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BIBLICAL LIBRARIES

libraries and at this time even, certainly goddess of number records and architects.

However it may be about collections before 3000 B.C., a full system of kept records appears very soon after. Records are mentioned in the inscriptions from the reign of the Snefru (before 2900 B.C.) and from the time of Kufu (Cheops) who began to reign in 2900 B.C. record collections are mentioned. It is a matter of curious interest too, if not of historical value, that the rebuilders of the temple of Edfu allege (Breasted Hist, p. 113) that they reproduced the temple erected after the plans of Imhotep the architect and patron saint of scribes, who also lived just after 3000 B.C. and Edfu is precisely the temple which of all antiquity has preserved its unmistakable library building to modern times, a little building or room affixed to an inner wall of the temple and inscribed with a catalogue of the chief works contained in it.

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