Ancient Public Library Discovered In Germany (theguardian.com) 129
Archaeologists have discovered the remains of the oldest public library in Cologne, Germany, "a building erected almost two millennia ago that may have housed up to 20,000 scrolls," reports The Guardian. From the report: The walls were first uncovered in 2017, during an excavation on the grounds of a Protestant church in the centre of the city. Archaeologists knew they were of Roman origins, with Cologne being one of Germany's oldest cities, founded by the Romans in 50 AD under the name Colonia. But the discovery of niches in the walls, measuring approximately 80cm by 50cm, was, initially, mystifying.
"It took us some time to match up the parallels -- we could see the niches were too small to bear statues inside. But what they are are kind of cupboards for the scrolls," said Dr Dirk Schmitz from the Roman-Germanic Museum of Cologne. "They are very particular to libraries -- you can see the same ones in the library at Ephesus." It is not clear how many scrolls the library would have held, but it would have been "quite huge -- maybe 20,000," said Schmitz.
"It took us some time to match up the parallels -- we could see the niches were too small to bear statues inside. But what they are are kind of cupboards for the scrolls," said Dr Dirk Schmitz from the Roman-Germanic Museum of Cologne. "They are very particular to libraries -- you can see the same ones in the library at Ephesus." It is not clear how many scrolls the library would have held, but it would have been "quite huge -- maybe 20,000," said Schmitz.
Unluckily, the scrolls are long gone... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re: Unluckily, the scrolls are long gone... (Score:2)
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Re:Unluckily, the scrolls are long gone... (Score:5, Informative)
Theres so much ancient knowledge and history that we will never know about because the only copies were destroyed in the burning of Alexandria, the burning of books by the first Chinese emeror, the burning of Rome, the destruction of the Aztec civilization by the conquistadors and countless other deliberate destructions of ancient libraries. The absence of copyright might not have saved them but copyright certainly wouldve hindered there being more copies of the works contained in these libraries.
Back then there was no copyright - the problems were a) it was a lot of work copying a scroll, let alone thousands. and b) there weren't enough scrolls to write on anyway, so they had to wiped and overwrite used ones (palimpsest). Even moving type printing wasn't really enough, only after ways to mass produce cheap paper were invented, people realised that somebody else could just print the same book as you did at the same cost - but without the cost of creating/acquiring the content. That's when Copyright came into play.
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Your premise makes no sense. There were no copyright laws because there was virtually no copying.
Roll back the clock to the 1700's and eliminate the idea of copyrights (might as well through patents in there too). Now, how much of our 'culture' that you are so worried about 'making it through' would even exist?
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Interesting question.
Probably biologists and playwrights and anyone else professionally producing text back in the 18th century would have had to waste sufficient time battling plagiarism to cause a serious motivation/productivity hit on an individual level.
Due to slow data transport back then, freely copying without repercussion would have caused more friction within the town of the original work, but allowed easier dissemination across the lands.
Although leaning toward it, I'm not fully sold on the idea t
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Defenestration should be reserved for the wealthy. They have everything else.
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"if ever theres a armageddon, " .... it'll already be far too late to copy/preserve anything.
Sorry. Do your copying NOW, so that you have several copies of what might be handy.
Re:Unluckily, the scrolls are long gone... (Score:5, Insightful)
Ancient civilizations were smarter, everything was in the Public Domain.
I don't know how they are sure that this was a public library, but even if it was you can be pretty sure that it was not open to any member of the public.
Re:Unluckily, the scrolls are long gone... (Score:5, Informative)
It's a bit ironic that you claim there was no copyright in a discussion including Alexandria... Home of the first copyright law. It gave them the right to copy any book coming through their port. They kept the originals and returned the copies. Sadly, copyright law took a very different turn later.
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It's a bit ironic that you claim there was no copyright in a discussion including Alexandria... Home of the first copyright law. It gave them the right to copy any book coming through their port. They kept the originals and returned the copies.
It's a bit ironic you defend the equivalent of a LEO demanding your phone, fully unlocked, and giving you an old Nokia as a replacement.
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"It's a bit ironic you defend the equivalent of a LEO demanding your phone, fully unlocked, and giving you an old Nokia as a replacement."
We're not talking about ships' logs here. This was about making the material available to others. And IMO you should have to provide a copy of your work to the LoC or local equivalent to receive more than five years of copyright protection, with a maximum term of twenty-five.
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"It's a bit ironic you defend the equivalent of a LEO demanding your phone, fully unlocked, and giving you an old Nokia as a replacement."
We're not talking about ships' logs here.
And now you pretend that the data on your phone are just like a ships log, and it does't matter if it gets send to a library where random people can read it. Yeah, go ahead.
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Yes, it is always sad when a 'right' is taken away from the government and given to the people.
That's not what happened, though. What actually happened was that modern copyright law takes away from the people and gives to corporations.
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No, it does not. If you create something, you own the copyright (unless you did it as a work for hire). Any 'corporate' involvment is strictly as a result of an agreement between the creator and the corportation, not copyright law.
Copyright (in the US) has always been about the rights of the creator, not the rights of the public. The public benefits by having the works created.
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No, it does not. If you create something, you own the copyright (unless you did it as a work for hire). Any 'corporate' involvment is strictly as a result of an agreement between the creator and the corportation, not copyright law.
That is a lot of horse shit. The original terms of copyright were reasonably equitable; in exchange for limited copyright protection, the material would pass into the public domain and belong to all of us. But corporations lobbied for copyright extensions time and again, and now copyright has no benefit for The People. Because...
The public benefits by having the works created.
Works will be created with or without copyright. And without copyright, they would belong to all of us. Granted, not all of the same works would be created, but different works woul
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It's not completely one-sided. I, as an individual and indie author and game publisher, have also benefited from copyright laws. It keeps other people and corporations from being able to sell my stuff as their own, gives people a bit more incentive to pay me for my work, and because of those payments, gives me some more incentive to keep creating.
That said, corporations probably benefit in more ways and certainly by more dollars than I do, and the current ridiculously long durations are to the detriment of
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Copyright gives anyone and everyone (ie 'the people') who creates a work the exclusive rights to control that work. Prior to modern copyright law, no such right existed.
Copyright does not say who may make copies, it says the creator gets to decide that.
Re: Unluckily, the scrolls are long gone... (Score:1)
Re:Unluckily, the scrolls are long gone... (Score:5, Informative)
Theres so much ancient knowledge and history that we will never know about because the only copies were destroyed in .... the destruction of the Aztec civilization by the conquistadors ...
Actually, around 1430, prior to the invasion of the conquistadors, the Mexica (Aztec) king Itzcóatl solidified his cultural rule over the people by having the existing historical texts burned (León-Portilla, Aztec Thought and Culture, 155). Because of this, Mexica history can be rather vague--even aside from the obvious difficulties of translating pictures into language without the original context. The conquistadors destroyed texts too, but what we do know about the Mexica (or more broadly, the Nahua, the peoples who spoke Nahuatl) is largely thanks to certain friars who sought to record as much as they could. Still, the Aztec civilization was not all that old, and much of the history of Mexico is hidden behind it.
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Well that's not a very popular narrative these days! White people and religion are bad, mm'kay?
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... probably had to be taken away due to copyright claims of some imperial Roman mega-corporations.
Yeah . . . "In intellectualis proprietas legis veritas" . . . now I need John Cleese to correct that for me.
But for a lot of folks today, it's "In Facebookus veritas".
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Guttenberg project is not an ancient Roman mega- corp thing but is still blocked in Germany by Google due to German court order.
Weak evidence for being public (Score:5, Insightful)
Ancient libraries were very often (nearly always?) private. They would either serve a particular institution, such as a government body, or some were only open to members who paid the high membership fees (compare a country club). For example, the vast majority of the holdings of Library of Congress aren't available of the public.
The article indicates they think it was a public library because it was located near the center of town, next.to a church, and there were public buildings nearby. Again, the Library of Congress is at the center of Washington, near public buildings, across the street from the capitol, the Supreme Court building, and a church. It's not a public library.
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Ancient libraries were very often (nearly always?) private. They would either serve a particular institution, such as a government body, or some were only open to members who paid the high membership fees (compare a country club).
Gee, even way back when, those in power knew that they needed to control access to information to keep the masses under their yolks.
"Scientia sit potentia", indeed.
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Yokes. Unless there's a yolk/yoke joke I am missing?
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Yokes. Unless there's a yolk/yoke joke I am missing?
The yolk's and the yoke's on me . . .
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Especially if they couldnâ(TM)t.read anyway.
And why would one who could not read go into a library?
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Especially if they couldnâ(TM)t.read anyway. And why would one who could not read go into a library?
For the dirty pictures. Dirty because of the unwashed hands.
Re: Weak evidence for being public (Score:1)
Re:Weak evidence for being public (Score:5, Insightful)
Books and scrolls were seriously costly back then, you wouldn’t want just anyone to walz in and start pawing them. Especially if they couldn’t.read anyway.
That is exactly what happened in Ancient Roman baths and public libraries. And the literacy rate in the Empire was about 10% overall, but likely would have been higher in the cities where people are engaged in commerce and government. Given that the population of the city of Rome at the time we're talking was 1.5 million, there would surely be hundreds of thousands of potential patrons for a public library in Rome itself.
Now ancient Cologne had about 20,000 inhabitants; if 10% of them could read that'd be 2000 potential patrons. However since the function of the city was to administer the Roman province of Germania Inferior ("Lower Germany"), I'd guess the literacy rate would be higher, accounting for a population of bureaucrats, administrators and military officers.
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Pretty much the only book people would see in The West during the dark ages, was the bible. And it was almost always in a Priest's hands, because you needed an education to actually, truly understand the bible. Otherwise, you might read it, and have a different opinion than those that were 'in the know'.
Chaos!
Of course, few could read back then anyhow.. so...
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Re:Weak evidence for being public (Score:5, Interesting)
There was even a time, when owning a bible was forbidden...
Proof? It's easy to repeat these claims, but actual history is far more complex. I don't know of any law ever actually being against owning a Bible. Moreover, Catharism was not persecuted for its use of the Bible, but rather for its attitude against the Bible; like Marcion and the Manichees before, they saw the Godof the Old Testament as evil. Thus the movement had very little to do with the Bible, and was fueled more by other ascetic, philosophical, and mystical influences.
Owning a Bible was not illegal, but it was nearly impossible for the poor and uneducated masses prior to the printing press. Nobles may own Bibles. In many cases, however, even the book read at Mass was not a whole Bible, but merely a lectionary, which contained the readings of the days but not the entire content of the Bible. This allowed for better mass production.
It's very easy to ascribe sinister motives to everything, but the people of the middle ages were pretty much the same as us, and economic explanations are often enough to understand the situation. Reading the Bible was not prohibited, but it was assumed that the Bible had to be read according to Church tradition, and so people also read it alongside commentaries and under guidance. Nobles may be privileged to own books--and not just the Bible, but other books as well--but the average peasant simply did not have the money. The price of books was high because of a lack of supply to meet demand. Books were hand-copied word by word.
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The main obstacle in reading the bible was that it was either written in greek or in latin ... ... (And the King James translation is probably the worst)
It took more than a thousand years that english and german and later french or italian or spanish translations existed
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Yes, those would have been impediments to people in western Europe, although the Latin Bible existed precisely to make it easier for people in the western Roman empire (where some form of Latin was either the main language , or a language which educated people knew) to read. There were other translations elsewhere; early on, it was translated into Syriac (indeed, so early that some claimed at least the Gospels had been written in Syriac, then translated into Greek). Other early translations included Ge'ez
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BTW, why do you consider the KJV the worst of the early European translations?
Because the few parts I had to read are just gibberish, trying to make the original text somewhat more "mystic" perhaps.
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1229: Pope Gregor IX on the Council of Toulouse (Concil Tolosanum):
Prohibemus etiam, ne libros veteris testamenti aut novi laici permittantur habere; nisi forte psalterium vel breviarium pro divinis officiis aut horas beatae Mariae aliquis ex devotione habere velit.
(We also prohibit the laity to have the books of the Old Testament or the New, except, perhaps, the psalter or a breviary, for divine service or the hours of the Holy Mary, or if a person wishes to have them out of devotion.)
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Illegal to translate...
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But the Cathars (a gnostic splinter group of christianity) did not forbid the bible. ... hunted them and killed them.
The catholics forbid the Cathars
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The dark ages came about seven hundred years after this thing was built.
Re:Weak evidence for being public (Score:5, Interesting)
If you weren't a priest then, the only books you'd see were the account books of your business. Yes, businesses kept account ledgers then. Some of the oldest writings we've found have been invoices...
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But the contents of ancient Roman public libraries were controlled.
In 8CE, Augustus exiled the poet Ovid, and had his book Ars Amatoria [wikipedia.org] removed from the public libraries, although numerous copies remained in private hands.
Now the modern myth is that Ovid was exiled because Ars was scandalously pornographic, but I think that's a projection of a modern priggishness onto the Ancient Romans. I think the emporer wanted Ovid and the crowd Ovid was mixed with out of the public mind.
Romans could be priggish, but
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Since the scrolls seem to be missing, I hope it is not public. 20000 years of overdue fees would be like a lot of money.
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20000 years of overdue fees would be like a lot of money.
Only 2000 years actually, and some libraries waive fees for old age pensioners which the borrowers certainly will be by now.
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I'm not sure the layout of a city 1600 years later and in another continent is *all* that relevant.
In the eternal dilemma of whether to believe 'article on internet' and 'commenter on article on internet' I shall have to put my faith in the former.
Dr Dirk Schmitz from the Roman-Germanic Museum of Cologne may have no idea what he's talking about, but if that's the case he's done well to blag the job.
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Re:Weak evidence for being public (Score:5, Informative)
There were definitely libraries in ancient Rome intended to serve the masses, although they mostly date from slightly later than this (e.g. the Library of Celsus [google.com], built in 139 CE in what is now Turkey).
One of the perqs of being a politician in Ancient Rome is that it afforded you a chance to amass a private fortune. But since you had to be rich to play that game to begin with, what did you spend that new money on? Buying popularity.
The ultimate examples of that were what we misleadingly call Roman "baths", which by the imperial era had become a combination bath, gym, beauty salon, mall, theater, restaurant, art gallery, and library. Basically they were crammed with every entertaining thing the politician could imagine. Now, granted, wealthy Romans had baths in their home and slaves to feed and groom them, but Romans were a sociable lot; it wasn't enough to be rich, you had to be seen being rich, and generous too.
Of course baths were so expensive in their engineering only the very richest politicians could afford to donate them to the public, which is why the great era of Roman bath-building was the imperial era. But earlier on politicians donated less grand (by Roman standards -- plenty grand by any other) public works, including public libraries. Gaius Asinius Pollio, patron of the poet Virgil and an accomplished writer himself, donated the first public library in Rome with money he looted from Iran. That was built around 39 BC.
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Ancient libraries were very often (nearly always?) private. ... The article indicates they think it was a public library because it was located near the center of town ..
It is ridiculous to think it was a public library in the modern sense. Are "they" really archaeologists or just the builders who found the place? Very few people would have been allowed to handle these scrolls.
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Sorry, but you are an idiot.
Especially during roman times society was more or less on the same level we are right now.
They had no computers ... and no diesel engines. And thats it. Laws, society, public interaction was more or less the same as now.
No idea what you kids learn in school ...
Heck, the 'code Napolion' or even modern German law, is 90% a word by word translation of old roman law.
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Maybe they found some homeless people sleeping on the benches.
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Depends what you call ancient and which region you refer to.
Both "middle east" and Asia had plenty of public libraries since 4000 BC ...
The most famous one probably was the library of Alexandria.
Alternative explanation (Score:3)
Unless the statues were really small too.
Pshaw! So -called "experts".
Re: Alternative explanation (Score:2)
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It's analogous to this situation. Suppose you walked into a three story house that was completely empty of furniture. Would you know that it house and not, say, an office building? The same kind of knowledge applies here. If it is built like things we know from historical records were Roman libraries, and it's Roman, it was almost certainly a library.
Now is it possible this was built by a rich eccentric to house his miniature legionnaire action figures? Sure. And it's possible that building is an office
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Seized due to copyright claims from Disney.
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Right, that's why monasteries were known to be places where monks working as scribes duplicated scrolls and books.
Re:So, what of the scrolls? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:So, what of the scrolls? (Score:5, Informative)
Early Christians did intentionally destroy Pagan writings, including Greek and Roman science, and even went so far as to rape and murder the academic Hypatia for the sake of their internal gossip. They created only limited religious writing. All science from the Greeks and Romans was preserved exclusively by the Arab civilization. I say this as a Catholic, so don't imagine some offense. It is just that history and reality are different than you know.
Exclusively?? That is quite simply not true. While there have always been book burning morons among the Christians like in any other religion they never dominated for any length of time and were fiercely opposed by scholastically minded people within the church. Large numbers of manuscripts were copied and preserved in Christian monasteries by monks and nuns. In fact we owe a big debt to both Arab scholars and religious figures as well as their Christian counterparts for the preservation of much of the surviving ancient literature and scientific writings. In fact Arab books were translated into western languages during the middle ages, that includes the Quaran which was translated into Latin by monks as early as the 11th and 12th centuries and scientific works such as the famous medical encyclopaedias written by Ibn Sina (known as Avicenna to medieval Europeans) which became well known reference works in Europe of the Middle Ages. The worst we can accuse Christian monks, Arab religious figures and scholars of both cultures of is that they did not have the time or capacity to save everything. That being said we are still finding ancient works in monastic collections that were thought to have been lost.
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While there have always been book burning morons among the Christians like in any other religion they never dominated for any length of time and were fiercely opposed by scholastically minded people within the church.
The problem is that they didn't need to dominate for long. Just long enough to destroy a library here, a temple there, slaughter an important "demon worshiper" over there etc. The length of time required for those was sometimes a single night, with the requirement just an overzealous bishop and a properly worked up illiterate mob under the illusion they were sticking it to the man. That was pretty common even when the authorities attempted to stop it.
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"...they did not have the time or capacity to save everything": That's because they didn't have one of these: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
(or better, one of these: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com])
Re:So, what of the scrolls? (Score:4, Informative)
Early Christians did intentionally destroy Pagan writings.
Correct, even into Victorian times, although Victorian times also saw efforts to revive knowledge of Pagan matters and customs, like Morris dancing.
As an example, "fairies", the ones in childrens books that look like pretty dolls, are actually a sugar-coated survivor from a large pantheon of pagan spirits and demons that pre-dated Christianity, from both Norse and Classical origins. Early Christian priests did everything in their power to eradicate this extensive folklore.
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Ferries are more an celtic thing.
Norse/Germans had a different mythology.
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Early Christians did intentionally destroy Pagan writings, including Greek and Roman science, and even went so far as to rape and murder the academic Hypatia for the sake of their internal gossip.
Hypatia was caught in the middle of a power struggle between two christian factions. She was too close to one of them and then she was killed for political reasons. Some early Christians intentionally destroyed pagan writings, other early Christians intentionally preserved them: in the end it was preserved a lot, given the circumstances (complete destruction of civil institutions etc.).
All science from the Greeks and Romans was preserved exclusively by the Arab civilization.
It was preserved mostly by monks from the Middle Ages, especially Latin manuscripts.
It is just that history and reality are different than you know.
Indeed.
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If you honestly think that most knowledge was preserved by monks in the middle ages, particularly in latin manuscripts, then you are really, *really*, *REALLY* uneducated on this topic. My college studies included far more medieval and ancient history than is common for students (I attended multiple universities and took every history course for medieval and older that I could).
Certainly *some* knowledge was preserved by monks. Even useful things from time to time.
But there was not "complete destruction of
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But throughout that time period the vast majority of regional knowledge preservation, much less adding to the store, was the result of muslims. I realize that doesn't make for good material in christian-centric teaching, but it doesn't change reality.
Muslims (or better, Christians and some Hebrews employed by Muslims) began to translate Greek books into Arabic in the 8th-9th century, after the conquest of the Near East in the 7th century. The Roman Empire became a Christian Empire during the 4th century. Who do you think preserved those texts in the meantime (just 4 or 5 centuries, you know)? As a compar
Re:So, what of the scrolls? (Score:4, Insightful)
All science from the Greeks and Romans was preserved exclusively by the Arab civilization.
Such an overblown claim is so easy to unravel, because all it takes is one example. Aristotle was largely preserved by the Arabs, but Plato did not need to be re-introduced in the West, because earlier Christian theologians generally liked Plato a lot. Aristotle was never actually destroyed in the West, but he simply was not liked, so his manuscripts were not copied enough and eventually disappeared (papyrus and paper rot, you know). Both Plato and Aristotle were pagans (though not of the same sort as traditional Greek paganism), and neither had their texts burned for this.
In fact, Christians generally only intentionally destroyed heretical works. A pagan work cannot be heretical. A heretical work is by someone who claims to be Christian but teaches falsely. I'm sure some ancient Christians somewhere destroyed pagan works, but I cannot think of a single instance where the documentary evidence explicitly states that Christians are destroying pagan texts. You can find passages where they talk about the need to destroy heretical texts, and you can find plenty of passages where they proclaim their fondness for Greek and Roman writings, but I cannot recall any passages about destroying Greek and Roman writings for their paganism. Please, find me one.
Note however that there is a deeper problem to your claim. You identify Christianity with the West. If Western European Christianity lost Greek texts, then you conclude that Christians destroyed them. But Christianity also existed in the East, even within Arab lands, and those Christians did not necessarily lose Aristotle. After all, the fall of Constantinople to the Turks did not occur until 1453!
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but I cannot think of a single instance where the documentary evidence explicitly states that Christians are destroying pagan texts. ...
You mean in Europe
In Mexico christians destroyed 99.99999% of all Mayan texts, your amount of 9's might vary.
Only one single catholic priest collected some/them and that is basically what is left in our days from Mayan writings.
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All science from the Greeks and Romans was preserved exclusively by the Arab civilization.
First, the knowledge of the ancient Greeks and Romans wasn't really science. Science didn't really start to evolve until the 16th or 17th century.
Second, after the fall of the Western Roman empire, the Eastern Roman empire (often known as Byzantium or the Byzantine Empire) would continue for almost 1000 years longer (the capital city of Constantinople would fall to the Ottoman Turks in 1435).
Huge amounts of earlier knowledge were preserved in Byzantium during this long period. As things started to fall ap
Re:So, what of the scrolls? (Score:4, Informative)
Discarded when they Migrated to Books (Score:1)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQHX-SjgQvQ
20.000? (Score:2)
And none of them returned for 2000 years?
Call the library cop!
KJV (Score:3)
Are you sure that's not just because the English is old (Early Modern, roughly same period as Shakespeare)? I've read both the KJV and other translations all the way through, and while there are certainly places where the KJV is not only older English, but also just strange, as well as places where the translation is not so good (mostly Old Testament, maybe especially Psalms), it's not all that bad if you can deal with the thee's and thou's.
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spew nonsense so vile that you're afraid even to put a pseudonym to it, much less your name.
Vile? Just for satirising the EU? You need to lighten up, and the GP is not the only one not to put down a pseudonym.
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VICTOIRE A NOUS!
I think you need a little bit of being killed in an European war of yore to gain some perspective. On the bright side, war builds character! I mean, someone would write your name on a plaque alongside thousands of other names or something, so you'd at the very least become a character afterwards, even if kinda blurred while a tourist glanced over it in between your war and theirs. But, hey! At least your genes would carry on in the form as the child of a prostitute or the child of the raped wife of a fallen
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Top 1% of what part of the world? There were certainly parts of the Roman empire where the literacy rate was far higher. The Jewish population, for example, was quite literate. Also, it wasn't until much later (than this public library) that the Church controlled anything, much less access to its scriptures. If access to books was controlled earlier, it's only because books were very valuable; sort of like controlling access to the diamond rings under glass in your local jewellery store.
As for excommuni
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Perhaps at issue here is what it means for a library to be "public." If it has to be a lending library, then I guess you're right. But if the public is allowed access to read books in the library, then maybe this was a public library. (And even now, most public libraries have certain books--typically reference books--that cannot be checked out, but must be read in the library.)
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But that must be where the modern name Cologne came from, right?