Six Ancient Artistic Works That Are Lost to History

09 Dec 2017 3757 share it:

Our ancestors have touched most fields of human inquiry. While many of their written works still survive, far more have been lost. There could be many reasons behind this such as natural disasters, fire, war, or theft. Read on further to discover ten amazing masterpieces that have been lost forever:

1) The Lost Plays of Athens

Athens, the oldest city of Europe, had been a centre of culture, art, and literature since 3000 years from now. One of the famous tragedian playwrights of the city, Euripides (480- 406 B.C) had written more than 90 plays. But most of them have been lost, and only 19 survives. Sophocles was another popular tragedian who had written around 120 plays, but only seven of them survived.

2) Titius Livius's Ab Urbe Condita

One of the greatest sources of Roman history is Titus Livius's book Ab Urde Condita that was written around 27 BC to 9 BC. These books had originally been written in 142 volumes, of which only 107 survived. Some of the missing volumes detailed the wars in the East from 201 to 167 BC. The surviving parts of the book provide the detailed information about the reign of Emperor Augustus, the best monarch in the history of Greece.

3) Shakespeare's Cardenio

If you are fond of Shakespeare's work, then you would probably know that we have already lost one of his famous plays, i.e., Love's Labour's Won. But this wasn't the only play of Shakespeare as another play Cardenio has never been found in any written account. Historians have been able to know about it from the British Royal register of 16th century that informs that a huge payment was made to Shakespeare for this work. It is believed that Cardenio is based on an episode in Cervantes's Don Quixote, a Spanish novel written by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra.

4) Cicero's Hortensius

Marcus Tullius Cicero was a Roman lawyer and politician who served as consul during the year 63 BC. His literary work Hortensius is a philosophical dialogue named after his friend and politician, Quintus Hortensius Hortalus. It covered a dialogue between Quintus Hortensius Hortalus and two other people- Quintus Lutatius Catulus and Lucius Licinius Lucullus. The work survived until the sixth century but was lost after that. However, some facts related to the book are still alive as people passed its philosophy from generations to generations.

5) Confucius's Classic

Confucianism or Confucius(its Jewish name) was the traditional state religion of China which was founded by the sage-teacher K'ung Fu-tzu during 551 B.C. According to legends, the earliest founders of this religion have compiled the five classics, namely, the Book of Poetry, Rites, History, Changes, and the Spring and Autumn Annals. But these books had been lost during the Han Dynasty in China when the emperor ordered to burn all the books as well as the 460 scholars of this religion.

6) Origen's Hexapla

Origen Adamantius was a Greek philosopher, scholar, and theologian who was had compiled Hexaple, i.e., a second-century edition of the Hebrew Bible. The text was written by referencing to all other editions of Bible present during that era. This work took Origen twenty years, and he wrote it in seven thousand pages. The book presented word by word comparison of all the six famous editions of Bible and gave comments of how they differ from each other. But unfortunately, only fragments of it survive with us today. Currently, theology scholars from different universities across the world are working on the publication of a new version of this work, which will also include fragments that were recovered from the 1875 edition.

These were some famous literary work that had been lost with time. We wished we could find them anyhow; otherwise, we would never know the extent of our ancestor's artistic and creative skills. To know more about these works, you can read history books and compendium related to them. As a college student, if you are facing any trouble in writing your history assignments, then seek history assignment help from Assignment Desk. Our team of experts can also help you with high-quality academic documents that will be appropriately referenced as per your university's standard.