Chapter 84: New Milestones
In the European world of today, even the libraries of some larger theological seminaries often held no more than a hundred volumes. In contrast, the Royal Library of Constantinople, as early as six hundred years ago, already boasted a collection of over one hundred thousand books.
One must remember that papermaking had not yet been introduced at that time; collections often used papyrus imported from Egypt, expensive parchment, and silk cloth.
In the world today, the only library that could compare to the Royal Library of Constantinople was the Cairo Library in the Ayyubid Kingdom. But despite all this both of them paled in comparison to the Academy of Gondishapur in Persia. as early as six centuries ago, it housed more than four hundred thousand books.
