ALEXANDRIA U.

Archaeologists have uncovered the site of Egypt's Alexandria University:

A Polish-Egyptian team has unearthed the site of the fabled University of Alexandria, home of Archimedes, Euclid and a host of other scholars from the era when Alexandria dominated the Mediterranean.

The team has found 13 individual lecture halls that could have accommodated as many as 5000 students, according to Zahi Hawass, an archeologist and president of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities.

The lecture halls are on the eastern edge of a public square in the Late Antique section of modern Alexandria and are adjacent to a previously discovered theatre that is now believed to be part of the university complex.

All 13 of the auditoriums had similar dimensions and internal arrangements, Dr Hawass said. They feature rows of stepped benches running along the walls on three sides of the rooms, often forming a joined U-shape.

The most conspicuous feature of the auditoriums is an elevated seat placed in the middle of the U-shape, most probably designed for the lecturer.

That's an amazing find. Maybe they'll come across a stash of documents not destroyed by the library fire.

[Link via LRC]