> The numbers they published in Science magazine earlier this year don’t make for happy reading, but they corroborate figures arrived at by other methods. The r

> The numbers they published in Science magazine earlier this year don’t make for happy reading, but they corroborate figures arrived at by other methods. The researchers concluded that a humbling 90% of medieval manuscripts preserving chivalric and heroic narratives – those relating to King Arthur, for example, or Sigurd (also known as Siegfried) – have gone. Of the stories themselves, about a third have been lost completely, meaning that no manuscript preserving them remains. It's impossible to say whether the greatest works of literature are undiscovered, or even lost. That's the tragedy of it, that we'll never know. We do know that we've lost a lot, not only from the medieval era, but even in our own lifetimes. Despite digitization and home recording, a ton of media (not just literature) was has been lost in warehouse fires, or even by having the only copies taped over. Or, never even committed to physical media at all. Even today, when we secretly believe everything we do is tracked by somebody, a bad backup system or a decision to cut costs on storage can wipe out years of data. The work of archivists is to save what they can, not to save everything. It's a losing battle.