the maya codices and the khipu were lost in very nearly their entirety, and the more abundant maya hieroglyphs carved on stone have been only partly deciphered. the khipu are entirely undeciphered except for arithmetic
of carthaginian literature not one book remains
the khwarazmian empire is known from the accounts of its neighbors and destroyers
qin shi huang ordered the burning of the history books for every kingdom he conquered; consequently what we know of most of them today is little more than legend, except for what the histories of qin tell us
in countless smaller-scale examples we don't even know the names of the nations that perished along with their language and books
It was by an incredible amount of luck that Lucretius' On the Nature of Things is still published today. If it wasn't for a group of Florentine hipsters the last copy might have rotted on a shelf in a neglected monastery library. Who knows how the Renaissance might have progressed without it and whether the Enlightenment would have been different.
yes but this wasn't the result of intentional book-burning directed at suppressing epicureanism; though the christians were not really a fan, lucretius wrote too early to directly attack christianity, so it was never banned by the church
the maya codices and the khipu were lost in very nearly their entirety, and the more abundant maya hieroglyphs carved on stone have been only partly deciphered. the khipu are entirely undeciphered except for arithmetic
of carthaginian literature not one book remains
the khwarazmian empire is known from the accounts of its neighbors and destroyers
qin shi huang ordered the burning of the history books for every kingdom he conquered; consequently what we know of most of them today is little more than legend, except for what the histories of qin tell us
in countless smaller-scale examples we don't even know the names of the nations that perished along with their language and books