Talk:Lost literary work/Archive 1

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Archive 1

Euclid

No mention of the lost works of Euclid?

Added them from Euclid article. MakeRocketGoNow 18:15, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Milton

Milton was a remarkable man, but not so remarkable that he could write so long after his death. --- D H

This was an unsigned comment referring to the date of "about 1727" for Milton's two lost plays. I have removed the date and added a "fact" template. Someone might want to add a correct date if the reference to these plays is true. Andrew Dalby 17:19, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Scope?

Should this article exclusively catalog literary works, or should it include lost works of art (paintings, sculpture, etc.)? Or maybe should there be a separate Lost works of art article? Suggestions? MakeRocketGoNow 17:32, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps breaking these up into Lost works of literature and Lost works of art might be helpful. *Exeunt* Ganymead | Dialogue? 18:17, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
Created a new article, Lost artworks for non-literary lost works. MakeRocketGoNow 22:26, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Should this article try to be exaustive? Arrian's lost works are nowhere in this list. Should they be added?Ikokki 22:29, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Sure. Added Arrian under Classical world - Multiple works. If you know the specific titles, please add them. MakeRocketGoNow 14:24, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Plutarch

Scholars believe that only a third to one-half of Plutarch’s corpus is extant. See Plutarch#Lost_works If I come up with a comprehensive list of Plutarch's lost works I'll add it over here. -BiancaOfHell 11:44, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Hipparchus

Hipparchus wrote about 14 works, only one of which survives, his commentary on Aratus. NotWillDecker —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.212.225.199 (talk) 20:13, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Quipu

Why are the quipus in the 15th century? They would be destroyed on the 16th.

Works are listed by when they were created, not when they were destroyed. MakeRocketGoNow 13:46, 18 October 2006 (UTC)


Does Quipu belong on the list at all? I thought they convey only numerical information, and since the context--what the numbers actually represent--has been lost, too, I don't think Quipu qualify as a "work." A lost artifact, yes, but not a literary work.JMR-006 (talk) 19:05, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Archimedes' lost works

This website contains the following list of Archimedes' lost works, the same list is also found in the book "The Works of Archimedes" found here (a Google search will give you a readable extract): 

  1. On Polyhedra, mentioned by Pappus
  2. On the Measure of a Circle
  3. On Plynths and Cylinders
  4. On Surfaces and Irregular Bodies
  5. Mechanics
  6. Catoptrica (κατοπτρικά), on properties of mirrors, mentioned by Theon of Alexandria
  7. On Sphere-Making, mentioned by Pappus
  8. On the Length of the Year

I'll quote from the book "The Works of Archimedes":

Finally, several works by Archimedes are mentioned in ancient sources but are no longer extant. These are listed by Heiberg as "fragments", collected at the end of the second volume of the second edition:

1: On Polyhedra, 2: On the Measure of a Circle, 3: On Plynths and Cylinders, 4: On Surfaces and Irregular Bodies, 5: Mechanics, 6: Catoptrics, 7: On Sphere-Making, 8: On the Length of the Year

Some of those references may be based on confusions with other, extant works, while others may be pure legend. The reference to the work On Polyhedra, however, made by Pappus in his Mathematical Collection, is very detailed and convincing.

There's a longer explanation in the book, which as I mentioned is searchable, so I'll leave it at that...

Of the above listed works, "On Sphere-Making" is the only one currently added and I'll also add the "On Polyhedra" to the list, since the above text clearly states that its mention is very detailed and convincing (same reference, Pappus, for these two works).

As for the other listed works, "On the Measure of a Circle" has its own Wikipedia article and is apparently not a lost work itself but is mentioned to be part of a larger unnamed lost work.

I'd rather not do any decision-making regarding the possible inclusion of any of these other works, since I'm not an expert in these matters, but I'd appreciate any feedback regarding this...

Abvgd (talk) 20:34, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Thematic section for ancient works?

Sometimes it can be advantageous to combine several authors' works who have written on the same subject instead of mentioning each one separately, which would warrant an additional section named "Thematic works" or something similar besides the "Specific works" and "Multiple works" sections for single authors. It could also make sense to create a thematic cross-reference list (provided there's enough material to cross-reference) for easy overview on what type of works are missing and what types are not, which sometimes isn't easy to tell merely by looking at an alphabetic list of authors. This is just an idea I thought I'd throw out, I won't try this myself, but just for the sake of the argument I'll give an example: The early and middle Stoic philosophers' works are almost completely missing while the works of the late Stoic philosophers are almost fully salvaged and available. Some, not all, of these missing Stoic philosophers' works are already listed (Zeno and Posidonius) in the "Multiple works" list, but one does not get the full birds-eye view on the state of ancient Stoic litterature just by going through the list... From the page on Stoicism, we get however an easy to comprehend thematic birds-eye perspective, thanks to the thematic approach:

Scholars usually divide the history of Stoicism into three phases:

 
   * Early Stoa, from the founding of the school by Zeno to Antipater.
   * Middle Stoa, including Panaetius and Posidonius.
   * Late Stoa, including Musonius Rufus, Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius.

Unfortunately, as A. A. Long states, no complete work by any Stoic philosopher survives from the first two phases of Stoicism. Only Roman texts from the Late Stoa survive.

But like I said, this is just an idea how the list could be improved...

Abvgd (talk) 22:32, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Lost early Christian theology

I know there were numerous early works of Christian theology that were eventually destroyed because they did not conform to later orthodoxy. Many of these works are lost in their original forms but are refered to in other theological works that denounce them. Can anyone provide more information of these for this article? MK2 17:09, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

I just found Wikipedia's article on Theodore_Abu-Qurrah. The article states, "He also claimed to have written thirty treatises in Syriac, but none of these have yet been identified." Should he be listed here? 99.9.112.31 (talk) 03:26, 22 November 2010 (UTC)NotWillRiker

Lost works of Marcus Terentius Varro

It seems that currently only a few of Marcus Terentius Varro's lost works are mentioned here. On the Wikipedia page for Marcus Terentius Varro, there is a Lost Works section that provides a more complete list:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Terentius_Varro#Known_lost_works

If listing them all would take up too much place, then listing a few separately (perhaps those already listed currently) and summarizing the rest in a sentence or two might be a good idea. However, I'll leave that decision to someone more knowledgeable on the nature and contents of his works. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Abvgd (talk • contribs) 08:58, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

The "quipu" of the Incans, a questionable entry

Regarding this entry on the list:

* The quipu of the Incan Empire were mostly destroyed by the Spanish Conquistadors.

The quipus are not considered to be a written script, but merely something resembling a tally stick used for storing numerical data. The general consensus is that the Incans did not have a written language. Therefore, its inclusion into this list seems questionable as recorded numerical data can hardly be considered to be written works.

Abvgd (talk) 15:00, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Another questionable entry of similar nature to the quipus is the mention that "approximately 5,000 Mayan "idols" were burnt". The Mayan idols, just like the Inca quipus, fall short of what most people would consider to be written works, so they shouldn't be included in the list either. Of course, the burning of the 27 Maya codices should remain listed.
OTOH, maybe the burning of Aztec codices should be included in the list. The pre-Columbian Aztec codices were pictorials with no writing strictly speaking, but they did tell complex stories and narratives through pictorials, which makes them far closer to written works than either the Inca quipus or the Mayan idols. Here is the quote on the burning of the Aztec codices:

According to the Madrid Codex, the fourth tlatoani Itzcoatl (ruling from 1427 (or 1428) to 1440) ordered the burning of all historical codices because it was "not wise that all the people should know the paintings".[2] Among other purposes, this allowed the Aztec state to develop a state-sanctioned history and mythos that venerated Huitzilopochtli.

Abvgd (talk) 11:03, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

 Done - Since nobody has objected to it. Abvgd (talk) 23:58, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Lost works of Marquis de Sade

I can find no support for the statement that the unpublished works of the Marquis de Sade were destroyed by his son, and what references I can find to the destruction of works state that the Les Journées de Florbelle was destroyed by the police. Should this be changed? It's not remotely an area of expertise for me (either history in general or de Sade specifically), so I didn't want to make the change without discussion. Infophiliac 23:22, 10 December 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Infophiliac (talk • contribs)

Introduction rewrite

I think it would be great if someone could expand the introduction to include an overview of how different writing materials and techniques used in the past affected the long-term preservation of writings as well as something on the state of preservation of the main written cultures of the past (i.e. how much is estimated lost and/or extant). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Abvgd (talk • contribs) 22:02, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Abvgd (talk) 22:04, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Since no one else gave a shot at an article rewrite, I decided to act on my own suggestion... This is a first, tentative draft of a possible rewrite of the main text of the article. It includes most of the existing introductory paragraph, but expands into a historical overview of writing materials and major waves of losses and rediscoveries. It might be a little on the lengthy side, though I've tried to keep it short and it's hard to properly summarize these things in just a few sentences. In any case, I would appreciate feedback concerning the length and scope of the article.

Also, the text's focus is on the Mediterranean and Europe (as is the existing list of lost works itself), but I'm sure a few sentences could be added subsequently on writing materials and losses/rediscoveries of Chinese, Indian and other written cultures. I'll happily take comments and rewrite suggestions - and of course I'd happily let someone else adapt and publish this text as he sees fit. For now, I'll simply let the text be here in the talk section to hear the opinions of others. Eventually, if no one else says or does anything at all on the subject of the article rewrite, I'll update the article myself...


So, anyway, here's the draft:


Introduction
A lost work is a document or literary work produced some time in the past of which no surviving copies are known to exist. Surviving copies of old or ancient works are called extant. Works may be lost to history either through the destruction of the original manuscript, or through the non-survival of any copies of the work. Deliberate destruction of works may be termed literary crime or literary vandalism. In some cases fragments may survive, either found by archaeology, or sometimes as reused bookbinding materials, or through quotations in other works.
Many missing works are described by works or compilations that survive, such as the Naturalis Historia of Pliny the Elder or the De Architectura by Vitruvius. Sometimes authors destroyed their own works. Other times they instructed others to destroy the work after their deaths; such action was not taken in several well-known cases, such as Virgil's Aeneid saved by Augustus, and Kafka's novels saved by Max Brod. Many works were apparently lost when the Library of Alexandria burned down in the Roman period, or perhaps later. Before the era of printing, manuscripts were handwritten, and so few copies existed, explaining why so much has been lost. Works that no others referred to, of course, remain unknown and totally forgotten. The term most commonly applies to works from the classical world, although it is increasingly used in relation to more modern works.
The longterm survival of works is largely dependant on the existence of a well-established written culture, where works are regularly sought after and copied but its survival is also often intimately linked to the writing material used. Few, if any, written cultures have persisted throughout history without occasional interruptions (lasting anywhere from a few years to several centuries) due to events such as societal upheavals, wars, natural disasters or simply the replacement of a previously used language or script with a new one. In such instances, the survival of a work can be entirely dependant on the survival of a remaining physical copy until it is rediscovered years later by accident or due to renewed interest in old works.
Writing materials
Most writing materials used throughout history have been either organic or otherwise moldable and fragile materials, usually subject to decay within a few centuries at most and as such in need of repeated copying for the longterm survival of a work. Since the advent of writing, ancient Mediterranean cultures used primarily clay tablets and papyrus rolls as writing materials, although for ceremonial use and shorter inscriptions, sturdier materials such as stone and metal (e.g. bronze) could be used. Egypt was the home of the papyrus plant and as such the main supplier of papyrus throughout the Mediterranean. Papyrus was the more fragile material of the two but it was also more versatile than clay, which proved cumbersome for writing anything other than the very specific cuneiform scripts used by the Sumero-Babylonians and Hittites. With the fall of these cuneiform civilizations, clay tablets gave way to papyrus throughout most of the Mediterranean.
Coinciding with the end of Late Antiquity, papyrus started giving way to parchment (primarily vellum) in Europe due to the shortage of papyrus following the breakup of the Roman Empire. A significant advantage of parchment is that it can last for well over a millennium without any notable deterioration, as opposed to papyrus which deteriorates quickly in humid climates such as the European one. A negative side effect of this transition away from papyrus was that parchment was considerably more expensive to manufacture, as it was made from animal skin. This contributed to a shortage in writing material, which in its turn necessitated the reusage of old parchment through a process in which the parchment was washed blank and reassembled into a so called palimpsest. Although this practice of reusaging writing material is most commonly identified with the Early Medieval period and with parchment as the medium (due to its durability), this practice did also occur with papyrus during the Roman Empire.
Rediscovery of lost works
Many lost works have subsequently been rediscovered. In the 19th century, archeologists uncovered the ruins of the Sumerian civilization, and with them many clay tablets containing among other writings the long-lost Sumerian epic Gilgamesh. Owing to Egypt's dry climate, many fragments of Egyptian and Greco-Roman literature have been discovered buried in the sand of the Sahara desert, such as the Oxyrhynchus Papyri collection. Of particular note among these papyri have been fragments of Greek poetry and theatrical plays, which didn't survive Egypt's transition from Greek to Arabic as official language. Numerous fragments of Christian literature has, both canonical and apochryphal, has also been discovered and contributed to both the historical and theological perspective on the development and spread of Christianity.
After the fall of the Roman Empire, Greco-Roman literature was lost and rediscovered in Europe in several waves, owing to cyclical periods of instability and order. The first such wave of rediscovery was during the Carolingian Renaissance, when a concerted effort was made by the court of Charlemagne to collect and copy surviving Greco-Roman (primarily Latin) works. Almost all subsequent surviving Latin works are traceable to manuscripts dating from this period. After the death of Charlemagne's sons, a new period of instability left many of these works to renewed neglect. The 12th century saw a wider European rediscovery of many ancient Greek works that had survived in Medieval Spain and Byzantium. Particularly important and influential were the works of Aristotle, translated from Arabic as well as directly from Greek originals. The 14th century Italian Renaissance saw Italian humanists search and collect surviving Latin manuscripts from places such as monastic libraries. The last wave of rediscovery of lost literature before the modern period occured in the 15th century, when long-lost works of Plato were brought to Italy by Greek emigrees from Constantinople.
The modern period has also seen the rediscovery of many Greco-Roman and other works, primarily fragmentary portions contained in palimpsests where the original content was overwritten but can still be traced with the right technology. One of the earliest major discoveries in modern times was that of a palimpsest containing Cicero's De re publica, while the most notable recent example was the discovery of the Archimedes Palimpsest. While all the surviving old literary collections and monastic libraries are by now well known to scholars, the possibility always remains that some palimpsests still hide overwritten portions of texts traceable only with modern technologies such as X-ray imaging. Modern technology has also been applied to a number of burnt or otherwise damaged papyrus rolls, for instance those from the Villa of the Papyri in Herculaneum. While the contents of these and other papyrus scrolls generally have not been overwritten as is the case with works contained within palimpsests, the technical challenges and methods used for retrieving hard to read and illegible writings are very similar irrespective of writing material.

In Popular Culture

Can someone add information on works which mention lost works? Aren't there action-adventure novels where a lost work has been discovered and the good guys are trying to retrieve it from the bad guys, for example? I can't think of any specifically; the novels I know of, tend to portray fictional lost works. 99.9.112.31 (talk)NotWillDecker —Preceding undated comment added 16:57, 23 April 2010 (UTC).

 Done - I've added the section "Lost works in popular culture" with two entries that I could think of off the top of my head; "The Name of the Rose" and "The Da Vinci Code". I'm sure there are many more though. Abvgd (talk) 11:14, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Barhaspatya sutras

The Barhaspatya sutras seem like they should go on this list, though I'm not sure where. Maybe someone could add them to the list? Gary (talk) 20:55, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

 Done - I've added it in a new section called "Ancient Indian texts". As things are currently ordered, the dating only starts in the AD/CE era (specifically at the 2nd century AD/CE), probably since that's when dated texts become numerous enough to warrant separate sections. For earlier texts and ancient texts with imprecise dating, you have thematic sections (classical texts, ancient Chinese/Indian works, religious/Christian texts, etc). Abvgd (talk) 07:45, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Possible spurious works in Suetonius

Can any sources be found for 'List of Famous Whores' and 'Greek Terms of Abuse'?

Abvgd (talk) 20:48, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Works of Diogenes of Sinope

I've read several places about the reported books by Diogenes. Most importantly in "Lives of the eminent philsophers" by Diogenes Laertius where he list several books attributed to Diogenes. He also does cite people who dispute that at least some of these books were actually written by him. Ive added him with a note trying to portray that the authorship of these books are bot lost and questioned. If anyone think that it should be removed I would ask them to comment both so I know the reason and that we have a presedent for how to write up this type of books. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.50.162.174 (talk) 11:58, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

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Multimedia?

Various websites and videogames are now completely unplayable or accessible due to servers going down or links going dead. SHould these be added? Maybe their own page? Error four oh four (talk) 12:55, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

tone

The lead contains phrases that elicit a "duh!" response from the reader, which is inappropriate for a Wiki article. Examples: or accidentally by anyone and Of course works that no one has subsequently referred to remain unknown. While I appreciate how editors will want to cover all bases, the tone here is a bit too light for an encyclopedia. CapnZapp (talk) 11:38, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

El Manuscrito de Astorga

How is the Manuscrito de Astorga lost? Googling around I found a page in old Spanish that seems to be it or a part of it. Did Franco or his heirs lose it?

 Editor note: Adding comment with date stamp for eventual automatic archiving. CapnZapp (talk) 07:04, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

Lost art forms?

Should there be a related article called lost art forms? For instance, Damascus steel/swords?

 Editor note: Adding comment with date stamp for eventual automatic archiving. CapnZapp (talk) 07:05, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

Notability

Previously the list header was "Notable lost work" - ie. that we claim the works are notable. I don't question this, but if we are to claim notability we need to source each and every such claim.

In the absence of such referencing, I changed the header to avoid claiming notability. Instead I added template text to say the list "may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness", which gets us off the hook (ie. we don't want to have to answer the question why one item on the list and another isn't). CapnZapp (talk) 14:53, 29 January 2019 (UTC)

Naturalis Historia and De Architectura

Right now, it says

Well known, but not recovered, works are described by compilations that did survive. For example, the Naturalis Historia of Pliny the Elder or the De Architectura of Vitruvius.

But, according to those articles, those works are recovered, apparently in complete or nearly so. They were (considered) lost, but were saved in compilations; since (I gather) they weren't indexed under their own titles, but rather under the the title of the compilation, their existance was not know, for a while. That is, they were in the complilations, not merely described in them, and were recovered.

Not being an expert here, I didn't change it, but shouldn't it be? Herostratus (talk) 18:42, 29 February 2020 (UTC)

Source of many, many extinct classical titles

If anyone has a mind significantly to expand the Classical Western list, Diogenes Laërtius Lives of the Philosophers is chock-a-block full of Greek titles. For each (or almost each) of the philosophers, Diogenes lists their works, often in the dozens. Almost none of them has survived. The procedure would be to go thru the authors one by one and collate: [1]

24.136.4.218 (talk) 14:25, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

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