It was once the nexus of culture and knowledge in the ancient world… a center of the arts and intellectual development unlike any seen before the Hellenistic age. Though arguably, there is nothing that the ancient city ever boasted that quite rivals the mystique of one of its most famous destinations, and one of history’s greatest lost treasures: the fabled Library of Alexandria.

While the stories of the library's destruction and the lost records it contained have taken on near-mythical status, history and archaeology show that other ancient collections have existed over time... but have all of them been recovered? This week, go in search of the lost records of the ancient world, and whether secret archives containing knowledge about ancient history might still exist in locations like Egypt's Giza Plateau.

Some proponents of the idea point to one of Egypt's most famous monuments - the enigmatic Sphinx - as being the source of speculations about a lost "Hall of Records"... but what does archaeology have to say about this possibility? We look at the science, as well as the speculation, as we go in search of the lost records of the ancient world on this week's edition of The Micah Hanks Program. 

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Show Notes

Below are links to stories and other content featured in this episode:

• Ancient leaves preserved under a mile of Greenland's ice – and lost in a freezer for years
• Scientists unlock mysteries of world's oldest 'computer' 
• Scientists Step Closer to Understanding Full Capabilities of Antikythera Mechanism
• “Alexandria: Library of Dreams”
• “The Great Library of Alexandria?”
• Geophysical Exploration at The Giza Plateau, Egypt A Ten-Year Odyssey
• Origins of the Sphinx by Robert M. Schoch and Robert Bauval

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