> even non-European ones like Mayan or Chinese A sad tangent: most of the Mayan literature specifically was deliberately destroyed during the Spanish conquest

> even non-European ones like Mayan or Chinese A sad tangent: most of the Mayan literature specifically was deliberately destroyed during the Spanish conquest [1]. > Our knowledge of ancient Maya thought must represent only a tiny fraction of the whole picture, for of the thousands of books in which the full extent of their learning and ritual was recorded, only four have survived to modern times (as though all that posterity knew of ourselves were to be based upon three prayer books and Pilgrim's Progress). And a typical attitude of the times (Bishop Diego de Landa, July 1562): > 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 regretted to an amazing degree, and which caused them much affliction. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_codices https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_codices