So a lot of people think that the European knowledge of Antiquity was lost with the burning of the Library of Alexandria, but that was actually a fraction of what we lost between 400 and 600 A.D., when the Papyrus scrolls started to fall apart. By then Europe used animal skin to write on instead (parchment or velum for the rich) but there wasn’t enough industry for that on the entire continent to replace all the papyrus, so the librarians had thousands of books and could only save like, a few dozen to a hundred to them. That’s also why our knowledge of ancient Europe was so skewed for so long, because they could only save so much and since most of that work was being done by monks, what do you think they’d save? Biblical history and the works of St Augustine and so on, and a lot of the old pagan Roman or Greek records just kinda.. turned to dust.
DrHolmes52 on
Everything fails eventually. Papyri, paper, rock (yes, rock), even hard drives. It will take longer, but you wonder what the record of our current times will still exist in 10k years (making the assumption human society is still here).
BagNo2988 on
I don’t think people really like ancient text as much as they think they do. China has a bunch dating a long time ago that survived numerous purges and I don’t see people reading them much.
Azerbinhoneymood on
Someone suggest a new international day of lost knowledge (or whatever sounds better) at the UN.
The day is not for celebrations, but to act as a reminder.
Cefalopodul on
90% of records were not interesting anyway, just pay receipts, contracts and advertisements for the Guild of Millers.
The Guild of Millers uses only the finest grains, true Roman bread for true Romans.
jollanza on
or destroyed by the early christians
grey_hat_uk on
Ok but of that 90-99% roughly how much was dick drawings?
7 Comments
So a lot of people think that the European knowledge of Antiquity was lost with the burning of the Library of Alexandria, but that was actually a fraction of what we lost between 400 and 600 A.D., when the Papyrus scrolls started to fall apart. By then Europe used animal skin to write on instead (parchment or velum for the rich) but there wasn’t enough industry for that on the entire continent to replace all the papyrus, so the librarians had thousands of books and could only save like, a few dozen to a hundred to them. That’s also why our knowledge of ancient Europe was so skewed for so long, because they could only save so much and since most of that work was being done by monks, what do you think they’d save? Biblical history and the works of St Augustine and so on, and a lot of the old pagan Roman or Greek records just kinda.. turned to dust.
Everything fails eventually. Papyri, paper, rock (yes, rock), even hard drives. It will take longer, but you wonder what the record of our current times will still exist in 10k years (making the assumption human society is still here).
I don’t think people really like ancient text as much as they think they do. China has a bunch dating a long time ago that survived numerous purges and I don’t see people reading them much.
Someone suggest a new international day of lost knowledge (or whatever sounds better) at the UN.
The day is not for celebrations, but to act as a reminder.
90% of records were not interesting anyway, just pay receipts, contracts and advertisements for the Guild of Millers.
The Guild of Millers uses only the finest grains, true Roman bread for true Romans.
or destroyed by the early christians
Ok but of that 90-99% roughly how much was dick drawings?