Some parts of human knowledge and wisdom seem to have been lost in time like in a wormhole and I thought, they will never come back. ... But probably we really should never say "never".
(This is just the introduction for something completely different but I do not know where to put it and I took this thread because Carl Sagan was mentioned here by me and he mentioned something which might be re-discovered in our life-time.)
In his book "Cosmos", Carl Sagan obviously wanted to write about everything which had any connection with astronomy and so he also wrote about ancient cosmology and landed in one chapter in the lost library of Alexandria, mentioning the incredible loss of wisdom and knowledge when this library burned down - partly because of the fanatism of early christians in that city around 415 A.D., who thought that they do not need all this "pagan stuff" any more.
Some scientists and historians believe that less than 0,1 % (!!!) of the ancient books / papyrii survived in the libraries of mankind and if you know that Sophokles wrote 124 dramas but only 7 survived, then you can imagine the loss.
What makes it a torture for scientists is also that some of the indexes and directories of ancient libraries survived, but not the books.
This is similar like we would know in 2000 years that Shakespeare is one of the greatest writers of all times and we know the titles of all his works and books, but only "Coriolan" and "Hamlet" survived - all his others like "Romeo & Juliet" would be lost!
But now there is new hope for a re-discovery of ancient wisdom. In my German language, there is this funny new word "Röntgenphasenkontrasttomografie" (= translated probably: "X-ray phase contrast tomography") and by using this, you can "fly" on a computer screen through an ancient papyri which almost turned to coal and ashes, found in the Roman lucury city Herculaneum, which was destroyed by the volcano Vesuv.
And there is probably one of the greatest Roman libraries still covered by the stones which once were the volcano's pyroclastic streams, but the papyrii from there look not so good:
During the last 20 years, there was archaeological research and this library seemed to have two floors more than anyone expected which are still covered by earth and stones from the volcano. No one really knows who was the owner of this library or if it was a public library but in one room were 50 chairs found which were arranged in a half-circle. We can assume that this "Villa dei Papiri" - as it is called in Italian - once was also used as a place for lectures and speeches.
This library was obviously also organized like a warehouse for books and a librarian looked first at the index and went then to the room in which he could find the book he was looking for. One room, which is known up to now, contained philosophical literature by and about the "Epicureans", but there are possibly still dozens if not hundreds of other rooms with other kinds of literature buried under earth - or in the worst case: under earth and under water because this "Villa dei Papiri" might today have floors under the sea level (please, please no!).
The article about this research in German:
Die größte erhaltene Bibliothek der Antike soll ihre Geheimnisse im Scanner preisgeben
www.spektrum.de
There are so many hidden secrets in this world and universe to be discovered for a curious mind like mine and I sometimes would like to live a thousand years only to see these secrets discovered. (Sigh!)