![]() ![]() Still in Operation: No – it was destroyed in 1204 CE Location: Constantinople, Byzantine Empire (modern-day Turkey) ![]() A few years ago, the UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles) Library began reproducing digital copies of about 1,100 unique Syriac and Arabic manuscripts from Saint Catherine’s Monastery. The library houses several unique and important texts, including the Syriac Sinaiticus and, until 1859, the Codex Sinaiticus, the oldest known complete Bible dating back to around 345 CE. The monastery itself is also considered one of the oldest functioning Christian monasteries in the world and it is a UNESCO World Heritage site.ĭue to its age and importance in the Christian world, the monastery’s library has the second largest collection of ancient manuscripts and codices, just after Vatican City. The library at Saint Catherine’s Monastery located at the foot of the legendary Mount Sinai, is the oldest continually operating library in the world. Since then, the library has had extensive renovations and was opened to the public sometime in 2017. Chaouni discovered that the library was rotting and that there was a river running underneath the floors. In 2012, Morocco’s Ministry of Culture contacted Aziza Chaouni, a Toronto-based architect and engineer, originally from Fez, Moroco, to assess the library’s damage. It was founded by by Fatima al-Fihri, the daughter of a wealthy Tunisian merchant (she also founded the Qarawiyyin Mosque and Qarawiyyin University).įor the past several decades, most of the library has been closed off to all but a few scholars and students of the university because of extensive damage. The library is apart of one of the oldest universities in the world and was first opened in 859 CE. Although there is one continuously existing library that is older, the al-Qarawiyyin Library is often believed to be the oldest library in the world. ![]()
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