The loss of which ancient texts you regret the most?
- Thread starter Green Painting
- Start date
The senate declared him a God, and burnt all his writings other than the war books.
longsword14
Banned
Must have been somebody important, but never heard of him. Was he a relative of the more famous Julius ?
He was even more famous than Julius during his lifetime, although he's comparatively obscure now, possibly because his autobiography about his campaigns against Rome's northern enemies, Commentaries on the Gaelic War, hasn't survived.
I think one of the saddest instances of lost knowledge are those were whole cultures lost their literature tradition. The Maya have been already mentioned and are probably the most famous example of this. Al-numbers mentioned Malacca Sultanate, which I was not familiar with previously, but is a quite good example of this too. The Philippines also suffered quite greatly, to the extent that we have now literally only one very short written source from the period before the 16th century, even though the country used to have a rich literature tradition before the Spanish came.
Yes. I even used the Charvaka (to me, they appear like the ancient Cult of Reason) in an alternate country in "The Totalitarian Tide"...
Also, why were these texts lost? Were all losses inflicted on purpose, or what do you mean by "human error"?
Going to correct some misinformation here: the pre-Hispanic peoples of the Philippines had a rich oral tradition, but literature here was not much of a thing before the Spaniards. We have native scripts, but they were not used to write major things. Love letters and short poems, yes, but nothing like, say, the Mahabharata or the Ramayana. And it didn't die out because the Spaniards destroyed things: if anything, they promoted its use, printing Bibles in the native scripts alongside the Latin alphabet. They even preserved the Life of Lam-ang with the help of Pedro Bucaneg, a blind Ilocano bard.
It would certainly have been interesting to see the pre-Hispanic peoples develop such high literature like the Javanese in the south, though.
I stand corrected. Admittedly, my knowledge of the history of Philippines is only limited, so I wrote my post based on something I remember reading in the past.
Not sure if this counts but I would try to introduce widespread writing systems into as many oral-dominated civilisations as possible. So much of history and culture from civilisations in Africa, Asia and the Americas has been lost due to the fact that they relied on oral traditions, which ended up getting screwed up when that whole colonialism thing happened. Written records would have helped preserve a lot of that culture and history from colonialism and other civilisation-destroying disasters.
Earth Judicar
Banned
The Bible references various lost books of which their survival would have been useful. Chronicles of the Kings of Israel, Chronicles of the kings of Judah, epistle to the Laodiceans, etc...
If these works were preserved biblical studies would have a lot more source material to draw on.
If these works were preserved biblical studies would have a lot more source material to draw on.
Everything posted here would be very interesting. For me, I would especially like to see the writings of the Greek stoics, the poetry of classical Greece, and also more of the ancient Mesopotamian literature.
Agree, Neptune.
I'd also like to add countless birth, marital and death records of folks of all walks of life lost re destruction of church archives via wars and natural disasters but especially shortsighted ' reformations'. Even the most outwardly driest and mundane records can have the most fascinating revelations so it's awful when they get destroyed.
I'd also like to add countless birth, marital and death records of folks of all walks of life lost re destruction of church archives via wars and natural disasters but especially shortsighted ' reformations'. Even the most outwardly driest and mundane records can have the most fascinating revelations so it's awful when they get destroyed.
I'm gonna go General and say the Persian texts.
Because they were wealthy enough to use papyrus and because of Greek, Roman and Islamic sackings of Perspolis and Ctesiphon, almost everything we know about Persian historiography and society before Islam comes from Greek, Jewish and Islamic sources. Hell, even Ferdowsi was Muslim!
Iran is an ancient society on par with Greece and China and it's a shame most native works are lost.
This applies to Christian Assyrian and Mandaic/Manichaean/Mazdakist and others too. Consider how little we know about something as fascinating as the hypercommunalism of Mazdak's version of Zoroastrianism.
Because they were wealthy enough to use papyrus and because of Greek, Roman and Islamic sackings of Perspolis and Ctesiphon, almost everything we know about Persian historiography and society before Islam comes from Greek, Jewish and Islamic sources. Hell, even Ferdowsi was Muslim!
Iran is an ancient society on par with Greece and China and it's a shame most native works are lost.
This applies to Christian Assyrian and Mandaic/Manichaean/Mazdakist and others too. Consider how little we know about something as fascinating as the hypercommunalism of Mazdak's version of Zoroastrianism.