Book News of the Day – Spectacular ancient public library discovered in Germany

Archaeologists have just unearthed the oldest public library in Germany, which dates back over 2,000 years and may have housed up to 20,000 scrolls. It was originally discovered in 2017 during the excavation of the grounds of a church in Cologne. Archaeologists knew the walls were of Roman origin, but there were these little niches, 80 x 50 cm, that they were mystified by. “It took us some time to match up the parallels – we could see the niches were too small to bear statues inside. But what they are are kind of cupboards for the scrolls,” said Dr Dirk Schmitz from the Roman-Germanic Museum of Cologne. “They are very particular to libraries – you can see the same ones in the library at Ephesus.”

I wonder what happened to all the scrolls! Now that would be a find...

Here's a link to the Guardian article: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jul/31/spectacular-ancient-public-library-discovered-in-germany?CMP=fb_gu