Abstract
The Alexandrian Model is very important in the
context of the dialogue among Civilizations. It ended
the traditional Hellenic system of "Polis"
or city-state to found the system of "Cosmopolis"
(World – city). Alexandria, as a cosmopolis, began
in its Library and Mouseion an active movement of translation
from Ancient Egyptian and other Oriental languages into
Greek. This can be exemplified by Manetho's work "Aigyptiaka"
(Egyptian History) which was written in Ancient Egyptian
and Greek because he was skilled in both. The Septuagint
i.e. the translation of Old Testament also was achieved
in Pharos.
Multilingualism and multiculturalism go hand by hand
with multi-religious beliefs and rituals. Rosetta Stone
bears three languages, Ancient Egyptian (Hieroglyphics),
Demotic and Greek. Cleopatra VII, as Plutarch asserts,
spoke eight languages, including Arabic and Hebrew.
The new cult of Serapis is simply a mixture of Ancient
Egyptian religion (Osiris) and Greek mythology (Zeus
and Dionysos). This is Pax Alexandrina.
This Alexandrian Model is repeated, and perhaps imitated,
in Bagdad of the Abassides. This capital of the Islamic
State, has a multilingual and multicultural daily life.
In this capital of Islam Arabs, Persians, Indians, Greeks,
Turks and different other races coexisted and collaborated.
Languages used in Bagdad were Arabic, Persian, Syriac
and Hebrew. Religious tolerance admitted even the pagans,
e.g. Zroastrians and Sabeians, to practice their rituals.
Some Khalifs spoke Persian, others Greek. The Khalifs
were patrons of the translation from Syriac, Indian,
Persian and Greek into Arabic, although most of the
works translated belong to pagan authors e.g. Aristotle,
Hippokrates, Galenos and Ptolemy.
The contribution of these translations to the Human
Heritage is tremendous.
Beyond
Orientalism and Occidentalism
March 4th/6th 2006 - Cairo, Egypt
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