Bibliotheca Alexandrina Dinner featuring a presentation by Dr. Ismail Serageldin

Friday, August 7, 2015, 6:00 p.m Atlas Grill 200 South Sixth Street Minneapolis, MN 55401 Ticket Cost: $60

Dr. Ismail Serageldin is Director General of The Biblioteca Alexandrina in Egypt and a world-renowned Harvard and Cairo University-educated scholar. He will be in Minnesota to present and describe this extraordinary library. Egyptian Ambassador to the United States H. E. Mohaned Tawfik will also be a special guest. This is an event you won’t want to miss!

The Biblioteca Alexandrina was the largest and most famous library of the Ancient World, comparable in its scope to the Seven Wonders.  Founded by Alexander’s successor, Ptolemy I, in the Third Century BC, it housed scrolls, parchments and papyri from the entirety of the world of its time for the benefit of scholars, philosophers and men and women of letters. Sadly, the fall of the Roman Empire brought with it the destruction of that wonderful repository of thought and wisdom. 
 
As the Greeks left us the basics of government, and the Romans, the structure of civic life, Alexandria left us the legacy of knowledge. 
 
The modern Biblioteca Alexandrina is a re-creation of that ancient legacy.  Built by the Egyptian government, it opened its doors  to the public in 2002 to reveal a complex consisting of nine academic centers, an international conference facility, four museums, six specialized libraries, a total of 1.5 million physical volumes, an immense digital book archive, and a supercomputer that can access 45 databases in multiple languages. 
 
For further details and to purchase tickets, please go to the following site: