8. The Temple of Edfu was home to a ‘House of Books’, one of the very few libraries in all of ancient Egypt.
Dating back to the Ptolemaic Period around 2,000 years ago, the Temple of Edfu was dedicated to the god Horus. Upon excavating it, archaeologists found a small chamber on the southern side of the main hall. This was the ‘House of Books’ referred to in hieroglyphics. It’s believed that, just as with a modern-day library, manuscripts were stored here on shelves. It’s almost certainly the case that the library was reserved for ritual books, to be consulted by priests and pharaohs. These scrolls would need to have been copied and replaced on a regular basis.
Apart from these tantalizing clues found at the Temple of Edfu, there’s no other proof that the Egyptians were storing manuscripts in special facilities long before the Library of Alexandria was established. Most scholars agree that, if there were proper libraries, they would most likely have been located in the main palaces and temples of the time, above all in Heliopolis or in Memphis. Again, however, no concrete evidence has been uncovered yet, meaning the search for proof of ancient libraries in this part of North Africa continues to this day.