thumb|upright|[[Muses|Muse statue, a common scholarly motif in the Hellenistic age.]]
The Mouseion of Alexandria (; ), which arguably included the Library of Alexandria, was an institution said to have been founded by Ptolemy I Soter and his son Ptolemy II Philadelphus. Originally, the word mouseion meant any place that was dedicated to the Muses, often related to the study of music or poetry, but later associated with sites of learning such as Plato's Academy and Aristotle's Lyceum.
The Ptolemies reputedly established their Mouseion and Library with the intention of bringing together some of the best scholars of the Hellenistic world and to collect all the books known at the time. Although it did not imply a collection of works of art, the word mouseion is the root for the modern usage of the word museum.
History
According to Johannes Tzetzes, the Mouseion was an institution founded by Ptolemy I Soter (c. 367 BC – c. 283 BC) in Alexandria, Egypt, though it is more likely that it took shape under Ptolemy II Philadelphus (309–246 BC). As a community gathered together under the protection of the Muses, the Mouseion remained supported over the centuries by the patronage of the royal family of the Ptolemies, and later by that of the Roman emperors.
Unlike the modern museum in the sense that has developed since the Renaissance, the Mouseion of Alexandria did not have a collection of sculpture and painting presented as works of art, as was assembled by the Ptolemies' rival Attalus at the Library of Pergamum. Instead, it was an institution of learning that attracted some of the best scholars of the Hellenistic world, as Germain Bazin puts it, "analogous to the modern Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton or to the Collège de France in Paris."
It is uncertain how many scholars lived in the Mouseion at any given time, as surviving reports are few and rather brief. Nonetheless, it appears that scholars and staff members were salaried by the State and paid no taxes. According to Strabo, they also received free room and board, and free servants. In addition to Greek works, some foreign texts were translated from Egyptian, Assyrian, Persian, Jewish, and other languages.</blockquote>
According to this description, the Mouseion featured a roofed walkway, an arcade of seats, and a communal dining room where scholars routinely ate and shared ideas. However, it is unclear if the premises provided accommodations for anatomical research or astronomical observations. At a later date another smaller library was housed in the nearby Serapeum (Temple of Serapis), which may have been open to people other than Mouseion scholars. Johannes Tzetzes and other Byzantine sources do not mention any further directors after him, albeit four obscure 'caretakers' are mentioned in an Oxyrhynchus fragment, and an inscription from the 80s BC speaks of a certain Onesander of Paphos being appointed to the Library. There are reports that, during the Siege of Alexandria in 47 BC, parts of the library collection caught fire and were destroyed.
Despite the fact that the Mouseion continued as an institution under Roman rule, it never regained its former glory. Emperor Claudius added an additional building in the first century AD, and much later the emperor Caracalla temporarily suspended Mouseion membership in 216 AD. The Brucheion, the complex of palaces and gardens that included the Mouseion, was probably destroyed by fire on the orders of Emperor Aurelian in 272 AD, although it is not known with certainty how much of the original buildings existed at the time.