CAIRO: Egypt officially reopens this week one of the first and most celebrated centres of learning in human history — the library of Alexandria whose ancient roots stretch back more than 2,000 years.

Officially called the “Bibliotheca Alexandrina”, the resurrected library reflects all the ambition of a bold 20-year project costing $200 million with backing from the UNESCO and numerous countries.

The 11-storey edifice — on the spot where scholars believe the ancient library stood before it was destroyed — emerges from the ground as a giant disc tilting 20 degrees north towards the Mediterranean and forming a striking image when directly aligned with the sun.

Its southern-facing, windowless wall of granite carries engraved letters of most of the world’s alphabets, a silent pledge to promote diversity, culture and unfettered learning.

Controversy has dogged the project since the beginning, from claims that valuable antiquities from the original Greek city of Alexandria were destroyed in the construction, to criticism that it amounted to an expensive gimmick which in itself does little to improve education in a developing country of 68 million.

But developments in information technology have offered the library a way out of the almost impossible task of building up a collection from scratch to rival of the world’s major libraries.

An initial target of eight million books has been shelved for a new focus on creating a state-of-the-art cyber-library, says the library’s director, Ismail Serageldin.

It has a lot to live up to. Previous luminaries included Archimedes, Euclid, Eratosthenes, St Mark and Manetho, who established today’s system of classifying Egypt’s Pharaonic dynasties.

The first effort at collection and classification of universal knowledge, the great library set up after Alexander the Great established the city in 332 BC saw the first translation of the Old Testament from Hebrew to Greek.—Reuters