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Alexandria, founded by Alexander the Great in 331 BC quickly became a center of culture, learning and commerce for a thousand years due to it’s harbor and geographic position. The Great Library, which is purported to have housed the most extensive collection of writings on the planet at the time. At its height, the library acted to gather as much of the knowledge in the world within its buildings, housing from an estimated 40,000 to 400,000 papyrus scrolls. Librarians would depart Alexandria in search of new writings and ships coming into the harbor were asked to surrender their books for copying by the library.
Scholars debate on when the library met its demise, but two historical events probably caused most of the damage. First, in 48 AD, a besieged Julius Caesar reportedly set fire to his ships in the harbor, the flames spreading to the flammable papyrus scrolls in various buildings of the library. The year the League inkers of
DIEBACK enter the city, 272 AD, the Roman emperor Aurelius was in the process of putting down a revolt led by Queen Zenobia of Palmyra, destroying much of the remaining library buildings and contents.
Addison’s father, Thomas Shaw has then found an excellent location to hide the Alchimeía among the many scrolls. Not only does he have the security of being hidden in plain sight, but he has contained the hiding place within a specific time period. He knows the library and its contents, including the Alchimeía, will be destroyed within 24 hours of him placing the scroll on the shelf. Only an inker with specific knowledge of the time and location will be able to reacquire the document containing the alchemical secrets of the League.
Sounds like a very good strategy and I’m sure we have nothing to worry about…
Learn more about the destruction of the Great Library.
DIE BACK is available in paperback and ebook from Amazon.
