underground remains of the Serapeum. You can still see a few traces of the last Library - niches in the wall where scrolls where stored, and a huge marble conference table.

Fun pop-culture reference to all this: recently I watched the old mini-series "Masada." One of the characters is a "shunned woman" who formerly lived in Alexandria, then returned to her traditional Jewish family in Palestine. Who shunned her, naturally.

Great bit of dialogue:
Man #1: The Jews in Alexandria don't take some things as seriously as the Jews in Palestine.
Man #2: Such as?
Man #1: Such as virginity.

Love the pics and info in the thread. Always appreciate first hand accounts, as it were.

Julie

It probably is already out!

It was good... but I must admit, I think I liked the original better. Perhaps just because it was 1st.... a new experience y'know. There were 4 "erudite" series that were must sees in the 70's:

The Ascent of Man
Civilization
Cosmos
Life on Earth


Ahhhhhhh..... the 70's.... Art! (there was an NEA) Dance!("Dance in America" came on once a week!) Music! Science!..... and sex, drugs and rock & roll!!!!