List of Top 10 Oldest Libraries in the World

From the stone tablets of ancient civilizations to delicately preserved manuscripts, libraries have been centers of knowledge, culture, and intellectual interchange for thousands of years. The world's oldest libraries hold much more than just books, as they acted as places of philosophical, scientific, religious, and literary thought.

Libraries have also been located on the edge of empires, and remarkably, have survived wars, conflagration, and conquest. While many remain only ruins or in-memory legend, some still exist as institutional libraries today, serving as a testament to mankind's desire to seek knowledge. The following article shares the top 10 oldest libraries in the world based on the latest research by UNESCO World Heritage Centre, and BBC History, remarkable institutions that allow the past to speak to us, showing how ancient societies thought about the world and their personal place in it, and how simultaneously attempted to preserve their own thoughts for future generations.

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List of Top 10 Oldest Libraries in the World

Here is the list of the top 10 Oldest Libraries in the world along with their location, country and date of origin: 

1. The Library of Ashurbanipal, Iraq

Often referred to as the oldest known library, the Library of Ashurbanipal opened in Nineveh (the capital of the Assyrian Empire) under the reign of King Ashurbanipal (668–627 BCE). It housed more than 30,000 clay tablets written in cuneiform writing on many subjects, including astronomy, medicine, literature, and religion. This is also where the famous Epic of Gilgamesh was discovered. Though it was destroyed when Nineveh was sacked in 612 BCE, many of the tablets have survived and are located in the British Museum.

2. The Library of Alexandria, Egypt

The fabled library in Alexandria, Egypt, was constructed during the reign of Ptolemy I or II. The goal of the library was to collect all human knowledge and may have contained as many as 400,000 scrolls. The circumstances surrounding the library’s destruction are uncertain and debated, but it is now a powerful symbol of lost knowledge and academic ambition.

3. Library of Pergamum, Turkey

A rival to Alexandria, the Library of Pergamum in modern-day Bergama, Turkey offers one of the most noteworthy ancient library examples. It is said to have housed around 200,000 scrolls and boasts a legend about the invention of parchment (the term derives from pergamena). It was said to be invented here after Egypt cut off the supply of papyrus. Mark Antony eventually gave the Library of Pergamum to Cleopatra.

4. Villa of the Papyri, Italy

Buried in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE, the Roman villa in Herculaneum has preserved the only ancient library we know to be intact. At the site, archaeologists have found more than 1,800 papyrus scrolls, most of which are Greek philosophical texts. With the help of multi-spectral imaging and other modern technologies, scholars are beginning to read the charred scrolls.

5. The Library of Saint Catherine's Monastery, Egypt

At the foot of Mount Sinai, this library is part of the longest operating Christian monastery in the world. Some of the oldest biblical manuscripts are found here, as well as over 3,300 ancient codices in Greek, Arabic, Syriac, and Georgian. The library is second only to the Vatican in the collection of early Christian texts.