Today marks the eighth installment in a series of articles by HumanProgress.org called Centers of Progress. Where does progress happen? The story of civilization is, in many ways, the story of the city. It is the city that has helped to create and define the modern world. This bi-weekly column will give a short overview of urban centers that were the sites of pivotal advances in culture, economics, politics, technology, etc.

Our eighth Center of Progress is Alexandria during the third and second centuries BC, when the Great Library marked the city as, arguably, the intellectual capital of the world. During the third century BC, an educational and research institution called the Musaeum (literally, “shrine of the Muses”), from which we get the word museum, was built in Alexandria. The Great Library of Alexandria was one part of the Musaeum. While estimates vary widely, the library may have held around 700,000 scrolls, the equivalent of more than 100,000 printed books. The amalgamation of so much written knowledge in one place represented a breakthrough in the way that humanity stored and distributed information.

For people today, who have grown up with unparalleled access to information thanks to the internet, it is difficult to comprehend a world where information is out of reach. But throughout much of history, knowledge often went unwritten. Even when written down, information was typically scattered in different places or otherwise inaccessible.

In the Great Library of Alexandria, much of humanity’s collective knowledge of subjects ranging from medicine to astronomy, could be accessed in a single place. Among the writings that you could browse in the library were histories, philosophical treatises, literary works of poetry and prose, and the Pinakes—believed to be the world’s first library catalog. Philosophers and scholars flocked to the city, attracted by its library’s vast compendium of information and the city’s reputation as an intellectual center.

Alexandria was founded in 331 BC, by the Macedonian leader Alexander the Great, who was in the midst of conquering the Persian Empire. Alexander drove out the Persian invaders who had deposed the last indigenous king of ancient Egypt just over a decade prior. Alexander departed from Egypt a few months after founding Alexandria, leaving his viceroy Cleomenes in charge.

After Alexander passed away in 323 BC, one of his deputies, a Macedonian general by the name of Ptolemy Lagides, took control of Egypt. Ptolemy executed Cleomenes and declared himself pharaoh. He started what came to be known as the Ptolemaic dynasty and made Alexandria his capital in 305 BC. The Ptolemy family, despite a seemingly hereditary tendency toward morbid obesity and lethargy, managed to stay in power until 30 BC.

The city’s population rapidly grew to around 300,000 people. Alexandria became a key center of Hellenistic civilization. It remained the capital of Ptolemaic Egypt, as well as Roman and Byzantine Egypt, for almost a millennium (until the Muslim conquest of Egypt overseen by the Rashidun Caliphate in 641 AD). Alexandria was also the largest city in the ancient world, until Rome eventually grew even larger.

Today, Alexandria is the second-largest city in Egypt. It is a major economic center and the most populous city on the Mediterranean Sea. It has a population of over 5 million people. Alexandria is thus also the sixth-largest city in the Arab world and the ninth-largest city in Africa. Due to its historical importance, it is a well-frequented tourist destination. It is also a major industrial center due to its pipelines of natural gas and oil from the Suez.

If you were to sail to Alexandria during the time of its famed library, you would have been struck by the towering sight of one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Hellenic Alexandria was home to one of the most impressive and famous sites in antiquity, the Pharos or the great lighthouse, which was constructed in the 3rd century BC. Standing at least 330 feet high (and possibly higher), the Pharos was taller than the Statue of Liberty (305 feet) and Rio’s iconic Christ the Redeemer statue (125 feet). For many centuries, the Pharos remained among the tallest man-made structures in the world. At the top of the lighthouse’s tower, a fire, which was likely kept burning with oil rather than wood, lit the way for ships that were entering