[rmc]

Lots of books and manuscripts from that period aren't around any more. A monestry in the middle of the desert is going to be hot and dry, which is great for preserving books.

"Never been sacked" is important as well. Often books can get burned and destroyed during political upheaval, either intentionally (burn the books) or accidentially (the building with the books goes on fire).

When the Spanish conquered what is now Mexico, they destroyed all the Mayan books. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_codices#Background > "We found a large number of books in these characters and, as they contained nothing in which were not to be seen as superstition and lies of the devil, we burned them all, which they (the Maya) regretted to an amazing degree, and which caused them much affliction."

[thaumasiotes]

There's an interesting anti-parallel to ancient mesopotamian history. From the superlative book Brotherhood of Kings ( http://www.amazon.com/Brotherhood-Kings-International-Relati... ):

> Mari holds the key to much of our knowledge of this era. The site of Babylon has physically sunk over the years so that now the palace and archives of Hammurabi are below the water table and, presumably, reduced to mud

> As in the case of Ebla, the vast archive of thousands of documents from eighteenth-century [BC] Mari is preserved because the palace burned down. [...] Because of this, it is possible to read, in some of the letters baked and buried in the conflagration, about Hammurabi's relations with Mari in happier times.

Our documents from that period come from conquering kings who, in their zeal to raze enemy cities, forever preserved those cities' records. Literature wasn't as much of a presence then as it is now (tablets run to accounting and correspondence), but it (and history) existed; cf the epic of Gilgamesh.

[happyscrappy]

It is so utterly disappointing that the voodoo of Catholicism felt the need to destroy the Mayan books as voodoo. My voodoo is better than yours, but just in case.