The loss of which ancient texts you regret the most?

Although Kojiki and Nihon Shoki, written in the early 8th century, are the oldest surviving Japanese texts, there likely were even older documents than these two. It is written in Kojiki itself that there were many differing accounts of historical events and the book is meant to clear up “falsehoods” about Japanese history circling around. We know that there existed at least three texts before Kojiki and Nihon Shoki, and possibly two additional texts. Kokki and Tennôki were both written in the early 7th century, though Kokki got destroyed later while Tennôki disappeared at some point. Iki no Hakatoko no Sho was written in the late 7th century and described diplomat Iki no Hakatoko's travels in China. During the late 7th century, we also get Teiki and Kyûji, whose existence is slightly questionable however. It is quite likely that there were even more documents than these, and it is possible that there existed even competing historical accounts written by other (eventually) non-imperial clans.

Obviously, besides these larger works, there probably existed things like letters and diaries and others which were lost at some point.
It's regrettable that Japan learnt so much from Tang Dynasty China while the latter wrote down so little about the former. It's only after the 1895 War did the Chinese start to write a decent book about Japan.

Speaking of Tang Dynasty, (Chinese PoW to the Arabs) Du Huan's account about the Arab world would be interesting to read, had it been entirely preserved.
 
It's regrettable that Japan learnt so much from Tang Dynasty China while the latter wrote down so little about the former. It's only after the 1895 War did the Chinese start to write a decent book about Japan.

Speaking of Tang Dynasty, (Chinese PoW to the Arabs) Du Huan's account about the Arab world would be interesting to read, had it been entirely preserved.

Now that would be something that I would enjoy reading. A Chinese perspective on the early Abbasid period.
 
For me, it would be all the destroyed texts from the Malacca sultanate. Not only was the polity one of the centers of Islamic learning in the Malay world, the city itself was the most polyglot of it's time in all Nusantara. During it's height, it wasn't unusual to find Okinawan traders rubbing shoulders with Gujaratis, and there were mentions of local inns managed by Persian women and business headed by mixed-raced Chinese families. Just the interactions alone between everyone would have been fascinating enough, let alone all the records and documentation of all who lived, worked, and held court in the city.

The Portuguese conquest wiped out all of that, and I wish some of the records survived the carnage that followed.
 
Phrynicus' Fall of Miletus apparently upset the Athenians so much that they fined the playwright and forbade the play from ever being performed again; it would be interesting to read the work that they found so depressing.

Aristophanes' Babylonians, to see what the whole feud with Cleon was originally about.

Also, although I'm not sure if this counts, it would be great if more poetry and history from fifth- and sixth-century Britain had been written down and survived. We know so little about this period, it would be great to have more information.
 
The Library of Alexandria the House of Wisdom of Bagdad Text Destroyed by the 1900 Hanlin Academy fire and the content of the Library of the Abbey of Cluny sacked by the Huguenots in 1562 and what the Revolutionary burned in 1790.
 
The rest of the Epic Cycle stories of the Trojan War: Cypria, the Aethiopis, the Little Iliad, thr Iliupersis, the Nostoi, and the Telegony. The Trojan War could have been the first franchise in history! Seriously though, I'm curious because the Odyssey is a favorite and the impact on Western literature would be huge.

Ehh, the Telegony sounds effing awful.

Giving me a full copy of the Margites any day.
 
Saying Library of Alexandria kind of feels like cheating, 'cause it's not one text but thousands of them.

I always found the story of Carthage to be really fascinating, problem is most sources we have on them are Greek or Roman. We do know that there used to be some Carthaginian sources writing about the Punic wars from the Carthaginian perspective, and we know that because Polybius quotes those sources. But the sources themselves did not survive. I always really wanted to know what they thought of the Romans and how the fall of their empire felt like to them.

Somewhat less important to me are any texts that Mesoamerican peoples wrote. We do know there were a ton of them but the Spanish destroyed almost all. I'm putting this on a lower priority for me simply because I have no way of knowing what was actually in those texts, so I can't determine how much I regret the loss of those texts.
 
Saying Library of Alexandria kind of feels like cheating, 'cause it's not one text but thousands of them.

I always found the story of Carthage to be really fascinating, problem is most sources we have on them are Greek or Roman. We do know that there used to be some Carthaginian sources writing about the Punic wars from the Carthaginian perspective, and we know that because Polybius quotes those sources. But the sources themselves did not survive. I always really wanted to know what they thought of the Romans and how the fall of their empire felt like to them.

Somewhat less important to me are any texts that Mesoamerican peoples wrote. We do know there were a ton of them but the Spanish destroyed almost all. I'm putting this on a lower priority for me simply because I have no way of knowing what was actually in those texts, so I can't determine how much I regret the loss of those texts.
Certainly the lost libraries cited above, particularly the first Alexandrian, which might have contained many of the lost plays and histories of the Greeks and potentially Persian and Egyptian texts as well. 99% of Hellenistic science and technology is gone.
Of course I do wish Claudius' Etruscan history had survived, given our very limited knowledge of that civilization. (I think Claudius had Etruscan ancestors on his mother'side).

Also, the unknown sources used by Bede and Nennius that might have shed light on the career of Arthur, dux bellorum.
 
99% of Hellenistic science and technology is gone.

Actually Hellenistic science and technology was disproportionately likely to survive, because it was of interest to later generations.

Also, the unknown sources used by Bede and Nennius that might have shed light on the career of Arthur, dux bellorum.

Bede's account of the Arthurian period is pretty obviously just a paraphrase of Gildas. Nennius' sources, I grant, would be interesting to have.
 
Actually Hellenistic science and technology was disproportionately likely to survive, because it was of interest to later generations.

True, although some information on hydraulics and certain military topics survived, mechanical devices like the Antikythera mechanism (apparently an astronomical navigation computer) are totally unremarked upon in the literature. In First century Syria there may have been knowledge of electroplating cells (probably, if true, it may have been a closely guarded guild secret)
 
The records and works lost durring the burning of Persepolis, because trying to learn about any empire without its central archives is a pain. A wealth of primary sources to rival that of Rome, all lost because Alexander's toga party got out of hand.

Other than that, the rest of the Epic Cycle, the entire Theban Cycle, and Ovid's Medea (on that note, it'd be interesting to know which poem got Ovid exiled to Tomis).
 
Actually Hellenistic science and technology was disproportionately likely to survive, because it was of interest to later generations.

In fact, it did better than Persian or Indian science and technology, and the legacy of the ancient Greeks survived better than many of their equivalents.
 
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The Yong Le Encyclopedia was a great loss, but the OP asked about ancient texts, while the encyclopedia was from the early 15th century.
I, am the freaking op ! XD

Well, it makes sense to limit the range of this thread. But the Yongle Encyclopedia certainly contains lots of ancient texts.

Probably the Bamboo Annals, and the "Old text" of Book of Documents, etc.
 
The rest of the Epic Cycle stories of the Trojan War: Cypria, the Aethiopis, the Little Iliad, thr Iliupersis, the Nostoi, and the Telegony. The Trojan War could have been the first franchise in history! Seriously though, I'm curious because the Odyssey is a favorite and the impact on Western literature would be huge.

Couldn't it be they weren't copied because they weren't as good as the known ones?
Perhaps milking the franchise with subpar products is not something Hollywood invented.
 
To be fair, we have no direct evidence for Q, and it might not have actually existed in the first place.

I lean towards the Proto-Luke theory myself...
I haven't studied the debate, but I suspect that Q was not a text but a person, viz. the verbal testimony of Peter, augmented (in Luke's case) by the verbal testimony of Mary. I don't know how well that hypothesis might fit with the evidence, though.
As regards the OP, any Carthaginian history would be very valuable. I would also like to have the lost parts of The Battle of Maldon. Also, the Book of Bai Ze sounds potentially marvellous: "A guide to the forms and habits of all 11,520 types of supernatural creatures in the world, and how to overcome their hauntings and attacks,as dictated by the mythical creature, Bai Ze to the Yellow Emperor in the 26th century BCE". I love the specificity of the number.
Finally, I would dearly like to have Gen. George H. Thomas' private papers, which his wife destroyed on his death; they would add much to the richness of Thomas biography, I think, and elucidate just how much of the Union's western campaigns owed to him.
 
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