The library of Alexandria

List of destroyed libraries

Birmingham Central Library destroyed by fire, 1879

Libraries have been deliberately or accidentally destroyed or badly damaged. Sometimes a library is purposely destroyed as a form of cultural cleansing.^{[citation needed]}There are examples of accidentally destroyed libraries by human actions. Other times they are damaged by natural disasters like earthquakes, floods or accidental fires.

Library fires have happened sporadically through the centuries: notable examples are the destruction of the Library of Alexandriaand the accidental burning of the Duchess Anna Amalia Library in Weimar. Causes vary from arson to the sun's rays setting fire to leaflets through the action of a magnifying lens in a library in Northam, Devon.

Causes --Human action

Edit

Image	Name of Library	City	Country	Date of Destruction	Perpetrator	Reason and/or Account of Destruction
	Epang Palace (orXianyang Palace) and State Archives	Xianyang	Qin China	206 BC	Xiang Yu	Xiang Yu, rebelling against emperorQin Er Shi, led his troops into Xianyang in 206 BC. He ordered the destruction of the Epang Palace(or Xianyang Palace) by fire.^[4](Qin Shi Huang had ordered theburning of books and burying of scholars earlier.)
	Library of Alexandria	Alexandria	Ancient Egypt	Disputed	Disputed	Disputed,^[5]^[6] seedestruction of the Library of Alexandria.
	Library of Antioch	Antioch	Ancient Syria	364 AD	Emperor Jovian^[7]	The library was burnt by Emperor Jovian. It had been heavily stocked by the aid of his non-Christian predecessor,Emperor Julian (the Apostate)
	Library of theSerapeum	Alexandria	Ancient Egypt	392 AD	Theophilus of Alexandria	The library was burned and looted at the decree ofTheophilus of Alexandria, who was so ordered byTheodosius I.
	Library of Ctesiphon	Ctesiphon,Khvârvarân	Ancient Persia	651 AD	Arab Invaders	Books thrown into the Euphrates on the order of Caliph Umar.^{[citation needed]}
	Library of al-Hakam II	Córdoba	Al-Andalus	976 AD	Al-Mansur Ibn Abi Aamir & religious scholars	All books consisting of "ancient science" were destroyed in a surge of ultra-orthodoxy.^[8]
	Library of Rayy	Rayy	Persia	1029 AD	Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni	Burned the library and all books deemed as heretical.^[9]
	Library of Ghazna	Ghazna	Ghurid empire	1151 AD	'Ala ad-Din Husain	City was sacked and burned for seven days. Libraries and palaces built by the Ghaznavidswere destroyed.^[10]
	Library of Nishapur	Nishapur		1154 AD	Oghuz Turks	City partially destroyed, libraries sacked and burned.^[11]
	Nalanda	Nalanda	India	1193 AD	Bakhtiyar Khilji	Nalanda University complex (the most renowned repository of Buddhist knowledge in the world at the time) was sacked by Turkic Muslim invaders under Bakhtiyar Khilji; this event is seen as a milestone in the decline ofBuddhism in India.^[12]
	Imperial Library of Constantinople	Constantinople	Byzantine Empire	1204 AD	The Crusaders	In 1204, the library became a target of the knights of the Fourth Crusade. The library itself was destroyed and its contents burned or sold. The great part of the library that was saved later became absorbed into the Ottoman Sultan's library after the Muslim forces of Mehmed II, Sultan of the Ottoman Turks, captured Constantinople at the end of the siege of 1453.
	House of Wisdom	Baghdad	Iraq	1258 AD	Mongol Invaders	Allegedly destroyed during the Battle of Baghdad, but this is disputed by modern scholars, who point to the library's loss of importance after the capital moved to Samarra in the ninth century, to the fact that several of the other famous libraries allegedly destroyed at the same time were authoritatively reported to still exist over a hundred years later, and to the foundation of an important library in Persia using books collected by the Mongol King responsible for the city's capture
	Madrassah Library	Granada	Crown of Castile	1499 AD	Troops commanded byCardinal Cisneros	The library was attacked by troops of Cardinal Cisneros in late 1499, the books were taken to thePlaza Bib-Rambla, where they were burned in public.
	Bibliotheca Corviniana	Ofen	Ottoman Empire	1526 AD	Troops of the Ottoman Empire.	Library was destroyed by Ottomans.^[13]
	Glasney College	Penryn,Cornwall	England	1548 AD	Royal officials	The smashing and looting of the Cornish colleges at Glasney andCrantock brought an end to the formal scholarship which had helped to sustain theCornish languageand the Cornish cultural identity.
	Maya codices of the Yucatán	Yucatán	Mexico and Guatemala	1562-07-12 AD	Diego de Landa	Bishop De Landa, a Franciscanmonk and conquistador during theSpanish conquest of Yucatán, wrote: "We found a large number of books in these characters and, as they contained nothing in which were not to be seen as superstition and lies of the devil, we burned them all, which they (the Maya) regretted to an amazing degree, and which caused them much affliction." Only three extant codices are widely considered unquestionably authentic.
	Raglan Library	Raglan Castle	Wales	1646 AD	Parliamentary Army	The Earl of Worcester's library was burnt during the English Civil War by forces under the command ofThomas Fairfax^[14]
	Library of Congress	Washington, D.C.	United States	1814 AD	Troops of the British Army	The library was destroyed during the War of 1812when British forces set fire to the U.S. Capitolduring the Burning of Washington.^[15]
	University of Alabama	Tuscaloosa, Alabama	United States	1865-05-04 AD	Troops of theUnion Army	During theAmerican Civil War, Union troops destroyed most buildings on the University of Alabama campus, including its library of approximately 7,000 volumes.^[16]
	Royal library of the Kings of Burma	Mandalay Palace	Burma	1885 - 1887 AD	Troops of the British Army	The British looted the palace at the end of the 3rd Anglo-Burmese War (some of the artefacts which were taken away are still on display in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London)^[17] and burned down the royal library.
	Library of the Catholic University of Leuven	Leuven	Belgium	1914-08-25	German Occupation Troops	The Germans set the library on fire as part of the burning of the entire city in an attempt to use terror to quell Belgian resistance to occupation.^[18]
	Public Records Office of Ireland	Dublin	Ireland	1922 AD	Disputed. Poss. deliberately byAnti-Treaty IRAor accidental ignition of their stored explosives due to shelling byProvisional Governmentforces.^[19]	The Four Courtswas occupied by the Anti-Treaty IRA at the start of the Irish Civil War. The building was bombarded by theProvisional Governmentforces underMichael Collins.^[20]
	Institut für Sexualwissenschaft	Berlin	Nazi Germany	1933-05-??	Members of theDeutsche Studentenschaft	On 6 May 1933, the Deutsche Studentenschaftmade an organised attack on the Institute of Sex Research. A few days later, the Institute's library and archives were publicly hauled out and burned in the streets of theOpernplatz.
	National University of Tsing Hua,University Nan-k'ai,Institute of Technology of He-pei, Medical College of He-pei,Agricultural College of He-pei, University Ta Hsia, University Kuang Hua,National University of Hunan		China	1937 – 1945 AD	World War II Japanese Troops	During World War II, Japanese military forces destroyed or partly destroyed numerous Chinese libraries, including libraries at the National University of Tsing Hua, Peking (lost 200,000 of 350,000 books), the University Nan-k'ai, T'ien-chin (totally destroyed, 224,000 books lost), Institute of Technology of He-pei, T'ien-chin (completely destroyed), Medical College of He-pei, Pao-ting (completely destroyed), Agricultural College of He-pei, Pao-ting (completely destroyed), University Ta Hsia, Shanghai (completely destroyed), University Kuang Hua, Shanghai (completely destroyed), National University of Hunan (completely destroyed).^[21]
	Library of the Catholic University of Leuven	Leuven	Belgium	1940-05-?? AD	German Occupation Troops	Caught fire during German invasion of Louvain, Belgium.^[22]
	National Library of Serbia	Belgrade	Yugoslavia	1941-04-06 AD	Nazi GermanLuftwaffe	Destroyed during the World War II bombing of Belgrade.
	SS. Cyril and Methodius National Library	Sofia	Bulgaria	1943-1944 AD	Allied bombingAllied air forces
	National Library of Cambodia	Phnom Penh	Cambodia	1976 – 1979 AD	The Khmer Rouge^[21]	Burnt most of the books and all bibliographical records. Only 20% of materials survived.^[21]
	Jaffna Public Library	Jaffna	Sri Lanka	1981-05-?? AD	Plainclothes police officers and others	In May 1981 a mob composed of thugs and plainclothes police officers went on a rampage in minority Tamil-dominated northern Jaffna, and burned down the Jaffna Public Library. At least 95,000 volumes – the second largest library collection in South Asia – were destroyed.^[23]
	Sikh Reference Library	Punjab	India	1984-06-07 AD	Troops acting under Indira Gandhi's orders	Before its destruction, the library contained rare books and handwritten manuscripts on Sikh religion, history, and culture^[24] It could have been a desperate act on failure to locate letters or documents that could have implicated the then Indian government and its leader Indira Gandhi ^[25] ^[26]
!	Central University Library of Bucharest	Bucharest	Romania	1989-12-2? CE	Romanian Land Forces	Burnt down during the Romanian Revolution.^[27]^[28]
	Oriental Institute in Sarajevo	Sarajevo	Bosnia and Herzegovina	1992-05-17 AD	Bosnian Serb Army	Destroyed by the shellfire during theSiege of Sarajevo. ^[29] ^[30]^[31]
	National and University Library of Bosnia and Herzegovina	Sarajevo	Bosnia and Herzegovina	1992-08-25 AD	Bosnian Serb Army	The library was completely destroyed during the Siege of Sarajevo.^[29]
	Abkhazian Research Institute of History, Language and Literature &National Library of Abkhazia	Sukhumi	Abkhazia	1992-10-?? AD	Georgian Armed Forces	Destroyed during the War in Abkhazia.^[32]
	Pol-i-Khomri Public Library	Pol-i-Khomri	Afghanistan	1998 AD	Taliban militia	It held 55,000 books and old manuscripts.^[33]
	Iraq National Library and Archive,Al-Awqaf Library,Central Library of the University of Baghdad, Library of Bayt al-Hikma,Central Library of the University of Mosul and other libraries	Baghdad	Iraq	2003-04-?? AD	Unknown members of the Bagdad population	Several libraries looted, set on fire, damaged and destroyed in various degrees during the 2003 Iraq War.^[34]^[35]^[36]^[37]^[38]
	Egyptian Scientific Institute	Cairo	Egypt	2011-12-?? AD		A first estimate says that only 30,000 volumes have been saved of a total of 200,000.^[39]
	Ahmed Baba Institute(Timbuktu library)	Timbuktu	Mali	2013-01-28 AD	Islamists militia	The library was burned down, it contained over 20,000 manuscripts with only a fraction of them having been scanned as of January 2013.^[40]^[41]^[42]
	Libraries ofFisheries and Oceans Canada		Canada	2013 AD	Government of Canada headed by prime ministerStephen Harper	Alleged digitization effort to reduce the nine original libraries to seven and save $C443,000 annual cost.^[43] It is alleged that only 5–6% of the material was digitized, and that scientific records and research created at a taxpayer cost of tens of millions of dollars was dumped, burned, and given away.^[44]Particularly noted are baseline data important to ecological research, and data from 19th century exploration.
	Saeh Library	Tripoli	Lebanon	2014-01-03 AD	Unknown	The Christian library was burned down, it contained over 80,000 manuscripts and books.^[45]^[46]^[47]^[48]
	National Archives of Bosnia and Herzegovina (partially)	Sarajevo	Bosnia and Herzegovina	2014-02-07 AD	Seven Bosnian rioters suspected of having started the fire; two (Salem Hatibović and Nihad Trnka)^[49]were arrested.^[50] On 4 April 2014, Salem Hatibović and Nihad Trnka were released (although still under suspicion of terrorism), on conditions that they don't leave their places of residence and abstain from having any contact with each other. Both were also mandated to report to the police once every week.^[49]	During the 2014 unrest in Bosnia and Herzegovinalarge amounts of historical documents were destroyed when sections of the Archives of Bosnia and Herzegovina, housed in the presidential building, were set on fire. Among the lost archival material were documents and gifts from theOttoman period, original documents from the 1878-1918Austro-Hungarian rule in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as documentations of the interwar period, the 1941-1945 rule of theIndependent State of Croatia, papers from the following years, and about 15000 files from the 1996-2003Human Rights Chamber for Bosnia and Herzegovina.^[51]^[52] In the repositories that were burnt, about 60 percent of the material was lost, according to estimates by Šaban Zahirović, the head of the Archives.^[53]
	Institute of Scientific Information on Social Sciences (INION) (partially?)	Moscow	Russia	2015-01-29 AD	Unknown.	Fire spread to 2000sqm in third Floor. Roof caved in. Additional water damage. Ambient temperature too high for self-freezing of damaged Works. Library contains 14 million books, including rare texts in ancient Slavic languages, documents from the League of Nations, UNESCO, and parliamentary reports from countries including the US dating back as far as 1789.^[54]