(The city was chosen to be the capital of his empire by Alexander) the Great on a winter's afternoon in 331 BC.

A century later, it had become the greatest city of the world. Each success of civilization has left its mark. But what now remains of the marvel/ city of Alexandria's dream? Alexandria's still a thriving marketplace, still a crossroads for the peoples of the Near East. But once it was radiant with self-confidence, certain of its power. Can you recapture a vanished epoch from a few broken statues and scraps of ancient manuscripts?

In Alexandria, there was an immense library and an associated research institute, and in them worked the finest minds in the ancient world.

Of that legendary library, all that survives is this dank and forgotten cellar. It's in the library annex the Serapeum, which was once a temple but was later re-consecrated to knowledge. These few moldering shelves, probably once in a basement storage room, are its only physical remains. But this place was once the brain and the glory of the greatest city on the planet Earth.

If I could travel back into time, this is the place I would visit, the library of Alexandria at its height 2000 years ago.

Here, in an important sense, began the intellectual adventure which has led us into space. All the knowledge in the ancient world was once within these marble walls. In the great hall, there may have been a mural of Alexander with the crook and flail and ceremonial headdress of the Pharaohs of ancient Egypt.

This library was a citadel of human consciousness, a beacon on our journey to the stars.

It was the first true research institute in the history of the world. And what did they study? They studied everything, the entire cosmos. Cosmos is a Greek word for the order of the universe. In a way, it is the opposite of chaos. It implies a deep interconnectedness of all things. Ur… the intricate and......