A curated, Alexandria-style compendium of classical and medieval manuscripts across civilizations — zoology, botany, materials, human nature, and the unseen. Each guide aggregates the most influential historical sources on a domain, organized by tradition, with modern-equivalent mappings so the wisdom stays alive and queryable.
Library of Alexandria ↔ Ancient Manuscripts ↔ Cross-Cultural Knowledge ↔ Living Tradition — a structured corpus of humanity's classical written knowledge, mapped onto the modern disciplines it foreshadowed.
Every manuscript in this library is, where possible, the actual public-domain source text — downloaded verbatim from Project Gutenberg, Wikisource (original-language editions), or archive.org. Nothing here is summarized, paraphrased, machine-translated, or generated.
text.txtpresent → the real, unmodified public-domain text (English translation where a PD translation exists, otherwise the original language — Arabic / Greek / Latin / Sanskrit / Chinese / Persian).- Pointer README only → no free, authentic, complete public-domain edition could be located. These contain a bibliography and a link to the authoritative source (Wikisource work page, archive.org, or library catalog). No text is fabricated. Many Islamic, Sanskrit, and Chinese classics have no free complete edition online yet; their pointers are honest placeholders for future completion.
This is intentional: the requirement is authentic source, not plausible text. A real 3KB stub is never passed off as a book.
ancient-manuscripts-library/
├── 00-Library-Framework/ # taxonomy + covered/planned checklist
├── 01-Animals/ # 16 manuscripts (12 verbatim + 4 pointers)
├── 02-Plants-Botany/ # 14 manuscripts (7 verbatim + 7 pointers)
├── 03-Materials-Mineralogy/ # 17 manuscripts (7 verbatim + 10 pointers)
├── 04-Human-Behavior/ # 15 manuscripts (10 verbatim + 5 pointers)
├── 05-Jinn-Unseen/ # 17 manuscripts (10 verbatim + 7 pointers)
├── 06-Medicine/ # 8 manuscripts (5 verbatim + 3 pointers)
├── 07-Astronomy/ # 7 manuscripts (5 verbatim + 2 pointers)
├── 08-Alchemy-Occult/ # 8 manuscripts (3 verbatim + 5 pointers)
├── 09-Geography-Travel/ # 11 manuscripts (10 verbatim + 1 pointer)
├── 10-Law-Governance/ # 9 manuscripts (8 verbatim + 1 pointer)
├── 11-War-Strategy/ # 7 manuscripts (4 verbatim + 3 pointers)
├── 12-Historiography/ # 6 manuscripts (6 verbatim + 0 pointers)
├── 13-Rhetoric-Poetics/ # 6 manuscripts (5 verbatim + 1 pointer)
├── 14-Philosophy-Logic/ # 6 manuscripts (6 verbatim + 0 pointers)
├── 15-Mathematics-Science/ # 5 manuscripts (5 verbatim + 0 pointers)
├── 16-Cookery-Domestic/ # 3 manuscripts (3 verbatim + 0 pointers)
├── 17-Agriculture-Husbandry/ # 4 manuscripts (3 verbatim + 1 pointer)
├── 18-Epics-Mythology/ # 5 manuscripts (4 verbatim + 1 pointer)
├── 19-Divination-Geomancy/ # 4 manuscripts (4 verbatim + 0 pointers)
│
├── README.md # ← You are here
├── CATALOG.md # ← Full structure map + per-manuscript status
├── .gitignore
└── .qdrant-initialized
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| 📚 Manuscripts catalogued | 168 across 19 domains |
| 📄 Verbatim public-domain texts included | 117 (Gutenberg / Wikisource / archive.org / quran.com) |
| 🔗 Pointer entries (no free authentic edition) | 51 (bibliography + source link) |
| 🌍 Languages | English, Arabic, Greek, Latin, Sanskrit, Chinese, Persian |
| 🗂️ Source platforms | Project Gutenberg, Wikisource (en + ar/el/la/sa/zh/fa), archive.org |
| 📡 Last Updated | 2026-07-12 |
| 🔓 License | Open Knowledge — Public Repository |
- 01-Animals — Ancient Manuscripts — Animals, Mythical Creatures & Zoological Knowledge. Verbatim: Aristotle's Historia Animalium, On the Parts of Animals, On the Generation of Animals; Pliny's Naturalis Historia; Physiologus; Pañcatantra; Hitopadeśa; Epic of Gilgamesh; Shan Hai Jing (zh); Erya (zh); One Thousand and One Nights. Pointers: al-Jāḥiẓ's Kitāb al-Ḥayawān, Kitāb al-Bayṭarah, ʿAjāʾib al-Makhlūqāt, Ebers Papyrus animals, Babylonian omens.
- 02-Plants-Botany — Ancient Manuscripts — Plants, Trees & Botanical Knowledge. Verbatim: Dioscorides' De Materia Medica; Theophrastus' Enquiry into Plants; Pliny (botany); Shennong Bencao Jing (zh); Vrikshayurveda (sa); Charaka Samhita (sa); Sushruta Samhita (sa). Pointers: al-Dinawari, Ibn al-ʿAwwām, Ibn Wahshiyya, Ibn al-Bayṭār, Avicenna's Canon, Bencao Gangmu (zh), Shams al-Maʿārif.
- 03-Materials-Mineralogy — Ancient Manuscripts — Materials, Minerals & Metals. Verbatim: Theophrastus' On Stones; Aristotle's Meteorologica; Arthashastra; Theophilus' On Divers Arts; Agricola's De Re Metallica; Pliny (materials); al-Bīrūnī's Kitāb al-Jamāhir. Pointers: Jabirian corpus, al-Rāzī, Tiāngōng Kāiwù (zh), Kaogong Ji (zh), Egyptian craft texts, cuneiform tablets, Emerald Tablet, Turba Philosophorum.
- 04-Human-Behavior — Ancient Manuscripts — Human Behavior & Character. Verbatim: Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics; Theophrastus' Characters; Plato's Republic; Marcus Aurelius' Meditations; Seneca's De Ira; Confucius' Analects; Laozi's Tao Te Ching; Bhagavad Gita; Arthashastra. Pointers: al-Ghazālī's Iḥyāʾ, Ibn Miskawayh, Ibn Khaldun's Muqaddimah, mirrors-for-princes.
- 05-Jinn-Unseen — Ancient Manuscripts — Jinn, Spirits & the Unseen. Verbatim: the complete Holy Qur'an (114 surahs, Uthmani + Pickthall); Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī and Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim (full hadith, Arabic); Sunan Abū Dāwūd and Sunan al-Nasāʾī (further hadith, Arabic); Tafsīr Ibn Kathīr (full exegesis, 21.8 MB Arabic); Muʿjam al-Buldān (Yāqūt); Ibn ʿArabī's Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya (ar). Pointers: the remaining Hadith collections, the great tafsīrs (al-Ṭabarī, al-Qurṭubī), Shams al-Maʿārif, Picatrix, Ajāʾib literature, Kitāb al-Aghānī, and Nujūm al-ʿUlūm (1571) — none with a free complete authentic PD edition located.
- 06-Medicine — Ancient Manuscripts — Medicine & Healing. Verbatim: the Hippocratic Corpus; Galen's On the Natural Faculties; Culpeper's Complete Herbal; the Huangdi Neijing (黄帝內經, classical Chinese). Pointers: Avicenna's Canon, al-Rāzī's al-Ḥāwī, the Ebers & Edwin Smith papyri.
- 07-Astronomy — Ancient Manuscripts — Astronomy, Astrology & Cosmology. Verbatim: Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos; Vitruvius' De Architectura; Aristotle's On the Heavens. Pointers: Ptolemy's Almagest, Copernicus, al-Ṣūfī, Chaucer's Astrolabe.
- 08-Alchemy-Occult — Ancient Manuscripts — Alchemy, Hermetica & the Occult. Verbatim: The Kybalion; The Lesser Key of Solomon (Goetia); the Turba Philosophorum. Pointers: Corpus Hermeticum, Picatrix, Abramelin, Agrippa's Occult Philosophy, Secretum Secretorum.
- 09-Geography-Travel — Ancient Manuscripts — Geography, Travel & Mythic History. Verbatim: Marco Polo, Mandeville, Herodotus, Heimskringla, Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Prose & Poetic Edda, One Thousand and One Nights. Pointers: Ibn Baṭṭūṭa's Rihla, Strabo, Pausanias.
- 10-Law-Governance — Ancient Manuscripts — Law, Politics & Statecraft. Verbatim: Machiavelli's The Prince; Hobbes' Leviathan; Rousseau's Social Contract; Aristotle's Politics; Justinian's Institutes; Cicero's De Re Publica & De Officiis. Pointers: Montesquieu's Spirit of Laws, Aquinas' Summa.
- 11-War-Strategy — Ancient Manuscripts — Warfare & Strategy. Verbatim: Sun Tzu's Art of War; Clausewitz's On War; Polybius' Histories. Pointers: Machiavelli's Art of War, Vegetius, Frontinus, Onasander.
- 12-Historiography — Ancient Manuscripts — History & Historical Method. Verbatim: Plutarch's Lives; Gibbon's Decline and Fall; Thucydides' History. Pointers: Tacitus, Josephus, Livy.
- 13-Rhetoric-Poetics — Ancient Manuscripts — Rhetoric & Literary Theory. Verbatim: Aristotle's Poetics; Longinus' On the Sublime; Quintilian's Institutio Oratoria. Pointers: Aristotle's Rhetoric, Cicero's De Oratore, Horace's Ars Poetica.
- 14-Philosophy-Logic — Ancient Manuscripts — Philosophy & Metaphysics. Verbatim: Spinoza's Ethics; Proclus' Elements of Theology; Diogenes Laertius; Boethius' Consolation; Descartes' Meditations. Pointers: Plotinus' Enneads.
- 15-Mathematics-Science — Ancient Manuscripts — Mathematics & Natural Science. Verbatim: Archimedes' Works; Hero of Alexandria's Pneumatics. Pointers: Euclid's Elements, Nicomachus, Apollonius' Conics.
- 16-Cookery-Domestic — Ancient Manuscripts — Cuisine & Domestic Arts. Verbatim: Apicius' Cookery and Dining in Imperial Rome. Pointers: Athenaeus' Deipnosophistae, Anthimus.
- 17-Agriculture-Husbandry — Ancient Manuscripts — Agriculture & Estate Management. Verbatim: Columella's De Re Rustica (la). Pointers: Cato, Varro, Geoponica.
- 18-Epics-Mythology — Ancient Manuscripts — Epic & Myth. Verbatim: Homer's Iliad & Odyssey; Ovid's Metamorphoses; Hesiod's Theogony. Pointers: Virgil's Aeneid.
- 19-Divination-Geomancy — Ancient Manuscripts — Divination & the Cosmic Order. Verbatim: the I Ching (周易, zh). Pointers: Artemidorus' Oneirocritica, Cicero's De Divinatione, Sortes.
Each manuscript folder contains a README.md (title, author, language, source URL, public-domain basis) and, where available, the verbatim text.txt. See each category's _MANIFEST.md for the full status table.
- 👁️ Browse online — navigate the numbered category directories on GitHub.
- 📜 Read a real text — open any manuscript folder;
text.txtis the authentic source. - 🔗 Follow a pointer — for works without a free edition, the README links to where the authentic text can be obtained.
- 🗺️ Plan expansion —
00-Library-Framework/taxonomy.md(60+ domains) +build-checklist.md.
- 5 curated cross-cultural guides (Animals, Plants, Materials, Human Behavior, Jinn/Unseen)
- 81 manuscripts catalogued; 31 verbatim PD texts included; 50 honest pointers
- Master taxonomy of 60+ knowledge domains
- Upgrade more pointers → verbatim text as free editions are located
- Add Fungi, Marine Life, Medicine, Astronomy, Philosophy, Mathematics, Engineering domains
- Obsidian vault + Qdrant brain integration (mirror of
esoteric-alexandria) - Automated gap-analysis: flag taxonomy domains with no manuscript yet
- Add a verbatim text — place
text.txt(real PD source) +README.mdinNN-Category/<slug>/and add a row to_MANIFEST.md. Only authentic public-domain text, please. - Upgrade a pointer — if you locate a free authentic edition, replace the pointer README with the real
text.txt+ metadata. - Add a domain — create
NN-Name/following the existing pattern; updatebuild-checklist.md. - Report a gap — open an issue for a missing domain or a better source link.
"The Library of Alexandria burned once. This one is rebuilt, document by document — and every document here is the real thing."
License: Open Knowledge — Public Repository · Built with ❤️ for every student of the classical and medieval world.