Discussion»Statements»Rosie's Corner» How many books/scrolls have been destroyed over the centuries due to religious zealots, fires, terrorist attacks, natural events?
Pretty much all of them. What remains intact today is only a tiny fraction of the whole output of the ancient world.
The Great Library of Alexandria was, at the time and for millenia afterward, the largest repository of human knowledge anywhere in the world. I would suggest to you, Rosie, that outside of maybe the Second World War, the loss of the library was the worst societal tragedy of all time. Certainly it is as a single event.
We will never know the true measure of how far mankind was set backward by Rome’s crass torching of the Great Library’s unmatched trove of ancient texts. Original works of the great Greek, Egyptian, and Mideastern scholars and playwrights, primary accounts of ancient life, learning, philosophy and history, unique and irreplaceable, were lost forever.
This post was edited by Don Barzini at August 29, 2018 4:47 AM MDT
Ever since I was a very little girl DB libraries and bookstores have been my favorite places to spend time. I'm an adult now and that is still true except I also love to spend time at grocery stores because I love to cook. It breaks my heart pondering about what wondrous knowledge was alive and well in ancient times that the people of those times wrote down for us to learn from and benefit from. We can never know and I agree with thee it is a tragedy of huge proportion. Perhaps had that never happened we humans of today would have been much better human beings than we are. Of course we shall never know. Book burning figuratively is censorship. I personally don't care about books whose content is hateful or salacious or filled with lies or puff pieces or political vendettas or any other garbage people write to make a quick buck. They are expendable in my opinion though I would not want to prevent those who adore that kinda crap from reading them. But that isn't what we're talking about is it? We're talking about the wisdom of the ancients that should have been passed down to us from which we could have learned many things. What existed in those sources that people of those times thought was important enough to memorialize and pass on to the future? Alas. Something that was our inheritance was stripped from us. SIGH. I'm glad you are so conversant with this topic DB. I expect there are quite a few folks who have never heard of the library or if they have don't give a rat's a** and thus don't know/care about the loss. Happy Wednesday to thee! :) Oh...tangential to this I saw in a magazine a photo of a library in China that holds 1.3 million books. It was kinda overwhelming! :)
This post was edited by RosieG at August 29, 2018 6:30 AM MDT
Don Barzini 