THE PERSIAN PERIOD
brief references to Persian archives became very pointed for the linguistic linking of old terms with the new. To begin with the "House of books" is plainly translated as library or (1=3 Esdr. 6:23) libraries by Jerome (bibliotheca, bibliothecis) and the LXX (bibliothekais, bibliophulakiois). Both the technical words for archive are thus used and there is no question of the House of books being, like the Talmudic House of the book or, as some Egyptologists even say of Egypt, simply a schoolhouse. The same phrase is in fact used in Syriac of the Alexandrine library just before the Mohammedan conquest and long before that in the travels of the Mohar 1300 B.C., Beth Sepher is used = Kirjath Sepher or Beth Sopher. The house of books is thus unmistakably the archive, not as a scriptorum, nor as a primary school, nor as a school for scribes, nor as a registry office even, but as a depository
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