Dn Jackson | 07 Feb 2024 10:35 p.m. PST |
This discussion got me to thinking TMP link What ancient text are you hoping is found using this new technology? An early copy of the Bible? Some lost History? A signed copy of Homer? |
RittervonBek | 07 Feb 2024 11:52 p.m. PST |
Keith Richard's memoirs of his school days. |
The Last Conformist | 08 Feb 2024 12:52 a.m. PST |
Pyrrhus' writings on tactics. |
martin goddard | 08 Feb 2024 2:44 a.m. PST |
Warband army versus warband army battle histories. Just how good was Caesar? martin |
robert piepenbrink | 08 Feb 2024 3:49 a.m. PST |
The missing portions of Tacitus' Annals and Histories would be my dream find, but they're too late for Herculanium. |
GurKhan | 08 Feb 2024 5:10 a.m. PST |
The Emperor Claudius' history of the Etruscans would be fun. Or one of the original eyewitness histories of Alexander – Ptolemy's memoirs, or Aristobulus. |
lionheartrjc | 08 Feb 2024 5:10 a.m. PST |
The lost history of the Graeco-Bactrian kingdoms |
nnascati | 08 Feb 2024 5:33 a.m. PST |
Anything from the Library of Alexandria. Imagine the knowledge that was lost. |
DrSkull | 08 Feb 2024 5:41 a.m. PST |
A second on the Tacitus and Claudius. Maybe Ennius. |
Swampster | 08 Feb 2024 5:58 a.m. PST |
Sallust's Historiae. He was well regarded and he covered a very eventful few decades, a period including the Sertorian war and the 3rd Mith War. Surviving extracts of e.g. the Spartacus War show that he included the kind of details we wargamers would be after. |
35thOVI | 08 Feb 2024 6:20 a.m. PST |
Well since I started the original topic (thanks for the interest, I thought it was very interesting). Lost Christian texts. Doubt this happens, but would be interesting if some of the Gnostic texts were confirmed. Was Jesus married, etc. Previously unheard of books. Medicines useful, but unknown. Actual history of the building of the Pyramids Histories of other kingdoms A new Rosetta Stone of languages |
Blount | 08 Feb 2024 7:06 a.m. PST |
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Choctaw | 08 Feb 2024 7:33 a.m. PST |
A purchase order for three warhorses signed by Arthur himself. |
Dave Jackson | 08 Feb 2024 7:45 a.m. PST |
Right on RittervonBek….I really wonder what kind of a world we're going to leave him…. |
FilsduPoitou | 08 Feb 2024 8:00 a.m. PST |
Ptolemy's memoirs on Alexander Sulla's memoirs Julius Caesar's love poems Emperor Claudius' book on dice games |
Swampking | 08 Feb 2024 8:27 a.m. PST |
The royal archives from Troy (Wilusia) The royal archives from Mycenae The royal archives from any of the various tells/talls within the western Anatolian plain that relate to the LBA Agree on the Library of Alexandria – would be great to find something! |
HMS Exeter | 08 Feb 2024 9:25 a.m. PST |
I remember seeing an interview with one of the surviving members of the Memphis Belle crew. It was concerning a recently released book about the aircraft and its' crew, covering the period leading up to their being rotated home. In an offhand comment, he said the book that ought to be written would be about the exploits of the crew on their promotional war bond tour, once they'd gotten back home. It was apparently a months long cross country bacchanal. A sort of 1940's "Entourage." |
HMS Exeter | 08 Feb 2024 9:27 a.m. PST |
We'd likely get a Latin grammar primer enabling us to correctly translate: Romans Go Home |
Hey You | 08 Feb 2024 9:50 a.m. PST |
I'm with nnascati. It would be nice to see what was actually at the Library in Alexandria. |
SBminisguy | 08 Feb 2024 11:34 a.m. PST |
The full and un-redacted FBI and CIA JFK files??? |
Zopenco 2 | 08 Feb 2024 11:43 a.m. PST |
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Lucius | 08 Feb 2024 11:52 a.m. PST |
Operators manual and blueprints for the Antikythera mechanism. |
Augustus | 08 Feb 2024 12:09 p.m. PST |
The lost writings of the dinosuars..they were here for so long something must have survived! |
The Virtual Armchair General | 08 Feb 2024 12:25 p.m. PST |
I'm not really worried about translation issues. Latin is pretty well mastered, for a "dead" language. Also, the penmanship of the fragment deciphered so far is typically excellent. Evidently, being a scribe required it, particularly as hand copied mss were an expensive commodity that would never sell if not perfectly legible. That said, I too hope for the chance of any early gospels, or that longed for source, "Q", New Testament scholars have deduced was used by several of the standard gospels as a common source, but which itself has never been found--so far! Especially titillating is that the excavation at the House of Papyri stopped years ago at a doorway that appears to lead into another library room. The emphasis in the last couple of decades on preservation of what has already been uncovered in Herculaneum, as well as Pompeii, has severely reduced available funds for new digs. The feeling is that before new sites/artifacts are exposed to inevitable deterioration, every effort should be made to protect what's already been recovered. This thinking has been applied to the presumed other wing of the library. From previous "sorta" successful attempts to access some of the carbonized scrolls, it was already apparent that works of philosophy were the primary subject of the known collection. If that holds true, it might be that the next wing may consist of different subjects such as histories, political works, etc, perhaps even other works by Caesar himself. Alas, few if any of us here who would hang on every new translation of recovered texts will be around to find out what may be in unopened portion of the library as archaeology has become slower and more painstaking over time. Still, I'm sure that the techniques developed to make the surviving scrolls readable will improve with time and practice, accelerating the process, but opening that remaining door may take years, if not decades. Then again, as scrolls are read, and perhaps as some truly eye-opening discoveries are made, pressure from the public and scholarly communities may bring the day sooner. Next to the Library of Alexandria itself--definitively lost after multiple fires and disasters over centuries--this collection of scrolls is the best chance humanity likely will ever have of being able to shed light into Classical History's understanding of itself. But, lest we forget, Vesuvius has it's own timeline and must, someday, re-bury everything all over again. TVAG |
Herkybird | 08 Feb 2024 12:26 p.m. PST |
Anything that enlightens us! Or something written by the enemies of Rome describing how they dressed and fought!!! |
Yellow Admiral | 08 Feb 2024 12:37 p.m. PST |
"How to Build a Quinquereme" is my dream. A treatise on the construction and operation of the huge polyremes (septiremes and up) is a nice stretch goal, but seems unlikely – the Romans had little interest in Greek monster ships. I would be happy to regain any of the missing chapters by Polybius. |
Old Glory | 08 Feb 2024 1:31 p.m. PST |
Probably no such documentation But more Information concerning the lands of Gaul. Maps, trails ,Roads, etc. More information as to the various tribes-- from largest to the smallest? Hell, I don't know, just something? Same with the Germans across the rhne?? Regards Russ Dunaway |
piper909 | 08 Feb 2024 2:42 p.m. PST |
Plutarch's lost "Life of Leonidas", Sosylus' history of Hannibal's war, any of the lost plays of the classic Athenian playwrights of the late 5th century. Oh, and complete works by later neo-Platonist philosophers that we only know of from excerpts quoted by their Christian rivals. |
The Nigerian Lead Minister | 08 Feb 2024 3:36 p.m. PST |
Something to prove Velikovsky was right, just to watch every ancient scholar's head explode. |
Dagwood | 08 Feb 2024 3:52 p.m. PST |
Claudius's treatise on the Etruscans ? |
Archon64 | 08 Feb 2024 5:19 p.m. PST |
Whatever rules set they ACTUALLY used for ancient battles. |
robert piepenbrink | 08 Feb 2024 5:46 p.m. PST |
How about any of the Trojan War epic poems not attributed to Homer? Quite possible at Herculanium, though probably not in this set. What might very well be recovered is unknown Aristotle. For later material, any of the Aramaic gospels. |
Legionarius | 08 Feb 2024 8:17 p.m. PST |
Another vote for the entire library of Alexandria. And a pet peeve--a drill book for the Roman Army much earlier that Vegetius. |
Erzherzog Johann | 09 Feb 2024 12:59 a.m. PST |
The one where they collated the exact relationship between different troop types in convenient wargame rules-friendly format :~} Cheers, John |
DBS303 | 09 Feb 2024 3:56 a.m. PST |
Something from Ammianus' earlier books would be nice. Really special would be any form of administrative records from the Sasanian empire. |
robert piepenbrink | 09 Feb 2024 7:20 a.m. PST |
Wildly unlikely, but something written about Sparta by a Spartan? Everything we have was written by Athenians. For that matter, a description of Periclean Athens written by a rival or victim. |
Marcus Brutus | 09 Feb 2024 7:38 a.m. PST |
A first edition Gospel so we can learn how transmission worked in the early church. |
arthur1815 | 09 Feb 2024 10:25 a.m. PST |
Robert Louis Stevenson's rules for the wargames he played with his stepson Lloyd Osborne. |
piper909 | 09 Feb 2024 5:58 p.m. PST |
I echo R. Piepenbrink's remarks. Herodotus notes that he knew of all the names of the 300 Spartans who fell at Thermopylae -- would that a record of this would re-emerge! Or anything else from the archaic age Spartan poets like Alcman, Tyrtaeus, Terpander, Alcaeus. |
Zephyr1 | 09 Feb 2024 10:03 p.m. PST |
I'd read anything they recovered and translated (even though any books about them would never make it to my county library…) |
Wolfhag | 10 Feb 2024 6:59 a.m. PST |
Proof of visitors from other solar systems. Wolfhag |
Andrew Walters | 10 Feb 2024 11:11 a.m. PST |
Aristotle's Poetics Volume 2 – Comedy |
robert piepenbrink | 10 Feb 2024 7:14 p.m. PST |
Good call, Andrew. Given the dating and the nature of the library, that one's an actual possibility. |
14Bore | 11 Feb 2024 5:45 p.m. PST |
Arc of the Covenant would be awesome |
35thOVI | 11 Feb 2024 7:03 p.m. PST |
It is in a warehouse in Washington DC. A Dr. Jones rescued it from the Nazis. |
piper909 | 12 Feb 2024 1:03 a.m. PST |
And the American officials don't dare open it either. |
Eclectic Wave | 12 Feb 2024 8:49 a.m. PST |
In some surviving texts, there is mention of a parody of "The Illiad", called "the Dilliad", which there are no surviving texts of. That would be fun to find! |
Jcfrog | 12 Feb 2024 9:35 a.m. PST |
The uniform list of Roman units with colours. |
35thOVI | 12 Feb 2024 9:47 a.m. PST |
EW Was that written by Montius Pythonius? 😉 JcFrog and their shield designs. |
Kenntak | 12 Feb 2024 2:57 p.m. PST |
Another vote for Emperor Claudius' history of the Etruscans. |