Books You Can (Never) Read

[@TREYtheExplainer]

Hope you guys enjoy this one ;) Sorry if its a little on the lengthier side. I originally had the idea for it all the way back in 2017, but put it on the backburner to work on other projects for a while. I'm just happy it's finally out! I promise I'll post my next video in a shorter amount of time. It's going to document my adventures meeting an alligatorman...

[@alexzidaru2241]

Let's go

[@nautilusnotasquid]

An alligatorman? Sounds fascinating

[@jeremysmith4620]

Don't apologize for longer videos, I'm sure most of us WANT all the extra and/or lengthier content from you we can get. I just hate that it takes longer to make, but as long as you are happy making it we are happy watching it!

[@Irobert1115HD]

HE HAS RETURNED!

[@shakabletax2103]

Trust me not a SINGLE person is upset about longer videos frankly I was hoping it would be as long as humanly possible

[@DelNiceBeto]

I learned the fragility of writing when I wrote two books in elementary school, "Commando Cats" and "Pirate Dogs". I had them bound with staples and was planning on taking them to my school library to try and publish them. But I lost them after leaving them in the laundry room. I looked everywhere, even the trash but despite my efforts they were lost. It was devastating to me.

[@multipleSpiders]

very tragic. just imagine what society could be like today if those important manuscripts hadn’t been lost.

[@DM-mi4je]

@@multipleSpiders they would've stopped that gorilla from dying.

[@JcoleMc]

@@multipleSpiders We'd have flying cars by now

[@wnrr2696]

@@JcoleMc multiple spiders in flying cars sounds terrifying lol

[@sorryicanthearyouovermyfre8958]

I am sure they would become a home staple

[@parmaxolotl]

The loss of all those Mesoamerican books infuriates me-think of all their discoveries and stories that were lost. They would have given us great insight into not just their cultures, but on humanity as a whole, seeing as they would have developed everything in almost complete isolation from the Eastern Hemisphere.

[@Gekumatz]

European cities expanded regardless of resources available to them, sort of like a tumor, new world cities offered cities that expanded in a much more complex way in accordance to their resource and they managed it pretty well. What I’m trying to say is that we could learn alot about pre contact cities who have alot of our answers to food problems and even climate change, chinampas for example is one of the most sustainable way to farm in the world, sadly we lost a lot of Information on how their cities were built and the knowledge we do have about them is archeological or accounts of those there. We could learn a lot from them considering climate change and all that.

[@BenitoChisselini]

@@Gekumatz none of those books would have any use in todays industrialized world.

[@Gekumatz]

@@BenitoChisselini except they would, were beyond industrialization and countries have already used chinampa systems

[@raziphaz2219]

@@BenitoChisselini since we lost them, we have people claiming out of their asses that nothing an entire continent of people wrote was useful.

[@Okiwano]

The Aztecs destroyed all the works of their predecessors to try and protect themselves while oddly just weakening themselves enough to be made vulnerable to invasion by a small force.

[@AlternateHistoryHub]

Does this count as Trey going into Lost Media

[@Zyenith]

big fan AHH!

[@Detah_]

The best crossover I’ve seen

[@takenname8053]

Yes

[@worldcomicsreview354]

He's ancient history's Kenny Lauderdale.

[@ChrissieBear]

Yes xD

[@mgill1996]

As a Sikh, the most tragic case of lost books to me is when the Sikh Reference Library, which contained tens of thousands of single-copy manuscripts, novels, newspaper archives, paintings, letters, and other historical literature, was burnt to a crisp in 1984 when Indian forces attacked the Golden Temple shrine in Amritsar.

[@strawberrystolons]

Thats so tragic ** edit: sorry for adding the tone indicator '/gen', i'm autistic and have intense anxiety, and people have asked me whether i was being sarcastic at other points of time when I expressed sincerity, so I felt like I had to add a tone indicator just in case it could be misunderstood this time, too. But I ended up making others uncomfortable in another way instead. I'm sorry.

[@thijsmallekote1977]

@@strawberrystolons what?

[@strawberrystolons]

@@thijsmallekote1977 gen means 'geniune' in internet indicator speech- I was saying it was beyond sad, what happened

[@Juicestain2]

@@strawberrystolonsit was fairly obvious you were being genuine, and the only thing that caused confusion was the tone indicator

[@strawberrystolons]

@@Juicestain2 Ohhhhhh

[@Iudicatio]

I remember being somewhat shocked when my English teacher in school taught us about how Beowulf, one of the most famous works of English literature and a huge inspiration to J.R.R. Tolkien and consequently almost the entire fantasy genre, almost became a lost work. At one point, there were only two copies in the world. One was destroyed in a fire. Nobody was too concerned about preserving the other one for a long time. It sat in a monastery and was used as a cutting board at one point. Imagine how different media and literature would be if the last remaining copy disappeared!

[@eekee6034]

I find it strange how the fantasy genre got bottlenecked through Tolkein. It's not too strange; he was very good, but when I was a kid, I read a lot of fairy stories which were outside his influence and many of them had this really alien vibe. I suppose they should as they posited faerie as another world. :)

[@aspektx]

I could have swore that last copy of Beowulf was hidden in a private collection.

[@unselliecontinents3338]

@@eekee6034 I agree, as amazing as Tolkien lore is, there are tons of myths and legends outside of his works. It’s unfortunate only so many were recorded as people have been telling each other stories since we could speak, and entire millennia old mythologies have been lost in the span of mere generations or less.

[@uncletiggermclaren7592]

@@eekee6034 You should read "Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell" it has some very good references to the older fairy myths. If you do, PLEASE go on to read the exceptionally cool "sequel" to it, "The ladies of Grace Adieu"

[@arte0021]

@@ynraider cringe leftist garbage

[@lennylate2114]

I can’t even imagine how it must’ve felt to just be the only person carrying the knowledge of the solar system or evolution around with you in ancient Greece

[@Urlocallordandsavior]

Would probably be a lot like being an academic in any field (virtually).

[@treyshaffer]

@@Urlocallordandsavior Exactly, just as many people scoff at modern academic, back then like 99% of people would've just been like "who cares about the earth, stars, blah blah blah, I'm gonna eat a goat and get hammered on some Ionian wine tonight!"

[@trollfacemafiagaming6036]

@@treyshaffer you have a really arrogant view of the past you know that that's literally what half of philosophy was about since science doesn't seperate from philosophy till the modren period and treys evolutionary view on Anaxagoras is wrong and is like a common misrepresentation by non philosophers his evolution was more like a cosmic one than biological which is because his view was a response to Empedocles view

[@adrianaslund8605]

There were philosophers that had similar ideas to evolution back then. No way to really prove it though.

[@RaeSan_Art]

honestly, i feel like there mightve been a lot of doubt about it. Without the works of others to validate your reasoning within, who would have been able to tell if it was complete, or missing something

[@hamstsorkxxor]

You joke about Claudius "the art of playing dice", but when you mentioned the title, I sat bolt upright. Analysing dice is one of the most natural ways to start inventing probability theory, which is absolutely huge from a technological point of view. Basic probability theory is also just a few cognitive stone throws away from accidentally stumbling into algebra, calculus and statistical mechanics. Playing around with dice, you could awfully quickly run into problems that require an understanding of standard distributions, for example.

[@julianguastadisegno]

You are totally right, I haven't think of this. Even if it is "only" a books on strategies and tactics on dice and betting (Like when to fold or pull out of one for example) it could very well be probability and statistics in diapers.

[@MyPalJimbo]

But that made you sit bolt upright? What are you, some sort of meganerd created in a lab by supernerds?

[@singularityraptor4022]

@@MyPalJimbo People with functioning brain cells and curiousity experience that. Something you can never experience

[@MyPalJimbo]

@@singularityraptor4022 then why are you bullying me for being mentally incapable?

[@joluoto]

So what you are saying is Claudius played D&D.

[@aspenEarthmover]

I remember when I was around the age of 7, my mom bought me a mini composition book and I thought it was so cool that I wrote my own graphic novel, “The Good Pirates”. I remember it follows a band of 4 pirates crashing into an island and gaining wacky powers, but thats it. One of the only reasons I remember it is because on another book I wrote in 2nd grade, “The cheeseburger fish”, which I have recovered and I still own an intact copy, offers a small written reference to The Good Pirates on the back in the form of a reading suggestion.

[@Mix_009]

A young writer, you were. Im curious, did you continued writing after growing up? Or did your passion change?

[@isabellind1292]

How graphic a novel can a 7 yr old write, lol!

[@BlackSeranna]

That’s awesome!

[@anab6398]

the original one piece

[@aspenEarthmover]

@@anab6398 oh my god I have a lawsuit on my hands…

[@SethWistful]

"On Nature" being lost almost made me drop out of a class. I had a class that basically mapped the history of scientific progress through astronomy; the major project, and grade, was doing the same for another topic. At the beginning of the semester, I picked something fun - study of mushrooms/mycelium. It was going well, with the science as we know it today really forming in the 1800s with gentleman scientists. But going back, every damn reference in ancient times went to "On Nature" and I literally begged another teacher, an ancient Greek reader (biblical scholar) to help me find it, only to find out it was lost about a day before the paper was due. One of the coolest classes I've ever taken, but damn, was that final paper killer.

[@posteniuzgajivacovaca8048]

How convenient that it just disappeared. Myceliums are the past the present and the future of this planet and have the answer on almost if not every disease, but somebody doesn't want us to know too much.

[@Nono-hk3is]

You must be a Highlander if "On Nature" was lost the day before your paper was due.

[@uncletiggermclaren7592]

@@Nono-hk3is I see what thy doest there. His major was biology, and he was failing English.

[@hereniho]

@@uncletiggermclaren7592 Sounds like you failed English several times, bucko.

[@Enshadowed]

I don't understand how the text was lost a day before your paper was due

[@zasproductions9258]

“When the prehistorical and historical world needed him most, he returned.”

[@Ronaldo-eu1nz]

Yo 🔥kzbin.info/www/bejne/qJWtapWpg5x9d9k.. .

[@magnumtrooper17]

true, with all the bullshit in the present, i like like to escape to the past! Glad my favorite dinosaur is back

[@matheussanthiago9685]

@@magnumtrooper17 this comment just gets more and more poignant with every passing year :(

[@fingerboxes]

Pytheas: "I sailed north of Britain and found a place that was freezing cold where strange lights danced across the sky and it was as bright as noon all day!" His friends: "Dude, come on, stop making up ridiculous nonsense. I'm trying to read this historically accurate explanation about how Milo of Croton was turned into a werewolf as a sacrifice to Zeus Lycaeus."

[@SeanMahoneyfitnessandart]

Accurate. Insightful. And funny. 🫡

[@Hasshshissh_1070]

😂😂😂😂😂

[@Slam_24]

Imagine being granted with an unlimited memory and the time to read 170,000,000 books, and the lost ones. God, if I could, I would.

[@treyshaffer]

imagine how much sappy romantic/erotica books for middle aged women you'd have to read. seems like that's about half of all literature output by humanity in the past century. oh god and you'd have to read the twilight series

[@Slam_24]

@@treyshaffer F... delete wish, delete!

[@Slam_24]

@Higgs Bonbon Hahaha that's true

[@robtaylor1444]

Life goals - effective immortality and a social system that enables me to do whatever I want for a few thousand years ;)

[@gracepina9919]

Not if you broke your glasses you wouldnt

[@MajiggerRose]

I wanted to make a comment laughing about how much of early writings were fanfiction, but the story of Couoh's library has me in tears. Someone who worked so hard to preserve his culture having it all taken away from him, as well as the memories of his people, really hurts to think about.

[@thetoaster6938]

the longest piece of fiction is a sonic fanfic if i am correct 😭

[@therealCamoron]

Like that Twilight Zone episode where the guy preserves his library through the apocalypse but then breaks his glasses

[@simonhandy962]

@@therealCamoron I guess he had enough cans of baked beans for the next 50 years? There's always a downside to surviving the apocalypse....

[@molochsorcery4357]

@@therealCamoron That was the late, great Burgess Meredith who played The Penguin on the 60's Batman TV series.

[@molochsorcery4357]

Imagine the loss of MOntezuma's library? Or the Aztec's library those idiotic monks & Conquistadors destroyed. What a shame on Spain and the christian religion.

[@KobeanHistory]

One of the most interesting lost books is "On the Ocean" by Pytheas of Massalia he was a Greek explorer from the 4th century BC who explored Britain and possibly went as far north as Iceland and the frozen arctic ocean. Only fragments of his work survived, being quoted in works of other classical writers from which we can partly reconstruct his journey. It was centuries before any other first-hand accounts of the British Isles and Northern Europe were written. Just imagine how much more we would know of the iron age people of these regions had it survived.

[@KobeanHistory]

Just got to the part where you talk about him, glad Pytheas made it in the video :)

[@paulrobinson6935]

Blasphemous but yes

[@REALsnstruthers]

@@paulrobinson6935 wtf do you mean by “blasphemous”

[@jvitiumig3259]

Yes blasphemous but in accords

[@petrus9067]

Is that about the hyperboreans

[@zephlodwick1009]

One lost book I'd want to read is the Book of Pictures, a holy text of a now-extinct religion called Manichaeism, the faith you may know as the former religion of Saint Augustine of Hippo. It was written by Mar Mani, who founded the religion, himself. The book was an illustrated guide to the cosmology of Manichaeism, made for ordinary, illiterate people to understand. Mani's art was meant to be very good, greatly influencing the development of Persian miniature art. Alas, due to Manichaeism's persecution in all countries it came to, the book doesn't survive.

[@ninjaeagleart]

Woah, I’ve never even heard of Manichaeism. Sounds interesting.

[@noodlesnook]

@@ninjaeagleart same here! kills me that this book is practically nonexistent now.

[@bardmadsen6956]

I had a book basically like that, gave it to a used book store, it was the Bible in illustration for the illiterate. It wasn't worth much, IIRC early 20th Century.

[@g.3581]

@@ninjaeagleart It’s actually an incredibly interesting religion that mixes ideas from Christianity, Zoroastrianism and Buddhism. The last practitioners were in Southern China and there’s still a temple today in Fujian where a statue of the Iranian prophet Mani is venerated as the Buddha of Infinite Light.

[@petroglyph888mcgregor2]

I have my doubts that Bishop Augustine of Hippo really ever truly converted to Christianity. A lot of the biblical interpretations that he popularized sounded more like Manichaeist theology rather than first-century Christian theology.

[@keremkelleboz6959]

24:24 As a mathematics student, this book seems incredibly important to me. The mathematical study of probability was born out of people trying to win at gambling in the 16th century. Depending on the sophistication of Cladius' knowledge, the survival of this book could've meant much more rapid and early progress in discrete mathematics

[@tomfeng5645]

It's also a great example of non-experts not recognizing the significace of a work, which has surely happened to many an important lost book.

[@Gavolak]

-probably* born out of 16th century gamblers. I’ve also seen sources suggest that the original p value was developed to predict grain output in ancient Sumer.

[@JubioHDX]

@@Gavolak it mightve been, but just like Cladius' works, if the people living in ancient Sumer had written down all of their findings somewhere its also been practically all lost. Which kinda just goes along with OP's point, imagine if either one of those discoveries were able to stick around instead of needing to be "re-discovered" thousands of years later, and just how much technology couldve advanced by someone hearing about them or reading the book/tablet that contained it so much earlier. Its no small secret that the fact technology advances so fast nowadays is because all the knowledge we gather nowadays is so readily accessible for anyone who wants to read it. We can access more knowledge with the phone in our pocket in a week than the most powerful emperors of the ancient world could gather in a lifetime with all their resources and connections. Things that seem common sense to us were only unknown to so many back then because even though they were just as intelligent there was just so much less access to gathered knowledge, so many things needed to be re-invented before they finally stuck in the gathered consciousness

[@blue-pi2kt]

​@@Gavolakwhen he says the mathematical study of probability what he means is a study which is set out within a rigorous logical framework sometimes known as a systematic treatment of the subject.

[@Gavolak]

@@blue-pi2kt there’s no reason to believe that ancient Sumerians didn’t approach their study of optimal grain output predictions with rigorous logical systems. A lot of Sumerian texts and relics have been lost to time, and whether they actually did or didn’t study statistics is entirely a guess. But if they did, they would’ve approached it with as much rigor as they did their other maths.

[@smashwombel]

Here's one interesting book that is probably lost forever: The "Indiculus superstitionum et paganiarum", a guidebook for christian missionaries written in the 9th century. As the name suggests, it contains explanations about the rituals of the pagan Saxons. The book had thirty chapters dealing with all aspects of the pagan Saxon religion and would probably have solved every question about continental germanic mythology maybe ever.

[@viktorberzinsky4781]

I hope that a few copies exist somewhere for it could shed light on all the European pagan religions by giving us something to further compare with others.

[@canko15]

@@viktorberzinsky4781 they tend to find manuscripts once in a while hidden in monasteries, let's not lose hope

[@Zrs3820]

How did it become a "Lost Book"? Destroyed?

[@sallylauper8222]

@@viktorberzinsky4781 Who knows what the Vatican has got in their basement...

[@abcdefghij8128]

@@Zrs3820 It's a 1200-years-old manuscript (the cover still exists), it just needed a brief period of neglect to perish.

[@compatriot852]

It's quite sad thinking about how much literature has been lost over the centuries. Think about how many cultures had their entire written language wiped from existence as time forgot their existence

[@johntaranto29]

All will be one day most likely, its just a matter of time.

[@Kable_TV]

Language written in code so that Latin could not ruin its message the language never decoded There was purposes to this

[@RandyOrlok]

who cares

[@ReddoFreddo]

@@RandyOrlok You care enough to write a mocking reply, which indicates care in an opposite direction. Perhaps you believe certain languages should go extinct.

[@viktorberzinsky4781]

Oh you want to know something that will really drive you wild? The species homo sapiens, modern humans has been around for about 200,000 years. Only about 5,400 years of that history has any notable measure of written records. That's well over 200,000 years of human history without any written records, probably lost save for maybe a few stray fragments that miraculously survived through oral tradition, entire cultures rising and then fading from memory without any reliable or extant records that they ever lived. Millions if not billions of lives forgotten by their descendants. The very origins of countless nations and cultures that live today known only as pieces of myth. That's the story of inventions, wars, the reigns of chieftains and monarchs, the lives of common people, religious lore, customs, laws, games they played, poems, songs, instrumental compositions, and all manner of things, legions of them, lost to us. We are ignorant of the vast majority of our own history. That thought fills me with sorrow and wonder at the mysteries those lost millennia may hold and reminds me of how little we truly know about ourselves and the origins of societies that still exist today.

[@Gillemear]

Talking about archaeology, at Pompeii, strange lumps of charcoal were found, particularly in a certain villa just outside the city. When first discovered, they were not seen as interesting, and in some cases were used as a source of fuel. However, an astute excavator noticed that the charcoal was arranged in layers and after pealing one back, noticed discolouration on the inner surface. The realisation hit the whole archaeological expedition- these lumps were rolled scrolls! Since then, the lost scrolls were meticulously log and stored until recently when digital imaging technology and laser analysis finally revealed their contents. We can now read these scrolls, once they are carefully unrolled and scanned. Who knows what lost works waiting to be rediscovered lie amongst the hundreds of thousands of these once thought useless lumps of charcoal.

[@MrBrendanRizzo]

Imagine how irritating it would be if they turned out to just be copies of the Iliad.

[@KRDecade2009]

@@MrBrendanRizzo well to be fair it was broken up into separate books so it’s more than likely to be true

[@NealBones]

@@MrBrendanRizzo 😂😂

[@saberx08]

@@MrBrendanRizzo That comment made me literally laugh out loud! Yeah... that would suck though.

[@jamieevans3666]

neat, some hebrew scrolls were uncovered the same way

[@clay1430]

I think the Dead Sea Scrolls are another interesting case of lost and found, they were missing for so long that they were regarded as mythical works that never even existed. Crazy to think that after nearly two thousand years they were rediscovered and have become invaluable pieces of Hebrew literature and history.

[@lemonyz420]

Pretty crazy that they were discovered in a random cave by random shepherds

[@ansarizinnoor6249]

But they were written 1400 years after Moses

[@vadimuha]

Imagine writing your account of a crazy unique voyage you did to the end of a known world, for just a fragment of it surviving as a wrapping of a mummy

[@liyre4189]

I bet at least one guy on that voyage was thinking "I want my mummyyy"

[@Numbabu]

Absolutely metal. This makes a fantastic prompt for a fictional story.

[@heidibarker9550]

I would love to be wrapped in papyrus, it wouldn't be boring.

[@robertallen4774]

Bernard Shaw in his early 20th cent play, Caesar and Cleopatra has a line that haunts me. When Caesar is storming Alexandria, the great Library catches fire and the chief librarian comes to Caesar, begging him to order his soldiers to put the fire out because "the memory of mankind is perishing." Caesar replies, "Let it perish, it was a shameful memory"

[@TheFlyfly]

"haunting" is the perfect way to describe that line

[@person14876]

The first major copyright dispute occurred in Ireland between two monks where one claimed the other copied him. It was ruled: to each cow its calf and to each book its copy.

[@SlapstickGenius23]

Well, Ireland also has its own public domain catalogue. Still a good video.

[@thenavybluewolf5648]

The fact that we grieve intensely over lost literature and knowledge is something that makes me feel connected to all of humantity. Even when I am feeling lonely, the fact that through the ages we covet art, literature, and music and feel intense loss whenever it is destroyed; makes me feel a little less lonely. Its tragic, but beautiful.

[@DragoniteSpam]

I think I have a new favorite instance of "finding the context of the wacky historical bits Trey posted on Twitter for actual research purposes."

[@jonasholzer4422]

Yeeess. When I still had Twitter, one of my favorite things about it was reading Treys posts and wondering how all of this would come together into a new video

[@DragoniteSpam]

@@jonasholzer4422 One might even to as go as to say, taking Trey's context-free meme tweets and trying to figure out how they might assemble into a video is like taking the vague references from ancient authors and trying to figure out how they might assemble into a lost book.

[@Ronaldo-eu1nz]

Yo 🔥kzbin.info/www/bejne/qJWtapWpg5x9d9k.. .

[@liyre4189]

When it got up to the ancient Aztec erotica part it felt like the pointing Spider-man meme

[@MajoraZ]

I'm gonna expand a bit on books in Mesoamerica (The Aztec, Maya, etc), since I already provided Trey some images of those and there was only so much he could include in the video: Mesoamerican books, or codices, were usually made from either bark paper, known as Amate in Nahuatl (the Aztec language; in this comment I mean Aztec = Nahuas, not just the Mexica of Tenochtitlan), which was indepedently invented in Mesoamerica separate from Asia, or hides, mostly deerskin. These could be single large parchments, or more famously, very long, horizontal sheets which were folded over itself sort of like an accordion. Writing was also inscribed onto stone monuments or tablets, or painted onto ceramics, though these were more or less common depending on the specific culture, as was the exact format and conventions of records in these documents/inscriptions, since obviously the nature of the writing system would vary per culture. Writing in Mesoamerica was viewed as an extension of painting, so Mesoamerican scripts are best understood as being sort of on spectrum of being more visual or more language based. I am NOT a linguist, not even close, so i'm gonna be brief here, but in essence the Olmec script is entirely undecipherd and probably always will be, so nobody knows. The Epi-Olmec, Zapotec, and Maya scripts are more language based: Zapotec, partially deciphered has logograms (characters which denote whole words they depict, like hieroglyphs) and phonetic elements, but also some pictographic ones and lacks articles/prepositions. The Maya script, fully deciphered, has logograms, but also a full set of characters representing each syllable in the spoken language to write out spoken words in true sentences, and Epi-Olmec was probably something similar. The less language based, and more pictorial based scripts are Teotihuacano, Mixtec, and Aztec. There's actually debate over how Teotihuacan's writing worked, with some thinking it was pictographic, others logograms, or some combinations; but was probably less language based then the prior 3. The Aztec and Mixtec scripts are primarily pictographic, (So less "writing", and more pictures with a standardized format to be drawn/read) However, the Aztec script also had some phonetic elements, rebuses, and puns tying into the spoken language (A lot of city-state glyphs have teeth in them, because the word for tooth sounds like the word for a place/location!), and technically COULD be used like a full written language representing every spoken sound in Nahuatl, though it was never actually used for that. Anyways, back to the books: Mesoamerican codices (and inscriptions) generally dealt with 3 rough categories of subject matters: Dynastic/political; tax/resource documentation; and cosmological,/calendarical,astrological records, though often these would overlap and/or the same document could have different sections devoted to each: 1. Dynastic documentation recorded political histories, the movement of people, conquests, political marriages and lineages, etc. Mixtec codices like the Zouche-Nuttall record the conflicts and machinations of different Mixtec and Zapotec royal families and their kingdoms, especially focusing on with 8-Deer-Jaguar-Claw, who acted as a general for other cities, used shrewd alliances with the influential city of Cholula to sidestep the oracles which organized Mixtec affairs, and conquered nearly 100 cities in 18 years, only for it to be undone by 4-wind, the one boy he left alive from his rival dynasty's family. (Fun fact, the city-state he founded, Tututepec, was one of only a few states within the Aztec empire's reach not conquered by them). The Maya placed similar records of their kings and great deeds and conflicts onto many public monuments in stone inscriptions. Aztec codices like the Boturini record the movement of Nahua people and the founding of their city states and similar political conflicts, etc. 2. Astrological and calendrical records are pretty much what they sound like: These were divinatory documents which depicted various dates, calender's, religious festivals and their associated deities, creation myths, and the like. These would have been consulted by seers and priests for rulers, or by families after a birth of a child to ascertain their fortunes. The Aztec Magliabechiano, Borgia, and the Maya Paris and Dresden codices are some of the most famous of these, but frankly most codices contain at least SOME astrological/religious and political records. 3. Tax/resource documentation: Perhaps the most interesting. For example, the middle portion of the Mendoza codex shows a list of Aztec tributary provinces, their towns, and the various economic goods they owed Tenochtitlan: Military equipment like warsuits, shields, and helmets; luxury goods like fine feathers, gold, jade, turquoise, incense, jewelry, ceremonial masks and fine cloaks and ceramics; utilitarian goods like textile, obsidian, stone, wood, ceramics, cacao, maize, beans, chia, amaranth, salt etc. What is REALLY fascinating is the Oztoticpac Lands Map, the Códice de Santa María Asunción, the Codex Vergara etc, which are documents that aren't just lists of taxes and resources, but are maps and diagrams which show land plots, agricultural yields, and other information that are basically geographic land surveys and censuses. However, as I noted, Mesoamericans viewed writing as an extension of painting, and primarily pictographic scripts couldn't really convey much qualitative detail. Even Maya inscriptions and codices really tend to give information in a fairly dry, "On X date, Y happened" sort of format. We do not have things like narrative annals, philosophical records, compilations of poetry, or fictional works, if you're looking at Prehispanic codices, even though we know 100% know poetry, philsophy, etc existed (which i'll get back to shortly). There is likely less then 20 surviving, totally prehispanic documents, sadly. Trey mentioned that Tenochtitlan had a large royal library, but so did Texcoco, and most medium to large Mesoamerican cities likely would have had *some* collection of codices and documentation. At least hundreds, likely thousands, if not tens to hundreds of thousands of texts were burned. However, there are also POSThispanic codices! While so much was intentionally destroyed, some things were also written down or re-recorded, either by Native nobles and scribes attempting to preserve their history or to justify their status in the Spanish colonial administration. Catholic friars wrote many too, using native informants or working directly with native scribes and nobles collaboratively, to document existing histories, political and economic systems, and cultural practices, that way Spain could better govern and convert the existing population. Some of these adhere to more Prehispanic conventions, and are basically Pre-contact codices merely made after contact and with Spanish annotations (Like the Mendoza), while others are mostly European style books merely recording information on Mesoamerican society, history, and culture (The Duran, the Florentine), or are something in between. These documents DID record more qualitative information, since they were fully written out in Spanish or Nahuatl, and do include things like full narrative histories, poems, ethics and philosophy, and so on (Tax/land survey records exclusively show up in Post-contact codices, but we know from Conquistador accounts that they existed to some extent pre-contact too). Sadly, however, almost all of these are on the Aztec, since Spain's colonial infrastructure was basically inheriting the Aztec Empire's. There's some on Mayas, Zapotecs, Mixtecs, the Purepecha (the third largest empire in the Americas after the Inca and Aztec, just to the Aztec's west) and so on, but much, much less. Almost nothing on the Totonacs, Huastecs, Mixe, Chatinos, Tlapanecs, Otomis, and so many others, despite likewise being urban civilizations. An interesting additional category is botanical and herbal records. The Aztec were INSANELY skilled at sanitation, hygiene, dentistry, surgeries, herbal treatments, agriculture, horticulture, and botany. The sanitation and purely medical stuff Trey will likely cover in a future video, but as it applies here, royal Aztec gardens could cover many square kilometers and have intricate series of aqueducts, pools, and artificial waterfalls, with them having different sections to mimicked different biomes, to experiment with their growing conditions, and to test and stock them for medical properties. There was even a formal taxonomic system for them! There are botanical and herbal records in a few codices, such as parts of the Florentine Codex (a massive, multi-thousand page compendium on so many aspects of Aztec history and society), the entirety of the Badianus manuscript is a corpus of plants and herbal treatments, and there are a few surviving sections of documentation by Francisico Hernandez de Toledo, the personal royal court physician and naturalist to Philip II, who traveled to Mexico and recorded information about (and begrudgingly admitted it was superior to Europe's) Aztec sciences in those subjects, though the full reports of his are lost. It is hard to say for sure if these sorts of records would have been in codices in the prehispanic period, but I think it is quite likely. On a last note, the % of literacy in Mesoamerica is somewhat debates for some cultures, some believe the Maya had somewhat more widespread literacy then what Trey implies, for example, but I don't know the full details of the debate here. actually CONTINUED IN A REPLY BELOW!

[@MajoraZ]

Reserving a reply to add onto later!

[@symmetrymilton4542]

Godamn....that's dedication

[@Sevensthecat]

Amazing read, thank you.

[@rianantony]

It seems there's an example of the acordeon looking parchment based writings at 35:15 in this video

[@Radiant-Edge]

Just a small correction to this otherwise splendid comment. Amate is a Spanish word, in Nahuatl it's Amatl and luckily for us the method by which it is made has been preserved to the present (despite the Spanish outlawing the practice). You can watch videos of people making it here on KZbin which is pretty neat. I'm not holding my breath but maybe one day we'll find a nice cache of indigenous codices someone hid away from the inquisition in Mexico. Sahagún accounts that during his creation of post conquest codices that many had survived and were able to be referenced.

[@tonioender9928]

It's pretty sad that there have been absolutely crazy events throughout history that we'll never know about

[@SergioLeonardoCornejo]

Sadder even that a few might have been obscured, erased, or forgotten on purpose. Even things that are hidden in plain sight are often ignored. Did you know Rousseau shaped modern education drspite having no interaction with children and being a horrible father? His influence, harmful as it is, was rejected by his contemporaries who did know of his vices.

[@bardmadsen6956]

@@SergioLeonardoCornejo Oh, you should see the push back from paradigm shifts, I get Astrophysicists and Archeologists that are downright lying to obscure the truth, muddy the water... I also get, denial and incredulousness, including ridicule and laughter.

[@geligniteandlilies]

@@bardmadsen6956 What are they lying about? Like conspiratorially?

[@bardmadsen6956]

@@geligniteandlilies Sure seems like it, yet at the same time ignorant of the facts. I've been working on it since the night of Halloween 1968 and figured out something important that others have missed or denial centers the blind spot over the clues. Within comparative universal mythology there is a commonality of where the destructive force that caused The Younger Dryas Impacts Theory came from and 'educated' powers that be do their best to obfuscate the truth about The Taurid Stream that appears to emanate from the Pleiades, which is right above The Golden Gates, The First Fire From Heaven, The Throne of God, and the diametric of The Milky Way among others. This past tragedy was the impetus for the sky and cosmic battles of religion and mythology. In other words there is no supernatural on-goings between good and evil, it is about life with the Sun and death of Impact Winter.

[@alexrogers777]

@@Lulu_Catnaps Ah, so a tin foil hat schizo. opinion discarded

[@TheDanishGuyReviews]

40:09 "It would be arrogant of us to believe our systems are completely flawless." Dude, I am constantly afraid that my external harddrive suddenly stops working. It's where I keep everything digital I've ever read and going to read. Fear of technical issues is the reason why I keep some of my ebooks in 3 or 4 different places at all times. Animorphs and Goosebumps will not become Lost Works as long as I'm around.

[@matheussanthiago9685]

and we salute you for your service

[@toyotatacoma1616]

I too have every animorphs book on pdf stored on multiple thumb drives. There might be tens of us!

[@Angel-Otk]

Me with my drawing iPad😭💀

[@WhySoPrettyJinsoul.]

Why I am the most saddest at the lost for Emperor's Claudius "Estrucan Research"? Maybe it is probably the fact that he probably put a lot of time and effort on making this book and now everything is gone 😭

[@LadyRavenhaire]

I also feel the same way.

[@TheBBqMan140]

Such was life for uncle Claudius

[@gabrielelorusso3335]

Also because Etruscan culture is very mysterious to us, and so that text would have answered many of our questions

[@janebug2922]

yas stan loona

[@randomshyte9989]

He probably knew things we don't know to this day, maybe he'd even figured out the entire history of rome up to that point and now it is lost.

[@TikoVerhelst]

As a Dutch person I'm far too familiar with the concept. One of the most famous medieval Dutch books is the tale of Reynard the Fox. We know who wrote it; Willem die Madoc maakte (Willem who made Madoc). That's it! We do not know anything else about this Willem. No-thing! The only thing we know is that he made "Madoc". We think it is another medieval epic/poem that is lost to time. What Madoc is, is one of the biggest mysteries of Dutch literature history. Neerlandici (experts on Dutch language and culture) and Dutch medievalists have been plagued by the question for years.......

[@doorstopper674]

Things we know about william: 1.) His name is william 2.) He made madoc

[@runenorderhaug7646]

Just some interesting discussions on who people think it could be en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madoc

[@sascha1493]

ik wilde hier net een comment over achterlaten, ik dacht namelijk ook meteen aan madoc!

[@bizuko2307]

Man, the loss of the Aztec and Maya [EDIT: and Zapotec, Mixtec, Purépecha and many other cultures] codices bums me out every time I think about it. It's representative of how the conquest of the Americas not only resulted in an apocalypse-worth of death, but also the loss of so much knowledge and culture. So much history just lost. EDIT: "Oh but the Aztecs--" go outside, think about why you feel the need to do whataboutism on this subject of all things. Examine that impulse to try and make it seem like they deserved it or something.

[@k-la-k6828]

Mesoamerican Knowledge: *Exists* Spanish Conquerors: *SHIT'S ON FIRE YOOOO*

[@LaRana2315]

And as a descendant of those civilizations it pains me to know (or rather NOT know) how much of my culture, knowledge, legends, stories, epics, comedies, hell even a few of my ancestors GODS and aspects of their religion will never see the light of day. We're left with what few remnants we were able to hide, fight for, or were just able to MIRACULOUSLY dig up after being buried for centuries. As a history lover it hurts, but as a person of indigenous mexican it BREAKS my fucking heart. EDIT: wanted to clarify that I'm a person of indigenous decent, my family doesn't know what pueblo/tribe we decended from bc history of assimilation n records/stories being lost. Apologies for any confusion was not my intention

[@tily5939]

I nearly cried at that section. Couoho really did what he could.

[@jorgeskuf]

it makes me so mad it makes my blood boil

[@hiera1917]

No. Not lost. Actively, *intentionally* destroyed so that some bastards across the waves could have chests full of gold and silver made by men, women, and children who were infected with diseases with no cure, whose land had been taken from them. Colonialism never ended. As long as settlers live on stolen lands colonialism is alive and very well. If you’re mad about it then you better find a way to help indigenous people regain their sovereignty and to advance their own rights to freedom and happiness. Support indigenous socialism!

[@tygonmaster]

I have worked at a library for four years now and have gotten an appreciation of how impressive the systems that we have put in place to acquire books. We are able to share books with over 300 different libraries that get sent to us in a matter of days. Even still, there are constantly books that we are finding are not in our collection and try to hunt down.

[@Dimblenick]

Since you didn't mention it, a lot of books in Abbasid house of wisdom actually were lost with Mongol sack of Baghdad, famous among them is history of Arabia by a historian named Ibn Sinan (he only wrote that one book), another book is about the Qarmatid rebellion from Qarmatid perspective, called (the chronicles of Qarmatids) by a historian named abu Jafar al-qarmati There were collections of scientific books as well, one that stands out is al-farahidi's "the eye" which supposedly had studied sabaean language which we know little about now

[@lainiwakura1776]

"Damn Mongorians!" City Wok guy from South Park.

[@nunyabiznes33]

The rivers ran black with the ink of books, I heard.

[@glorioustea7433]

@@nunyabiznes33 True, as it said for 3 days the river nonstop was painted with black and red from all of the blood and ink that was spelled

[@Zrs3820]

This sack and the sack of the Library of Alexandria always make me depressed. So much ancient knowledge lost.

[@trollfacemafiagaming6036]

Also when mentioning literary rates he sidelined /mena/ when Abbasid ones wouldn't have been far from roman rates considering the translation movement and Chinese paper making techniques being adopted which would've made manuscripts atleast relatively cheaper and easier to produce than in rome

[@M3T5LH5MM3R]

Imagine Archeologists 3000 years from now writing stuff like: "During the late two thousands and early two thousand tens a work of fiction, that seems to have been adapted in multiple forms of media, caused much discussion and controversy throughout western societies, especially among the youth. Seemingly hated by some it was loved by others and even inspired further works by other authors. Sadly all that survived to us to this day is the rather cryptical title of "Twilight".

[@yzettasmith4194]

LOL!

[@viktorberzinsky4781]

The one text aside from the turner diaries and unceasingly dull bibliography of Ayne Rand I hope does become lost...Also 50 Shades of Grey.

[@princessscotchtape8931]

Imagine if 50 Shades of Grey survived. "This weird theory says that there are 50 Shades of Grey, but they state no fact or evidence. Just text on bdsm."

[@GreenMonkeyToaster]

Imagine the same archaeologists coming over mentions of My Immortal but never the fic itself. And none of the periferal mentions are ever truly informative

[@noirtreize2713]

Honestly, with no context whatsoever the name "Twilight" can sound quiet poetic, LOL. The future archeologist: Hmm. that name could have multiple meaning. The time between the day and night, could it mean something in the middle? or is it the transitioning period toward another state of existence? Could this book contents be about the mortality of the living?

[@sidskrabanja4578]

As someone who studies ancient history at university I love this video. It really hits the nail on the head when it comes to the difficulties of studying many periodes in history. We often have only 1 or 2 sources for a certain period, and even then they aren't reliable. What I especially liked is how you included a quote from 2 of my professors at around 5.12, Willy Clarysse and Katelijn Vandorpe. They're both great people and I've especially enjoyed prof. Vandorpe's classes about papyrology and Roman epigraphy.

[@ElizabethJones-pv3sj]

And yet, there was a period when historians argued that we didn't need to do archaeological research on the 'Classical' world (i.e. ancient Greece and Rome) because we had written sources that told us all we needed to know.

[@jamesflowers1295]

My favorite thing is when a 'source' is a journal entry about a dream his cousin had

[@GBart]

Have you heard about the Vesuvius Challenge? They're trying to use machine learning to read text from 3D X-rays of burned scrolls from Herculaneum - it should more than double the total collection of Roman literature we have

[@Light_Lead-b3v]

Imagine if they werer all just copies of the Illiad😆

[@82jp]

​@@Light_Lead-b3vomg 😂

[@82jp]

I'm super excited about the results of deciphering those scrolls. They recently awarded a sizable prize to the person who decoded the first word: "purple."

[@merrittanimation7721]

And now they've gotten a method to reliably decode the texts! We have entire sentences now!

[@guerreiro943]

And now we discovered Plato's burial site! And a story about how he in his death bed had a slave girl play music for him, only for him to tell her the rhythm was all wrong lol

[@edwintovargarcia]

I literally just read Lost Libraries edited by James Raven. The essays that talk about the moments in history where books were destroyed is astonishing.

[@cjthebeesknees]

The behavior that lead to these actions is still prevalent today, controversial or political.

[@ambatuBUHSURK]

he missed Nalanda University in the indian subcontinent, one of the most oldest university/library storing thousands of books which was completely destroyed by the delhi sultanate.

[@ConWolfDoubleO7]

This sounded like a good book so I went to look around to get a copy and I could find nothing below 80$. How did you get your hands on a copy? The irony of a book on lost libraries being kinda 'lost' by the absurd price of it is fitting.

[@cjthebeesknees]

@@ConWolfDoubleO7 That’s an example of insufferable irony living this cruel experience we call humanity lmao. How many upper cuts must we take?

[@phantasmagore7991]

@@ConWolfDoubleO7 this is why sites like zlib are absolutely crucial these days imo

[@hedgeyhogs]

I’m so glad you’ve posted a new video! I love falling asleep to your videos…your voice is so soothing, the content is so well researched, and you’re clearly passionate about everything that you discuss.

[@TREYtheExplainer]

Aww thank so much for saying all that :') Comments like these make my day! I'm so happy to have fans that appreciate all my hard work and also enjoy/gain value from the content I produce. It makes everything feel worth something in the end

[@octopusspaghetti3955]

I agree, I also use them to fall asleep to for this exact reason!

[@LoLotov]

I've been catching up on your newer stuff, you had moved down my subscription list after a while, but I was reminded how much I like these videos when you were on with Preston last month!

[@MaryAnnNytowl]

Troy's content is in my playlist of things to go to sleep to, myself. I love to go to sleep to science and history (and science history!) videos, too!

[@Vario69]

Imagine your content is so good (NOT BORING) it literally puts ppl to sleep 😅

[@FlyFederalist]

The irony about Couoh is that by attempting to save the works, he almost certainly caused even more of them to be lost by storing them in a central location.

[@egrintarg230]

Next time do the same thing he did only have it be like a decoy depot with dummy books. And put the real books in some unmarked bunker. That way they don't destroy the real shit.

[@minyoungc_]

Maybe he did and we just didn’t find it

[@oz_jones]

​@@minyoungc_wouldnt that Be something?

[@mamasimmerplays4702]

Yeah the way to make a library is to send your scribes to make copies of everyone's books, not just take their books.

[@Okiwano]

As someone who does collaborative story-writing. I find this topic interesting because there's so many stories which are almost like book that I've participated in writing and fleshing out while knowing they'll probably never be shared beyond two or three people total.

[@MyPalJimbo]

Lost Astronomical Work by Aristarchus of Samos: 17:20 "On Nature" by Anaximander: 19:16 Ptolemy's History of Alexander by Ptolemy I Soter: 22:28 "The Tyrrhenica," and "The Etruscan Dictionary," "The Art of Playing Dice," all by Emperor Claudius: 23:35 "Indica" by Nearchus: 24:38 "Pytheas' Great Voyage" by Pytheas of Massalia: 25:29 "Babyloniaca" by Berossus: 27:22 "The Myrmidons" by Aeschylus: 28:00 "The Telegony" by Unknown Author: 28:20 "The History of Cardenio" by William Shakespeare and John Fletcher: 29:30 "The Book of Bai Ze" by The Yellow Emperor: 30:16 Elephantis' Sex Manual by Elephantis: 31:05

[@jaojao1768]

Thank you!

[@Alleriian]

I want ALL of these found one day

[@minephlip]

even today, countless works fall in to obscurity, especially books that were never a huge success to begin with. think of all the rejects from publishers, books on niche subjects, or books from authors that no one remembers anymore. Any old book in your late grandfathers basement could be a rare or unique one, and the world may never know. I'd argue that many lost books aren't lost because we don't have them, but lost because no one reads them.

[@Nugnugnug]

The Ancient Greeks writing homoerotic fanfiction about epic heroes is simultaneously shockingly modern and completely in-character for the Ancient Greeks.

[@worldcomicsreview354]

The original yaoi doujinshi

[@TheGuindo]

the ancient greeks had _heated_ scholarly debates about whether Achilles or Patroclus bottomed in the relationship. i wonder which side that work came down on?

[@prkp7248]

No, it would not be "completely in-character with Ancient Greece" homosexuality and homoeroticism between men was widely hated and thought as degenerate in Ancient Greece. Modern notion of some kind of wide homosexual acceptation or even tolerance in Ancient Greece is completely not true and ahistorical. Even worse, most of the examples where relations like that were tolerated were examples of exploitation of children by adults.

[@whathell6t]

@@worldcomicsreview354 However, the modern update of that is Masami Kurumada’s Knight of the Zodiac-Saint Seiya which was also responsible for the creation of CLAMP Production which was originally formed by yaoi/shonen-ai fangirls who wanted a space to share their Saint Seiya and Captain Tsubasa fanfics and “Rule 34” art.

[@papahairy5315]

@@TheGuindo Just because you read something on the internet, doesn't make it true. Homosexuality was mostly frowned upon in ancient Greece .

[@zerjiozerjio]

As a direct descendant of nahuatl speakers (same language as Aztecs), it makes me so sad to think of all the irreplaceable knowledge that was lost in Mesoamérica when the Spanish came to colonize. I carry the genes and have lost most of the culture of my ancestors. It’s an anthropological nightmare.

[@edwhite7078]

Have you considered writing things down

[@edwhite7078]

Seems you're focused on written history. That's kind of a European thing. Don't pretend that Christians wiped all your stuff out but couldn't wipe their own stuff out. There is plenty of surviving heretical texts from Europe where's yours. Maybe writing wasn't you thing. Then take care of the oral history... did you

[@Doomer_Optimist]

​@@edwhite7078 Mayans had writing.

[@edwhite7078]

@@Doomer_Optimistwhere are the books

[@Doomer_Optimist]

@@edwhite7078 most were destroyed by clergy, which is explicitly discussed in the video. the few remaining ones are in museums.

[@tcjdv]

There's no such thing as a bad Trey the Explainer video, but this is an especially great one. 💕

[@dictatorofcanada4238]

Very recent example: Ragtime composer Scott Joplin wrote an opera called “A Guest of Honor” about the time Theodore Roosevelt invited Booker T. Washington to dinner at the White House. The box office receipts were stolen and the score had been lost to time.

[@TryinaD]

Honestly it’s so sad people just know him for the standard ragtime stuff, really enjoyed Treemonisha and imagining an alternate timeline where we had more operas from Joplin

[@badbargainbryce222]

It feels almost silly to say, but it does fill me with genuine and strong feelings of sadness, imagine how much useful knowledge and advancement we missed out on. How many stories, fictional or real & personal, the culture & history of thousands of cultures and cities, something that generations of scribes poured over for hundreds of hours that might've been lost in less than a day. Losing works like these is truly a loss for all mankind.

[@katyungodly]

Even more infuriating is that a lot of lost knowledge is due to stupid reasons like bigotry, xenophobia/racial supremacism, and theological supremacism. "Me no understand thing! Thing bad!"

[@Dap1ssmonk]

Too be blunt, a lot of it was junk. When the library of Alexandria caught fire during Caesar’s occupation, what was lost was mostly commentaries on the odyssey and the Iliad. Much of modern writing is junk too, penny novels and whatnot. That doesn’t mean that their wasn’t nuggets of gold lost in the sea of shit, but it was mostly shit.

[@freyzerb.castro9124]

@@Dap1ssmonk yeah but even with that the Couoh case is sad, he was really desperate to save anything he could

[@babelKONI]

In my life I have experienced three dark nights of the soul. The first was when I saw a documentary that ended with a discussion of how the Earth could completely freeze over, destroying all traces of life. The second was when I learned of the Heat Death on Wikipedia. The third was when I learned of the destruction of pre-Columbian culture and literature, especially the cruel paucity of Mayan manuscripts surviving. If Columbus's ship had sank, I would not exist, and the world may be a less prosperous place. However, these past five hundred years would likely have witnessed the blossoming of Mesoamerican culture, perhaps even the transmission of Mayan hieroglyphs throughout Mexico via the Aztecs, perhaps contact with the distant North and South, perhaps the creation of a Bronze age equivalent that would spark the development of a third pillar of humanity. While I'm grateful to live in this society, we did bleach the world of so many possibilities of language, art, and thought.

[@charlieyes4946]

1:40 AY MAN I NEED THAT BOOK *slams wallet on table, causing an audible “money” sound as quarters and dimes fly everywhere*

[@m_martha_e]

🤝 I feel the same way

[@alexhurt7919]

An interesting thought on this. The ancient Greeks were known to memorize entire books from start to finish via once commonly used memory techniques that are now obscure. So it's not beyond the realm of possibility that a book would become "lost" and then someone who had it memorized would write it down again.

[@Luca-si5fy]

Memory was a quite big deal in oral cultures. A quite famous example would be the Indians and the Vedas, which have been preserved for a significant part of their history almost exclusively through memorization, for which various techniques still used today by Vedic scholars were invented. Buddhism was originally an oral tradition as well, and information was passed down through techniques common at the time such as group chanting. And those are just some examples from a specific area. Human memory is truly something amazing that has been unfortunately left aside for the most part in today's world, thanks to more reliable means to externally store information.

[@johnnyrings1813]

I don't believe that for a minute. I dont know what size "books" You're talkin, but if You're referring to something 100-400 pages being casually fully memorized start to finish permanently, no way no how. That's a superpower lol.

[@Luca-si5fy]

@@johnnyrings1813 Apart from the two examples I made (Hindu and Buddhist traditions) there are also the ones who memorize the Qur'an: The hafiz and the hafizas. While it may seem to be difficult to envision people memorizing hundreds of pages to the letter for we modern people who rely so much on writing, we are talking about memorization processes that often took years and were very, very rigorous. When you constantly repeat something enough over time it just gets struck into the long term memory. And mind you, a lot of those texts that were memorized were considered important and such memorization was associated with professions such as priests, bards and poets. Of course, human memory can fail, but that was something that was often dealt with: Cultures either developed crosschecking techniques such as group recitation or simply accepted change. Modifying an oral text (even voluntarily) was not necessarily seen as a bad thing, especially in artistic contexts.

[@johnnyrings1813]

@@Luca-si5fy there is not a single person that can verbatim learn these books. You're feeding into tall tales. And if they did, it took an INSANE amount of time, and they would VERY quickly forget it less they continually read whatever book. Thats my point. You made a comment like some lost method to superhumanly memorize books is out there; it isnt.

[@Luca-si5fy]

@@johnnyrings1813 There is nothing superhuman about what I said. And yes, they did often take YEARS to memorize. I'm not talking about some instantaneous and easy processes, but very methodical ones. I didn't say that human memory was infallible either: Which is why crosschecking methods such as group chanting were developed. And again, atleast depending on the nature of the text, they weren't so adverse to change either. Things being forgotten, purposefully modified and added etc was not seen as too much of a big deal in the vast majority of cases. Repetition and the use of formulas were something common in oral texts as well, which aided memorization. We are also talking about people that needed to know such texts for their profession, made a living out of them and used them pretty much daily. Two academic books that pop into my mind at the moment are "Education in Ancient India" by Hartmut Sharfe and "How to kill a dragon" by Calvert Watkins. The latter is a comparative study of Indo-European poetics, and while not focused on oral trasmission specifically its content is still related to it as it deals with things like formulas.

[@Decanta]

This video really struck me, the fragility of thousands of authors' hard work is heartbreaking. I can't imagine how thrilling it is every time something once considered lost is found by archeologists! I hope if there's one thing humans can do to preserve our existence in the universe, it's successfully archiving the sum of our knowledge and ideas and history for whatever might come along to read it and know we were here.

[@scraperindustry]

I can understand why The Iliad was popular. It's a damn good piece of writing and the Trojan Horse is so deeply ingrained in our shared history it transcends time and cultures.

[@ryanbraud2813]

Man fuck the Iliad I wanna read the Etruscan history book

[@FourOf92000]

the Trojan horse isn't in the _Iliad_

[@OVOFloyd]

the Trojan horse isn’t in the Iliad lmao, it is in the Aeneid however

[@Wormopera]

Shared history?

[@julius_the_python]

The Iliad and the Odyssey are what took me from failing classical Greek literature in high school, to teaching myself ancient Greek and schooling my teacher. I will forever be in debt to Homer.

[@AverytheCubanAmerican]

A fictional novel you might enjoy if you found this topic interesting is 'Cloud Cuckoo Land' by Anthony Doerr. It spans centuries and jumps between the perspectives of multiple people, from a girl and a boy living in 15th century Constantinople to a girl on an interstellar spaceship in the near future, all centered around a lost ancient Greek comedy. It's a beautiful book and quite funny too, and the themes of lost ancient texts and the power of stories to link us humans works its way throughout the entire novel. There's also a bit of gay romance and sci-fi horror sprinkled in just for fun. One big reason why a lot of these were lost (particularly the scientific works) especially situations like the Archimedes Palimpsest: is because during Antiquity and the early Medieval (ESPECIALLY early Medieval) times, there was a general approach to scientific works that went like: "oh, these formulas? Yeah, we know that, so we don't need the book anymore. Like, everyone knows how it works" (it's literally 10 people in the entire country, and 3 of them are about to die of some ludicrous disease that will literally never appear again once it spawns in a village in 2 weeks). This is what led to sudden technical inferiority in the medieval times: a lot of works of advanced concepts were preserved, but the Romans themselves didn't bother writing down the basics. So you had a situation akin to having an entire book on something like trigonometry, but not a word of what is necessary to actually know the basics to even do anything regarding trigonometry. The monks would say "welp, it can't be helped" and just overwrite it.

[@lulumoon6942]

Super suggestion, thank you.

[@nikkia9506]

I wonder how much was lost during The Dissolution of the Monasteries here in the UK. The paperwork and books weren't immediately valuable, so they were just tossed aside or burned. There were a few people going around rescuing what they could, like Robert Cotton. Cotton built up quite a personal library from his rescues, but even that was almost lost in a fire instead of becoming the foundation of The British Library. How much knowledge and history did the Dissolution destroy? Is it why we have the "Dark Ages", because any records there were were carelessly destroyed?

[@wolfen26]

Or how much was lost in the burning of the Library of Alexandria. What a tragedy.

[@RandomVidsforthought]

@@wolfen26 It's greatly exaggerated of the things lost in that library

[@muticere]

It’s easy to be complacent and think lost books are an old phenomenon but it’s sometimes surprising how easy it is now for a book to become scarce. If whomever has the publishing rights doesn’t see it as valuable, it can go out of print and become difficult to find. And digital books aren’t the perfect archival method we hope it will be. Digital media is often so format dependent, all it takes is for a format change and then if a work doesn’t get switched over, it could get lost. Not to mention should we experience any kind of societal collapse and the internet be inaccessible or unusable, all those digital books can disappear in an instant.

[@somethingwithbungalows]

Tbh I feel it’s very much in the possibility that we’ll all experience a huge internet crash in the coming years.. perhaps not now or the near future.. but someday..

[@monsterhunter445]

Yep video games anything really

[@birgbirg111]

@@somethingwithbungalows Honestly same, I was born at the start of the century and grew up with it, but I can't really rely on/get used to internet. The whole thing just looks so fragile and hard to sustain

[@weirdfish1216]

i like being curled up in bed by candle light watching this channel. makes me feel like i’m a medieval scholar who’s just stumbled upon a vast trove of knowledge and i’m spending my free time learning as much as i can to pass down and share with my friends. thank you trey for taking the time to research and summarize topics that i would otherwise have never seeked out

[@koolrocker12]

This became one of my favorite videos. I’ve never felt passionate about books as a medium. I read, a lot, I just never cared about the book, just the contents. I’ve been humbled today. This was a very interesting me topic that was navigated perfectly by Trey.

[@williamreely3455]

The idea of a world with no printing press, no digitization, and no copyright is absolutely mind blowing to me. Books would literally be worth their weight in precious materials.

[@skyjuiceification]

They actually are now, most just don't know it yet.

[@MuchWhittering]

​@@skyjuiceificationBooks as a concept are valuable. Individual books are not. They're disposable.

[@gs27777]

imagine if through some cataclysm the contents of the internet are lost and man is unable to re-industrialize

[@midshipman8654]

@@gs27777be pretty hard given how many backups there are. hell, I have all of wikipedia on a flashdrive.

[@MuchWhittering]

@accelerationquanta5816 Why? Copyright is why you can write something, and not have Disney make billions by ripping you off. Copyright protects little people a lot more than it protects companies.

[@OcelotsFilms]

honestly the Anaxiamander story is really fascinating to me with how much it seemingly posits theories about the origin and life history centuries before paleontology. And the fact that the descriptions of the contents of the book are only known about through offhand sources means that, unless we can actually find a copy of the original work, we'll probably never know if this guy was ahead of his time and used methods to discern this information that would not be used again for thousands of years, or simply made a lucky guess which only sounds similar to how we view life history today through the few snippets we have describing the original work.

[@thedoruk6324]

Trey has *finally* awaken from his long youtube hiatus slumber and returneth to us ! (jk jk I know he is more of a twitter dweller) Trey and CoryxKenshin are rather more infamous with their awesome content but very extended absance lol

[@sophiaisabelle027]

I've grown up reading books. The fact that there are some books that can never be read is mind-boggling to me. Maybe they contain graphic content or there could be secrets in there that are never meant to be passed on to the next generation.

[@futuramayeah]

i read a fiction book in elemantary school, Lizard Music , ? , i think that is the name, some kid fell asleep in front of his tv and woke up in the middle of the night and saw lizard (men?) playing musical instruments , i forget what happened in the rest of the book, but i remember that part, but i didn't know about the reptillians conspiracy theory until recently, where the theory is that there are lizard people secretly living in our planet and maybe in human society. i think in that book, the author was either trying to alert me and others about that, or they were just saying that the kid somehow picked up transmission from another dimension on his television late at night.

[@prismaticc_abyss]

The return of the king may also be a book, but it specifically describes this video quite well

[@nicosmind3]

This reminds me of that scene in Don Quixote when they decide to destroy his library, and I loved the line, "oh it's Italian, burn it!"

[@ayajade6683]

It's why I'm still furious at Marc Antony for burning Varro's library he not only made Latin grammar and pronunciation books in multiple languages, he made copies of every book he could, covered so many topics, etc. The estimate according to first and secondary sources site over 2,000 books lost including most of his own works. Including on how swamps & few other things cause illness for livestock/people with something we can't see with our own eyes . He's cited by so many authors I'm just upset about the lost knowledge especially the Latin pronunciation guides as we got stuck hoping the Germans translated it correctly rule wise on some elements.

[@alanpennie8013]

He invented the extremely useful AUC system of dating history from the foundation of Rome, the precursor of our own AD/CE system.

[@Echo32x]

I’m mad at Marc also he was mean to J-Lo and why they got divorce

[@cherie..cherry]

@@Echo32x 😂💀

[@LaRana2315]

I'm very sleepy and reading this at 3 am and I had to do a double take because I thought you meant Marc Anthony, the Salsa singer, burnt down a historical library, and became VERY angry and confused for a split second.

[@Echo32x]

@@LaRana2315 he did burn it down, he did it with a night of furious dancing…..

[@berserkasaurusrex4233]

There was a whole forum full of zombie stories written by the forum members, some of them quite good and as long as full novels, that I posted on back in the late 90's. That forum was just gone one day, along with all the stories. I've never seen them reposted anywhere. One of the best of the stories was startlingly similar to the plot of the Telltale Games' first "The Walking Dead" game, but obviously predated it (and The Walking Dead, for that matter) by well over a decade.

[@jorgeskuf]

you should bring this up to a lost media KZbinr

[@aiaioioi]

does the wayback machine or the internet archive help? (if you remember the URLs or have them saved anywhere of course)

[@berserkasaurusrex4233]

@@aiaioioi This was a quarter century ago, I don't even remember the name of the forum and typically forum posts aren't archived by wayback machine anyway since the spider can't see the posts. You'd have had to be logged in to see anything. I don't know if I even still have the computer that would have the links, or if I threw it away a decade ago.

[@zigzagintrusion]

That’s so sad! If you ever remember the forum name, there are tons of people who’d love to help you find some of the stories.

[@luizaemily5577]

This reminds me of Ursula, the first abolicionist novel written in brazil, the first novel written by a woman, for decades it was lost and completely unknown until somebody found a copy in a second hand bookstore

[@worldcomicsreview354]

A similar thing happened in Malaysia with a small 4-volume comic called Chop Suey, which documented Japanese war crimes. It came out in 1947 but was soon forgotten, until much more recently when it was rediscovered and reprinted. Actually I think all original copies of volume 4 are still lost, but somebody had a photocopy.

[@warlordofbritannia]

@@worldcomicsreview354 I shouldn’t giggle at Japanese war crimes, but titling your book documenting them “Chop Suey” is one helluva euphemism 🤣

[@superieur11407]

@@warlordofbritannia Can you explain the euphemism?

[@EVO6-]

There's also the lost poem of the Norse god Heimdallr that Snorri Sturluson references and quotes a single line of. 'I am the son of nine mothers, I am the son of nine sisters'. It raises more questions than it answers really, although it may be the same 9 female figures possibly alluded to in the second stanza of Völuspá. Heimdallr overall is really a figure surrounded in unknowns.

[@lagoth3294]

What’s even stranger is that there isn’t a single place named after Heimdallr in Scandinavia before Christianisation which makes no sense when you consider how important he is supposed to be in the pantheon. So many questions we will never know the answers to ☹️

[@ParticularlySalty]

Interesting point about the Archimedes Palimpsest- if the monks hadn’t erased and written over it, it would have been permanently lost. The monks are singlehandedly the reason it is found media.

[@cathe8282]

Omg, I have always mourned the loss of the Alexandrian library but now I can't stop thinking of Couoh's. What a loss!! This video definitely needed the more positive upswing of the last section. Great content!

[@niyandrey]

The Alexandrian library fire is a myth, look it up.

[@ShortalayPlays]

Multiple comics I wrote and drew chronicling the adventures of my dog Spike, a male Chihuahua who could chew through any material and fly were all placed in my Father’s casket by me. Now that I am older I wish I at least photocopied them so I could remember some of the stories better. Was inspired by Captain Underpants to make comics myself, was in third grade I think when I wrote them.

[@thugpug4392]

Someone call Nicholas Cage, I'm going to steal the Adventures of Spike.

[@ShortalayPlays]

@@thugpug4392 💀

[@Alleriian]

I drew one comic inspired by captain underpants and dogman, it was called, “catman” (I know, how original) Somehow it actually and somehow got recognized at my school’s talent show and after that I made multiple copies and distributed the comic to my friends However, a year later, the master copy and other copies were neglected by younger me as I grew to think they were, “dumb and cringe” (since I was getting older) As of writing this, I am almost certain the master copy is hiding in a box in my attic, but it has yet to be discovered I am very sorry to hear about the loss of your comics, I too have lost many 😢

[@ShortalayPlays]

@@Alleriian Beyond the ones I wrote and illustrated I also lost some Ghost Rider comics, including a first edition one where one of the Riders conquered hell and started sitting the throne, it was thick, almost three normal comic’s worth, when I became homeless during High School.

[@Alleriian]

@@ShortalayPlays I am very sorry to hear about that must've been awful, hopefully, the comics can be exhumed or recovered one day edit: your comment inspired me to catalog my lost works, if you wish to speak further do not hesitate to reach out :) Crysis#1827

[@PhilUP]

Here's what you're gonna do. You're gonna lay low for a while and not post a video for over 7 months. You’ll post a couple memes on your Twitter each day, maybe a thirst trap with your face obscured. Then, one day you’ll post a new video out of the blue without an explanation. Welcome back Trey.

[@wetube6513]

He has a life to live.

[@AP-uc7oz]

@@wetube6513 they weren’t seriously criticizing him.

[@PhilUP]

@@wetube6513 It was a twitter post Trey made…

[@Vlow52]

I really like that idea of one of a kind books that could never be recovered, in the age of overwhelming cheap information it feels like a must have feature.

[@redere4777]

Absolutely great video. One such event of book destruction that always saddens me was the dissolution of the monasteries during the Protestant Reformation. Thanks to Henry VIII's inability to keep it in his pants, nearly 1,000 English monasteries and their libraries were lost. One such case was the Worcester Priory, known to have housed around 600 books with only 6 surviving to the modern day. Our only surviving copy of Beowulf came from one of those dismantled monasteries and even it only barely managed to escape a fire. It's infuriating to read quotes from the time describing how those rare manuscripts were mistreated, from being used as matches to wiping rears.

[@EresirThe1st]

Very saddening. But at the same time England becoming the first Protestant country was necessary for breaking the power of the the Catholic church

[@hockseng5245]

protestants have wrought nothing but terror and pain to the world. If I ever get a time machine I got a date with Martin Luther and Henry VIII

[@vorynrosethorn903]

Despite being protestant myself I must point out that most modern protestant churches are hardly Christian and that protestant theology can be directly linked to the enlightenment and thus the destruction of the dominance of Christian moral and religious dominance and the rise of irreligious ideologies, notably Rousseauianism (as it is now the dominance foundational philosophy in most western countries), the personal interpretation of the gospels has only led to the proliferation of heresies and the declarification of common understandings, as it has undermined the idea of correct or singular interpretations and encouraged the nonsense that any interpretation is equally valid, which itself has even further negative effects. The Catholics are now being attacked within their own institutional structures (the same way many protestant churches were compromised) and the orthodox have long been the minions of local state and ideological interest, so a simple backtracking is not an option but we must know where we went wrong and how in order to know in what way to go forwards.

[@andreascovano7742]

@@EresirThe1st What power?

[@EresirThe1st]

@@andreascovano7742 The power that had dominated Europe for centuries. Duh.

[@GeorgeTheDinoGuy]

The fact they have been lost makes them far more intriguing then the ones that have survived. We must appreciate the rare records we have and live in hope that it has somehow survived.

[@nicholkola9975]

I inherited an odd book, it’s called ‘an evening with poets’ and it’s dated from ~1870. It did have Shakespeare and other known authors but some writers I don’t recognized. I wonder how to get it looked at?

[@DM-mi4je]

If your convinced it's both antique and rare maybe talk to a local college or university?

[@thathistoryiscoolguy]

Id suggest you go to a university/college and see what they have to say perhaps?

[@rangetpc]

Send it to me . I have a PO box & have a team of merchants that cross the 7 seas who are very knowledgeable about books and will be able to tell you everything they know about the book ! No problem at all for me , also send $500 I will have to bribe the king to let me out of my cell , they've imprisoned me for fraud and scheming ! Falsely though! Many haters when you're the best of the best in studying the rarest of books! I have not been convicted either . And won't be because of my innocents ! Trust and honor will set me free , as well as your payment of $500 that I will return to you 10 folds !! I have mounts of treasure on every continent. Please return a reply quickly because I am nearing my date for beheading !! Thank you fellow servant of God, I know I can count on you!

[@PolyesterMoustache]

I used to fantasize about becoming a teacher when I was young, eventually giving up that dream late into highschool when it dawned on me just how much thankless work goes into the job. Your videos always rekindle that old fantasy as I like to imagine showing them to a highschool class. You always do an such a great job presenting topics that normally would be considered dull by students in such a fascinating and engaging way without sacrificing accuracy for entertainment. In particular this video and the Onfim one I feel like would do an amazing job piqueing an interest in history in a room full of teens

[@EnchiridionYT]

We can only dream of what is lost in our past! Interesting examination of something often considered dry and dull for many, to unlock the mysteries of all! Great video Trey, we appreciate your passion! :-)

[@coconutproductions5056]

OH SHIT I LOVE YOU GUYS

[@arthas640]

Yeah. Its always amazing to see the changes that happen when we find a new perspective on an event, or when and older version of a famous work gets found. The Dead Sea Scrolls had quite a few changes to the Bible and thats one of the worlds most famous, widely studied, and heavily produced books in human history. Imagine if we found the first copy of the Odyssey or if we found a book from the Library of Alexandria

[@Wyrm3]

The art at 1:46 got me questioning my loyalty to Spain.

[@zakattack8624]

As a Librarian and graduate student in history (classical antiquity and early middle ages), thiis was a pleasure and a bittersweet video.

[@charlesjmouse]

Very good, and very sad. If I had to choose one work to miraculously rediscover (among so many lost wonders, most of which we don't know about) would be Claudius' works on the Etruscans. The great thing about a physical book is there is no barrier to deciphering it. Convenient though it is our digital world could be wholly lost in a moment.

[@romanmeneghinister1584]

Damn, this is a brutal video, I think one of the most painful cases for me that was described is the destruction of European pagan and Indigenous American texts by Christian movements. The effort to wipe put these ideas, stories, and cultures always leaves me with an immense feeling of loss and emptiness. The loss of works by chance hurts, but something about how successful attempts to censor or destroy cultures just leaves me with so much sadness.

[@krankarvolund7771]

In the same way, although everyone puts the balem of the loss of Alexandria's library on Iulius Caesar and the fire his army put in Alexandria at the time, but it was probably just books that were in the port, to be exported, and they were replaced not long after. The Great Library probably disappeared due to a lack of care, as Alexandria was in decline under the Roman Empire, and in 391, Theodosius ordered the destruction of all pagans temples and books, so that's probably when the Library was definitely destroyed ^^'

[@marvelfannumber1]

@@krankarvolund7771 Actually, the library was already long gone by 391. The Museion (which the library was a part of) is not mentioned anymore after the 3rd Century A.D by any surviving sources. During the proceeding century Alexandria would undergo a long series of disasters, which all may have contributed to the gradual decline of the library. The Museion did have a sister library though, in the Serapeion on the other end of the city. This did exist a bit longer, as it is mentioned until the early 4th Century. However it was already gone before Theodosius' anti-pagan edicts, as Ammianus Marcellinus provides a description of the Serapeion before it was destroyed (391) where he refers to its libraries in the past tense, implying they were no longer there when he saw the temple. This is a pretty great example of how, while there are many sad stories of intentional destruction, most books and libraries simply disappear from neglect, lack of maintenance or lack of interest.

[@krankarvolund7771]

@@marvelfannumber1 Neglect, and the different civil wars in the region XD

[@worldcomicsreview354]

Socialism has succeeded on a small scale twice, the only thing that fails 100% of the time is censorship.

[@Crowborn]

University librarian here. I spend as much time as I can on archival projects, from the Internet Archive backing up books to Flashpoint archiving flash games. Preservation & Conservation is one of my favourite themes, really glad to see you making this video!

[@wtfvids3472]

the internet archive isnt trustable. i used to find some books there i can no longer find. they also have removed sites from their archive(politically incorrect).

[@Crowborn]

@@wtfvids3472 lmao

[@wtfvids3472]

@@Crowborn whats so funny?

[@My_Old_YT_Account]

@@wtfvids3472 probably copyright claims for both

[@wtfvids3472]

@@My_Old_YT_Account No

[@merrittanimation7721]

It's pretty amazing how much the printing press changed things. Not only did it allow books to be more available and less likely to be lost, it also incentivized literacy to skyrocket. Because you didn't have to not only be a rich person who could commission the time consuming creation of a book, but also be a rich person who knew someone or somewhere that had a copy. So now it's a lot more practical to be literate than not.

[@krankarvolund7771]

Yeah, but it also had made each book less precious and less durable, there will probably a lot of books lost in the future, because our paper is more thin and fragile than the ancients materials ^^'

[@merrittanimation7721]

@@krankarvolund7771 True (to some extent, material varied depending on where you're talking about) but the widespread creation of books make it less likely for them to be lost in the ways ancient papyri and parchment books were lost. Though of course that depends on what the context of what leads us to lose those books in the first place is.

[@krankarvolund7771]

@@merrittanimation7721 I could say wait and see, but of course in 1000 years we will not see it XD

[@Dill72Yee]

An entire video about lost books without even a mention of The Great Library of Alexandria is a really cool take.

[@renatlottiepilled]

One of my "favorite" lost works is the one a Greek companion to Hannibal wrote of his campaign, also in general Carthaginian literature and the voyages of some of their explorers would've been a treat if they had survived

[@DieNextInLINE]

The loss of Carthaginian history is one of the most upsetting things to me. I absolutely love Roman history, especially the periods of the Punic Wars and it's beyond disappointing that we really only have the extremely biased Roman records of the Carthaginians. I'm not even sure we have surviving examples of their language.

[@MohamedRamadan-qi4hl]

@@DieNextInLINE it was 3 version of pohiechen

[@menir3068]

@@DieNextInLINE Well the Carthaginians really did sacrifice children so not all biased.

[@MonlopoMAN]

Cato got his wish

[@renatlottiepilled]

@@DieNextInLINE there are more than a few examples of bilingual inscriptions of Carthaginian language around, nothing more than that sadly

[@guerrero1605]

Finally finally new content! Always worth the wait! Your dedication and passion for the topics u discuss always shines through

[@afatpossum2586]

A new TREY upload is like the KZbin equivalent of a good plate of food at a high end restaurant. You don’t get it often, but when you do it’s pretty much always incredible.

[@williamwood7338]

Fabulous, it makes me weep to think of the lost writings of authors. Most especially those that were lost due to purposeful destruction. 😭

[@Claudia-tm9dr]

I'm an avid reader and I really appreciate this deep dive into lost literature. It's truly sad and makes you wonder just how many texts have been lost over the course of history. Amazing video :).

[@JackieFroSTALKER]

As someone who cares a lot about lost media from just the last century, this is hitting me deeply. So much knowledge and human expression lost to time, it's awful!

[@firstlast201]

This is genuinely the most interesting video I've seen on the whole of KZbin (and the Internet in general). I had no idea that books were distributed in such a way. I always assumed they were purchased from merchants or something. Great video.

[@trollfacemafiagaming6036]

I mean they were sold aswell

[@kevinlobos5519]

Coming back to re watch some of your videos and the new videos you have made. I'm so happy to see the quality of them has not only been mantained, but also Improved. Very interesting and sometimes touching subjects, as always. I love this channel.

[@captainstrangiato961]

This is truly one of the saddest things that I feel, that many authors I find of Ancient Greece that I want to learn more about are mostly fragmentary and their books gone for good. One philosopher, Timon of Phlius, wrote many plays and novels. His fragments are elegant and beautiful, but everything, even his famous *Silloi* is lost to time. A truly tragic thing.

[@josemigueljaimesprada3723]

Even though every piece of knowledge is finite and we gotta live with the sorrow of vast knowledge lost forever, I can't help but lament decadence. Loss of past works is really painful.

[@abananaonthestreet6259]

We've been waiting this for a long time, and it's finally here, thank you trey

[@Le_Mer]

I already love this channel but that Takanaka reference at the end REALLY got my heart

[@alakazor3097]

God has gifted us with more content.

[@Akrafena]

Deus vult

[@christophersnedeker2065]

Treys good but he's not that good let's not exaggerate. But yes God made Trey.

[@antonholm114]

It's a beautiful day to stay inside 🎶

[@jjeshop]

God is imaginary, this dude made the video.

[@SeanNH94]

Praise Allah 🙌

[@st.anselmsfire3547]

I remember hearing about Anaximander's theory of evolution in college and lamenting that it had been lost, and all we got was these cliffs notes. Empedocles referenced something that sounded like Natural Selection. It made me wonder what the roots were. It's also tragic that we're missing the vast majority of the works of Aristotle.

[@alice_atari]

This is a great talk, and truly helps show the fragility of even written knowledge. I do feel you kinda glossed the pre-literary and extra-literary methods of transmission, which many ancient texts originated from and were passed down through much of history as. The Vedas are an extreme example, where a special class of people learned Sanskrit (which died out as a spoken language otherwise), and then painstakingly memorized the Vedas to pass them down. Works like Beowulf and the works of Homer most likely had a deep cultural background in pre-literary history before being written down. Similarly, the Manyoshu in Japan was made up partly of material from before writing became a thing there, and was compiled by the government bureau that more of less consisted of the people in charge of memorizing and passing down stuff like that. Not only are there the books you can’t read, there are the books never written down.

[@worldcomicsreview354]

Manas is an epic poem in Krgyzstan which, to this day, has specialists who make a life's work of memorising and reciting it.

[@hippomancy]

one of my favourite individuals from history was Poggio Bracciolini- the academic researcher for Cosimo de Medici. Cosimo essentially sparked the Renaissance and Poggio was his primary tool for the rediscovery of antique writings. plus he had a storied disposition... thought he might be in your rediscovery segment, but I realize the renaissance is it's own category...