2-913-700 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Recently-discovered remains of the Alexandrian Library, 1854. Archaeological remains in the city of Alexandria, Egypt. '...a few months since, the men employed digging foundations close to the British Consulate, came upon some very extensive ruins...Massive brick walls, numerous arches, portions of plastered ceilings, fragments of vitrified and charred matter - in some places bearing marks apparently made by close contact with the edges of ancient books, while in a state of semi-fusion; very fine monolithic columns of red granite; and large masses of stone - very like that now used in the construction of the Cairo and Alexandria Railway, and obtained at the quarries at Kaffre Douar, sixteen miles from Alexandria - are found in abundance in the ruins. Some very fine capitals of pillars and portions of columns of white marble are also amongst the discoveries'. From "Illustrated London News", 1854.