The History of Book Burning: When Knowledge Goes Up in Flames
Throughout history, the destruction of books has served as both a weapon of war and a tool of oppression. From ancient Alexandria to Nazi Germany, the deliberate burning of texts represents humanity's tragic tendency to destroy what it fears or cannot control. This pattern reveals how knowledge itself becomes a battlefield in struggles for power, ideology, and cultural dominance.
Some Key Points and Critical Patterns:
The Ancient Roots: The systematic erasure of knowledge began over 5,000 years ago, with our earliest examples in the Middle East (was known as Mesopotamia) and in Egypt. The nature of erasure means it was meant to destroy the evidence, so the fact we can discern this kind of intent from 5,000 years ago is quite incredible- even more-so because we can establish templates that persist today.
The Reason to Burn Books: Book burning has been used across cultures as a tool of political and ideological (thought) control.
Crusader book burnings show how religious wars targeted intellectual centers. Crusader destruction reveals how religious warfare systematically targeted intellectual centers, not just military ones. The crusades were just sloppy Christian hatred exploding in on itself.
Transitions: Religious and political transitions often triggered large-scale book burnings
The Strategy of Conquerors: Conquering powers routinely destroyed the intellectual heritage of conquered peoples as standard policy- to wear down their spirit and identity to prevent a rising up.
The invention of printing initially seemed to make book burning obsolete, but authorities adapted
Patterns of Attempting to Remove the Root: The destruction of foundational texts affects far more people than just the immediate community. When Jewish libraries were burned, it threatened the textual foundation that would later support Christianity and Islam. Similarly, the Chinese book burnings eliminated philosophical traditions that had shaped Asian thought for centuries.
Roman Perfection: Rome perfected damnatio memoriae - the complete erasure of people and civilizations from history. An estimated 25 full civilizations were totally erased by Roman conquest.
The colonial continuity: Destruction of texts didn't end in medieval times - it continued through European colonialism into the modern era
The 1900’s AD saw some of the most systematic and large-scale destruction efforts of all recorded time. But archeology, and the internet, reveal what was meant to be forgotten.
African intellectual heritage: Counter the colonial myth that Africa had no written traditions. These attempted to be destroyed manuscripts are foundational to understanding African contributions to global civilization
Ongoing patterns: revealed: The same manuscript collections have been threatened across multiple historical periods
Highlighting Heroism: The Timbuktu rescue shows extraordinary efforts to preserve knowledge under extreme danger
Known Destruction: Sometimes colonial powers perfected knowledge destruction - not through dramatic book burnings that attract attention, but through systematic policy that eliminated entire knowledge systems while claiming moral superiority.
The Ancient World: The Earliest Traces
The story of systematic knowledge destruction stretches back over 5,000 years. In ancient Mesopotamia (3000-2000 BC), inscriptions from Lagash describe conflicts with Umma but deliberately avoid naming Umma's ruler, calling him only "the man of Umma" to degrade him and erase his identity from history.
Egypt perfected this art of erasure through damnatio memoriae. Around 1458 BC, after the death of the female pharaoh Hatshepsut, her successor Thutmose III ordered a systematic campaign to erase her from history. At monuments throughout Egypt, her images and names were hacked out, her statues torn down, and attempts made to wall up her obelisks. The purpose was political: to ensure smooth succession and eliminate any rival claims to the throne.
Even more comprehensive was the erasure following the Amarna period (1336-1292 BC). Pharaoh Akhenaten had attempted to revolutionize Egyptian religion, but after his death, Pharaoh Horemheb systematically destroyed every trace of the "heretic pharaoh." Temples were dismantled, images had their faces chipped away, and Akhenaten's name was never mentioned again in official records. So thorough was this destruction that Horemheb actually backdated his own reign to that of Amenhotep III, completely erasing 30 years of Egyptian history. Akhenaten was lost to history until the 19th century rediscovery of Amarna.
The Greeks and Romans inherited and expanded these practices. In 168 BC, the Seleucid monarch Antiochus IV ordered Jewish "Books of the Law" to be torn apart and burned in Jerusalem, sparking the revolt of the Maccabees. This early example established a pattern that would repeat throughout history: religious and political authorities destroying texts that challenged their power.
The Roman Empire continued this tradition with calculated precision. In 13 BC, Emperor Augustus burned over 2,000 copies of Greek and Latin prophetic texts, preserving only the official Sibylline Books. By 25 AD, Senator Aulus Cremutius Cordus was forced to commit suicide for writing a history that praised Julius Caesar's assassins. Even a Roman soldier burning a single Torah scroll in 50 AD nearly triggered a general Jewish revolt.
Roman Damnatio Memoriae: The Science of Erasure
Rome perfected the systematic erasure of inconvenient people and entire civilizations. The practice was so sophisticated that it had a formal name: damnatio memoriae - condemnation of memory. This wasn't just about destroying books; it was about rewriting reality itself.
Mark Antony provides a perfect example of how this worked. After his defeat at Actium in 31 BC, Octavian (later Augustus) didn't just kill his rival - he systematically erased him from history. Antony's statues were destroyed, his name chiseled from monuments, and his reputation rewritten as a weak man seduced by the evil foreign queen Cleopatra. This narrative served Augustus perfectly: it allowed him to paint himself as Rome's savior from Eastern corruption while eliminating a rival who had been equally powerful. The reality was more complex - Julius Caesar had also been "seduced" by Cleopatra, but dead heroes could be romanticized while living rivals needed elimination.
The practice became so common that historians estimate at least 25 Roman emperors suffered some form of damnatio memoriae attempts. Caligula, Nero, Domitian, Commodus - each faced systematic attempts to erase their reigns from history. The message was clear: if whole emperors could be erased, nobody was safe. This created a climate of terror that extended far beyond individual persecution.
More devastating still, Rome applied this erasure to entire civilizations. An estimated 25 full civilizations were completely eliminated - not just conquered, but erased so thoroughly that we don't even know their names today. The Etruscans survived only because they were too close to Rome to hide, but countless other peoples vanished from history entirely. Their languages, their literature, their very existence was systematically destroyed to serve Roman imperial narratives.
The Systematic Destruction of Jewish Society
The systematic destruction of Jewish society under Roman rule reveals how book burning often accompanies broader campaigns of cultural erasure. After crushing the Jewish revolts between 66-135 AD, Romans didn't just destroy the Second Temple and burn religious texts—they renamed Judea to "Syria Palaestina" to sever the Jewish connection to their homeland.
This period demonstrates how different groups respond to existential threats. Jewish society split into factions with very different approaches to Roman occupation:
Zealots: The militant faction favoring armed resistance (small minority, maybe 5-10%)
Pharisees: Generally accommodated Roman rule while maintaining religious practices (largest group, maybe 40-50%). Many had wealth and wanted to preserve it by following Roman rules.
Sadducees: The priestly class that often collaborated with Romans (wealthy minority, maybe 10-15%)
Essenes: Withdrew from society entirely (very small group, maybe 2-5%). Their works were discovered later at Qumran, untouched by manipulation.
Common People: The remaining 20-40% were what historians call the "'am ha'aretz" - farmers, laborers, artisans, and working people who focused on daily survival rather than politics
The zealots were indeed a minority, but their dramatic actions (like the siege of Masada) tend to be remembered in popular history. The majority of Jewish people were trying to survive under harsh occupation while maintaining their religious identity.
When Rabbi Haninah ben Teradion was burned alive clutching a Torah scroll in 135 AD, his words captured the resilience that would define Jewish survival: "I see the scrolls burning but the letters fly up in the air." This metaphor for the victory of ideas over brute force would prove prophetic - despite nearly 2,000 years of diaspora and persecution, Jewish culture survived.
The Library of Alexandria and Constantinople: The Last of Ancient Knowledge
While popular imagination often blames a single catastrophic fire for Alexandria's destruction, the reality was more complex and tragic. The decline began in 145 BC when scholars fled political purges, accelerated when Julius Caesar accidentally burned part of the collection in 48 BC, and continued through centuries of neglect and periodic destruction.
More significant was the Imperial Library of Constantinople, which served as the last great repository of ancient knowledge. For nearly 1,000 years, this library preserved classical Greek and Roman texts that had been lost elsewhere. The first major destruction came in 473 AD when fire destroyed 120,000 volumes, but the collection was partially rebuilt.
The final catastrophe came during the Fourth Crusade in 1204. Western crusaders, supposedly fighting for Christianity, instead sacked the Christian city of Constantinople and burned its library. This single act effectively ended the last institutional connection between the modern world and classical antiquity. Unlike Alexandria's slow decline, Constantinople's destruction was sudden and complete - the final link to the ancient world was severed in a day.
Medieval Censorship: The Church Takes Control
The rise of Christianity brought new forms of book burning. In 325 AD, the Council of Nicaea ordered the burning of Arian texts that challenged orthodox theology. By 367 AD, Bishop Athanasius commanded Egyptian monks to destroy all "unacceptable writings," creating the first official list of approved Christian texts.
The pattern intensified throughout the medieval period. In 1121, the brilliant theologian Peter Abelard was forced to burn his own book at the Synod of Soissons. His student Arnold of Brescia suffered an even worse fate—executed in 1155, with all his writings so thoroughly destroyed that historians today don't even know what they contained.
The Church's campaign against the Cathars in the 13th century represented perhaps the most systematic destruction of alternative Christian thought. Nearly every Cathar text was eliminated, forcing modern historians to rely mainly on hostile accounts from their persecutors to understand their beliefs.
The Assault on Jewish Learning
Jewish books faced particular persecution throughout European history. In 1242, the French crown burned approximately 12,000 copies of the Talmud in Paris after a staged "trial" found the text guilty of blasphemy. Pope after pope organized public burnings—in 1243, 1256, 1316, 1555, 1566, and 1592.
The invention of the printing press around 1450 initially seemed to make book burning obsolete—how could authorities destroy every copy of a printed book? Yet the persecution continued. Venice burned Talmudic texts in 1553 and again in 1568. In 1589, Pope Sixtus V banned all books by Jews or Muslims, beginning a 17-year campaign of destruction.
Beyond Europe: A Global Phenomenon
The Mongol Destruction
The Mongol invasions of the 13th century represent perhaps the most systematic destruction of knowledge in human history. Starting in the 1220s, Mongol forces under Genghis Khan destroyed the libraries of Bukhara, Samarkand, and Merv—major centers of Islamic learning that contained vast collections of Persian and Arabic texts. The destruction was so complete that many cities remained in ruins for centuries.
The climax came in 1258 when Hulagu Khan (Genghis Khan's grandson) destroyed Baghdad's House of Wisdom, the Islamic world's greatest library and the center of the "Golden Age" of Islam. The scale of destruction was staggering: so many books were thrown into the Tigris River that the water ran black with ink for six months. Some accounts claim enough books were dumped to form a bridge that could support a man on horseback. This single act effectively ended Baghdad's role as the center of Islamic learning and marked the conclusion of Islam's golden age of science and philosophy.
The Maya Codex Catastrophe
In the Americas, the Spanish conquest brought its own devastating book burning. In 1562, Franciscan friar Diego de Landa ordered the burning of 27 Maya codices and 5,000 religious images in Maní, Yucatan. Landa later wrote that he found "a large number of books" but burned them all because they contained "nothing in which were not to be seen as superstition and lies of the devil." This single act destroyed the written records of the only indigenous Americans with a true writing system. Today, only 3-4 Maya codices survive worldwide from an entire civilization's literary heritage—representing perhaps the most complete destruction of a people's written knowledge in history.
Chinese Cycles of Destruction
China experienced repeated cycles of systematic book destruction across multiple dynasties. The most famous example occurred in 213 BC when Emperor Qin Shi Huang ordered the burning of all books except those on medicine, agriculture, and divination. This was part of his campaign to eliminate competing philosophies like Confucianism and establish Legalism as the sole ideology. Scholars were also executed for possessing forbidden texts.
During the Qing Dynasty in the 1700s, Emperor Qianlong ordered the destruction of about 3,000 "evil" titles, with tens of thousands of individual copies burned and 53 authors executed along with their families. In 1900, during the Boxer Rebellion, the ancient Hanlin Yuan library—described as "the oldest and richest library in the world"—was burned, reducing a collection of over 11,000 volumes accumulated since 1407 to just 800 surviving texts.
Ancient African Knowledge Systems Under Attack
Beyond the well-documented cases from Timbuktu and Ethiopia, ancient Africa possessed sophisticated knowledge systems that faced systematic destruction. The Kingdom of Kush (also known as Nubia) flourished between 1069 BCE and 350 CE in what is now Sudan, developing its own writing system called Meroitic script that "to date, has not been deciphered." When Egyptian pharaoh Thutmose I conquered the Kushite capital of Kerma around 1506 BCE, "his forces sacked and burned the city, desecrating its great temple with the unsettling inscription, 'There is not one of them left. The Nubian bowmen have fallen to slaughter, and are laid low throughout their land.'"
This pattern of cultural destruction continued throughout African history. The systematic nature of knowledge destruction in Africa often followed colonial conquest, where European powers systematically acquired manuscripts through "unequal transactions, seizure by colonial administrations, and looting in military campaigns." The result was "epistemic violence" - cutting African students off from their own intellectual traditions while European scholars used these same texts to interpret African history through foreign lenses.
The broader implications are staggering: while we know about Timbuktu's manuscripts and Kushite inscriptions, countless other African knowledge systems vanished entirely. The Meroitic script remains undeciphered partly because so much of the supporting literature was destroyed. As archaeologists note, "for decades everything found in Nubian was either categorized as 'decadent' and 'peripheral' or as derived from Egypt," demonstrating how systematically African intellectual achievements were erased from historical consciousness.
Colonial India: Systematic Educational Destruction
British colonial rule in India perfected a more insidious form of knowledge destruction—dismantling entire educational systems through policy rather than fire. In 1835, Lord Macaulay's English Education Act systematically destroyed traditional Indian education, with Macaulay infamously declaring that "a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia." The goal was explicit: to create "a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals and in intellect."
The destruction was comprehensive. After the 1857 uprising, British authorities made teaching in Sanskrit or regional languages illegal, turning traditional gurukulas into "punishable offenses." The result was the closure of "lakhs of gurukuls across the country" with "many Acharyas and disciples even being imprisoned or killed for disobeying the law." A functioning system of 12,498 temple-based primary schools was eliminated, while 732,000 revenue villages were heavily taxed so they "were unable to fund their local gurukuls and patashalas."
Meanwhile, the Asiatic Society of Bengal systematically "collected all ancient and contemporary manuscripts of all languages," amassing 47,000 manuscripts in 26 scripts—effectively transferring India's written heritage to British control. British scholars studied these texts to understand Indian knowledge systems, then claimed credit for the discoveries while portraying Indian civilization as backward. This represents perhaps the most successful campaign of cultural destruction in history—eliminating a functioning educational system that served millions, then convincing the victims that the destruction was progress.
Ireland's Lost Forests: A Different Kind of Destruction
While not strictly book burning, Ireland's deforestation represents another form of cultural destruction. Over six millennia, Ireland's forest cover dropped from 80% to just 1% by 1900. This wasn't accidental—it was systematic destruction designed to eliminate hiding places for Irish rebels and extract wealth for English industries.
The most intensive period came between 1540 and 1660, when English policy explicitly called for clear-felling rather than sustainable management. Elizabeth I ordered the destruction of Irish woodlands partly to deprive insurgents of shelter, following the proverb that "the Irish will never be tamed while the leaves are on the trees."
This ecological destruction parallels book burning in its erasure of cultural identity. Ireland's vanished forests, like its suppressed Gaelic language, represent lost elements of national heritage that took centuries to partially restore.
Modern Echoes: Book Burning in the Contemporary World
The destructive impulse didn't end with the rise of the modern world. The Soviet Union perfected systematic book destruction as a tool of ideological control, with libraries circulating "long lists of books, pamphlets and pictures to be burnt on sight" after Stalin's rise to power. Soviet libraries eventually "lost almost all of their book collections due to the various purges over the years," becoming "void of any substantial books because the harsh censorship."
In 1981, the Jaffna Public Library in northern Sri Lanka—one of Asia's largest libraries with over 97,000 books—was burned by Sinhalese security forces in what became one of the most violent examples of ethnic biblioclasm of the modern era. The library's destruction specifically targeted Tamil-language works, representing systematic cultural erasure as part of ethnic conflict.
Religious persecution also continued to target sacred texts. In 1984, during India's Operation Blue Star at the Golden Temple, Indian forces destroyed the Sikh Reference Library, which contained invaluable manuscripts and historical records that have never been recovered.
The pattern continues today. In 2015, Russian officials burned over 50 books deemed "alien to Russian ideology," drawing immediate comparisons to Nazi book burning. During the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Russian forces burned books from libraries in Mariupol and threw away entire collections from university libraries.
The threat continued into the 21st century. In 2012-2013, Islamic militants in Timbuktu destroyed approximately 4,200 manuscripts. However, this modern attack also produced one of history's greatest rescue operations: librarian Abdel Kader Haidara and local families successfully evacuated 350,000 manuscripts to safety over nine months, demonstrating the enduring commitment to preserving African knowledge despite centuries of assault.
The Nazi Bibliocaust
The 20th century's most infamous book burning occurred in Nazi Germany. On May 10, 1933, university students in 34 German cities burned over 25,000 books by Jewish, American, and other "undesirable" authors. Works by Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, Ernest Hemingway, and Helen Keller fed the flames while 40,000 people gathered in Berlin to hear propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels declare "the era of extreme Jewish intellectualism is now at an end."
Helen Keller's response proved prophetic: "History has taught you nothing if you think you can kill ideas. Tyrants have tried to do that often before, and the ideas have risen up in their might and destroyed them."
American media called it a "holocaust of books" and a "bibliocaust"—terms that would take on even darker meaning as Nazi persecution escalated from burning books to burning people.
Survival Against the Odds
Despite centuries of systematic destruction, some books survived through extraordinary circumstances. The Sarajevo Haggadah, a 14th-century illuminated Jewish manuscript, exemplifies the precarious survival of threatened knowledge. Hidden in a village mosque during World War II by an Islamic scholar, then rescued again during the 1992 Siege of Sarajevo by a Muslim librarian, this single book represents the courage of individuals who risked everything to preserve cultural heritage.
Such stories remind us that books survive not through the protection of institutions, but through the dedication of individuals who understand their value. As one Jewish tradition says about the burning of the Torah: "I see the scrolls burning but the letters fly up in the air"—a metaphor for the ultimate victory of ideas over brute force.
The Fragility of Knowledge
What becomes clear from this history is how fragile our accumulated knowledge really is. Books don't preserve themselves—they require continuous copying, care, and protection. Of Euclid's works, we have six and have lost six. Archimedes wrote about 30 works; only 10 survive. The playwright Euripides created roughly 80 plays; we have 19.
These aren't just statistics—they represent the permanent loss of human achievement. Every burned book contained ideas, stories, and knowledge that can never be recovered. We can only imagine what insights, innovations, or artistic achievements disappeared in the flames of Alexandria, Nalanda, Baghdad, or Nazi Germany.
Modern Implications
While physical book burning may seem like a relic of the past, the underlying impulses remain. Digital censorship, banned book lists, and attacks on libraries continue the same pattern of suppressing ideas deemed dangerous or unacceptable. The methods may change, but the motivation remains constant: the belief that controlling information can control people.
As German writer Heinrich Heine prophetically warned in 1856: "Where one burns books, one will soon burn people." This observation proved tragically accurate 77 years later when the Nazis escalated from bibliocaust to Holocaust.
The Eternal Struggle
The facts surrounding known events of book burnings through time reveals a fundamental tension in human civilization between those who would preserve knowledge and those who want to destroy it. Each burning attempts to remove more than paper and ink: it attempts to erase a collective human experience, and put a cap on knowledge transfer, and diminish creativity.
Yet this shared story also shows the remarkable resilience of ideas. Despite systematic campaigns of destruction, thoughts and knowledge find ways to survive, often through the courage of individuals who recognize their value. The Sarajevo Haggadah, hidden by people of different faiths who understood its importance, symbolizes humanity's better nature—the impulse to preserve rather than destroy, to include rather than exclude.
As we face new challenges to intellectual freedom, the lessons of history remain clear: societies that burn books eventually burn people, while those that preserve diverse voices and protect free expression create the conditions for human flourishing. The choice between destruction and preservation remains as relevant today as it was 5,000 years ago in ancient Egypt.
Timeline of Book Burning and Knowledge Destruction
From Mesopotamian rulers refusing to name their enemies, to Egyptian pharaohs erasing entire dynasties, to modern digital censorship, the fundamental impulse remains the same: control the past to control the present.
Ancient Foundations (5000 BC - 500 AD)
3000-2000 BC in Mesopotamia, Early Mesopotamian erasure from Lagash avoiding naming rival rulers
Inscriptions from Lagash describe conflicts with Umma but deliberately avoid naming Umma's ruler, calling him only "the man of Umma" to degrade him.
Horemheb literally rewrote chronology, backdating his reign to erase 30 years of history
1506 BC - Kushite Capital Burned (Africa)
Egyptian pharaoh Thutmose I conquered and burned the Kushite capital of Kerma
His forces "sacked and burned the city, desecrating its great temple"
Inscription left: "There is not one of them left. The Nubian bowmen have fallen to slaughter, and are laid low throughout their land"
Systematic destruction of ancient African knowledge systems
Kingdom of Kush had developed Meroitic script writing system that remains undeciphered today
1479 BC - Hatshepsut (c. 1479-1458 BC):
Egyptian Queen Hatshepsut "suffered a campaign of persecution — at many monuments throughout Egypt, her images and names have been systematically hacked out."
At Deir el-Bahri "all of her statues were torn down" and at Karnak "there was an attempt to wall up her obelisks." The purpose was likely political: "to ensure a smooth succession for the son of Thutmose III, the future Amenhotep II, as opposed to any of the surviving relatives of Hatshepsut who had an equal, or better, claim to the throne."
Egypt perfected damnatio memoriae as calculated political strategy. Hatshepsut's systematic erasure establishing the Egyptian damnatio memoriae template, later taken over by Rome
The mummy believed to be that of Hatshepsut was discovered in 1903 by archaeologist Howard Carter in a small, ransacked tomb (KV60) in the Valley of the Kings. After identifying only one of the two mummies in the tomb, Carter left the other behind. The second mummy remained unidentified until 2007, when a crucial discovery solved the mystery.
The identification was confirmed through a series of forensic tests on a unique piece of evidence found in a box of Hatshepsut's viscera (internal organs): a single tooth
Carter found two female mummies in Tomb KV60. The tomb had been previously looted, and he identified only the mummy of Hatshepsut's wet nurse, Sitre-In. The second, heavier mummy was left behind on the floor.
After Hatshepsut's death around 1458 BCE, her stepson Thutmose III attempted to erase her legacy by defacing her monuments and destroying her statues. This act of historical revisionism, which included moving her body out of her primary tomb, is the reason her mummy was found in an obscure, forgotten burial spot.
1353 BC - The Amarna Period (c. 1353-1292 BC) - Even More Systematic:
Most comprehensive ancient erasure: Pharaoh Horemheb systematically destroyed every trace of "heretic pharaoh" Akhenaten
Temples to Aten were dismantled and stones reused for other temples
Images of Akhenaten had their faces chipped away
Akhenaten's memory suffered complete damnatio memoriae (Latin term later appropriated)- "temples to Aten were dismantled and the stones reused to create other temples. Images of Akhenaten had their faces chipped away." Horemheb "razed Akhetaten and dumped the ruins of the monuments and stelae into pits as fill for his own monuments. So thorough was Horemheb's work that Akhenaten was wiped from Egyptian history."
The erasure was so complete that "his name was never mentioned again in any kind of records, and where his reign needed to be cited, he was referred to only as 'the heretic of Akhetaten.'" Horemheb even "backdated his reign in official inscriptions to that of Amenhotep III to completely blot out the memory of Akhenaten, Tutankhamun, and the vizier Ay" - essentially erasing 30 years of history.
Akhenaten was lost to history until 19th-century rediscovery of Amarna
1319 BC: Egyptian Pharaoh Horemheb literally rewrote chronology, backdating his reign to erase 30 years of history
600 BC: Pythagorus Killed
After decades spent in Egypt and Mesopotamia learning from the experts, and essentially creating his own schools and religion, he and his top 40 students and their families are murdered.
Mob violence: While living in Croton (in modern-day Italy), Pythagoras ran a secretive religious and scientific society that influenced the city's politics. This led to a backlash from local aristocrats and democrats.
Burning of the school: A wealthy nobleman named Cylon, who was rejected from the society, is said to have incited a mob to burn down the Pythagorean meeting house. Accounts differ, with some saying Pythagoras died in the attack and others saying he escaped to Metapontum, where he later died.
Later persecutions: Even after Pythagoras' death, attacks against his society continued. Their meeting houses were burned and sacked in the mid-5th century BCE, forcing surviving Pythagoreans to flee into exile.
Secretive tradition: Pythagoras and his inner circle, known as the akousmatikoi, were notoriously secretive and prohibited their teachings from being written down. This means no authentic writings by Pythagoras have survived.
Though the original works of Pythagoras and many followers were lost, their ideas survived because later philosophers, such as Philolaus and Plato, wrote about them.
500 BC: Greeks killed for saying the sun is NOT a God.
The philosopher Anaxagoras (c. 500–428 BCE) was sentenced to death and exiled from Athens for impiety after publicly declaring the Sun was not a god but a fiery rock.
He also correctly explained that the Moon reflected sunlight. Anaxagoras's ideas were considered blasphemous and a threat to traditional beliefs.
213 BC: Chinese Book Burning:
China's first systematic book burning under Emperor Qin Shi Huang, including the execution of 460 scholars
Approximately 460 scholars executed for possessing forbidden texts. Established template of destroying competing philosophies to enforce uniformity
Part of campaign to eliminate competing philosophies like Confucianism and establish Legalism as sole ideology
The most famous Chinese example occurred in 213 BC when Emperor Qin Shi Huang ordered the burning of all books except those on medicine, agriculture, and divination. This was part of his campaign to eliminate competing philosophies like Confucianism and establish Legalism as the sole ideology. Modern historians debate the exact details, but scholars agree that Qin Shi Huang destroyed many works he considered subversive, and likely had scholars killed (though probably not buried alive as later claimed)
168 BC - Jewish Books Burned in Jerusalem
The Greek ruler Antiochus IV (from the Seleucid Empire in Syria) ordered Jewish holy books called "Books of the Law" to be torn up and burned in Jerusalem
In the same year, books were still being translated elsewhere in the Empire - but in Alexandria, Egypt.
This was part of his attempt to force Greek culture on the Jewish people
The book burning helped trigger the famous Maccabee revolt (Jewish rebellion against Greek rule) - the event that inspired the beloved “Hannukah” celebrations, and of oil for one day lasting 8 nights.
Established pattern of religious authorities destroying texts that challenged their power
145 BC - Library of Alexandria (Egypt) Begins to Decline
Political troubles in Egypt forced scholars to flee the famous Library of Alexandria
This began the slow destruction of the world's greatest collection of ancient knowledge
The purge of scholars followed, as Ptolemy VIII expelled all foreign intellectuals from Alexandria. This included the head librarian, Aristarchus of Samothrace, who fled to Cyprus.
Others say he quit and moved to Cyprus for the fun of it.
Scholarly diaspora resulted in a mass exodus of academics across the Mediterranean. This dispersal of knowledge undermined the library's status as the world's leading center of scholarship.
83 BC - Roman Religious Books Lost
The Sibylline Books (Roman religious prophecies) were destroyed when the Temple of Jupiter burned down during a Roman civil war
These were important religious texts that Romans consulted for guidance
60 BC: Historian Diodorus writes a summary of history in Alexandria, Egypt, prior to its destruction
48 BC - Caesar Accidentally Burns Part of Alexandria
During a civil war, Roman general Julius Caesar accidentally set fire to part of the Library of Alexandria
This wasn't intentional, but it destroyed many irreplaceable books
31 BC - Mark Antony's Systematic Erasure (Rome)
After defeat at Actium, Octavian (Augustus) systematically erased Mark Antony from history
Antony's statues destroyed, name chiseled from monuments
Reputation rewritten as weak man seduced by evil foreign queen Cleopatra
Served Augustus perfectly: painted himself as Rome's savior from Eastern corruption
Template for eliminating political rivals through historical revision
Julius Caesar had also been involved with Cleopatra, but dead heroes could be romanticized
13 BC - Roman Emperor Burns Prophecies
Roman Emperor Augustus ordered over 2,000 copies of Greek and Latin prophecy books to be burned
He kept only the official Roman religious books and destroyed all the rest
0 BC/AD
Roman Damnatio Memoriae - Systematic Imperial Erasure
As many as 26 emperors suffered damnatio memoriae through Constantine's reign
Conversely, about 25 emperors were deified after death
An estimated 25 full civilizations completely erased by Rome - names unknown today
Practice so common that if whole emperors could be erased, nobody was safe
Major Roman Emperors Who Suffered Damnatio Memoriae:
Caligula (37-41 AD): Though never formally condemned, successor Claudius deemed retrospective punishment distasteful
Nero (68 AD): Declared enemy of state while still alive; statues attacked and removed from public view
Domitian (81-96 AD): "It was our delight to dash those proud faces to the ground, to smite them with the sword and savage them with [axes]"
Geta (212 AD): Murdered by brother Caracalla; became "capital offense to even speak the name of the younger co-emperor"
Commodus (192 AD): "The statues of the murdered and gladiator, let them be cast down"
Roman Systematic Destruction Methods:
Iconoclasm: Every statue destroyed, removing physical reminders
Documentary Purges: Names chiseled from inscriptions; official records altered or burned
Dynastic Shame: Descendants lost right to use honorific Imperator
Public Violence: "Hurled down, beat down, and dragged down all his images, as though they were thereby treating the man himself"
13 BC - Roman Emperor Burns Prophecies
Roman Emperor Augustus ordered over 2,000 copies of Greek and Latin prophecy books burned
Kept only official Roman religious books, destroyed all others
25 AD - Roman Senator Killed for Writing History
Roman Senator Aulus Cremutius Cordus forced to kill himself for writing history book that praised Julius Caesar's assassins
Roman authorities burned his history book
25 AD - Roman Senator Killed for Writing History
Roman Senator Aulus Cremutius Cordus was forced to kill himself because he wrote a history book that praised the men who killed Julius Caesar
Roman authorities burned his history book
50 AD - Torah Burning Nearly Causes Revolt
A Roman soldier publicly burned a Jewish Torah scroll (sacred Jewish text) and mocked it
This almost caused all the Jewish people in the region to revolt against Rome
The Roman governor had to execute the soldier to calm things down
55 AD - Early Christians Burn Magic Books
New Christian converts in the Greek city of Ephesus burned their old magic and sorcery books
The burned books were worth 50,000 drachmas (about $4 million in today's money)
This was voluntary - they burned their own books when they converted to Christianity
66-73 AD - First Jewish-Roman War and Temple Destruction
The First Jewish-Roman War (Great Revolt), which ended with the destruction of the Second Temple
While much of this is quite controversial, here are the facts: the systematic Roman destruction of Jewish society, the forced diaspora, and the deliberate erasure of Jewish connection to their homeland through renaming Judea. This was indeed one of history's most complete examples of cultural destruction - not just burning books, but attempting to eliminate an entire people's connection to their homeland and identity.
Jewish society split into different factions on how to respond to harsh Roman occupation:
Pharisees: Accommodated Roman rule while maintaining religious practices (largest group, maybe 40-50%)
Sadducees: Priestly class that often collaborated with Romans (wealthy minority, maybe 10-15%)
Zealots: Militant faction favoring armed resistance (small minority, maybe 5-10%)
Essenes: Withdrew from society entirely (very small group, maybe 2-5%)
Common People: ( 20-40%)
The remaining 20-40% would have been what historians often call the "'am ha'aretz" - literally "people of the land."
Farmers, laborers, artisans, and other working people
Many were religiously observant but not formally aligned with any particular sect
Generally focused on daily survival rather than political or religious philosophy
Some were sympathetic to different factions but not active members
Often illiterate and left few historical records, so they're less documented
It's important to note that these population estimates are rough approximations based on limited ancient sources. Most historical records from this period focus on the elite and politically active groups, so the experiences of common people are often underrepresented.
Tthe "silent majority" of ordinary people who just tried to get by under Roman occupation often remain historically invisible.
Additionally, there were other smaller groups like:
Herodians: Supporters of the Herodian dynasty (Roman client rulers)
Sicarii: An even more extreme militant group than the Zealots
Various smaller religious sects and local variations
War ended in 70 AD with Romans destroying the Second Temple and burning Jewish religious texts
Massive loss of life and displacement of Jewish population
73 AD: Total Roman Destruction of the Jewish people
The complexity of Jewish responses to Roman occupation is an important part of this story. Dynamics within Jewish society during the Roman occupation resulted in different factions with very different approaches to Roman rule: (a study in how people respond to chaos and death of their whole people)
Zealots: The militant faction that favored armed resistance (vast minority)
Pharisees: Generally more accommodating to Roman rule while maintaining religious practices (had wealth, and wanted to hold onto it, so played along with the rules of the Romans)
Sadducees: The priestly class that often collaborated with Romans
Essenes: A sect that withdrew from society entirely (their works were discovered later, untouched by manipulation).
The zealots were indeed a minority, but their dramatic actions (like the siege of Masada) tend to be what gets remembered in popular history. The majority of Jewish people were trying to survive under harsh occupation while maintaining their religious identity.
79 AD: Roman/Jewish Love Affair
In 79 AD, after the Roman destruction of Jerusalem, Queen Julia Berenice was a powerful Jewish queen who had a love affair with the Roman general Titus, who was the son of Emperor Vespasian and future emperor himself. Though he (and his father) had totally annhialated the Jewish way of life, Queen Berenice returned to Rome with this Roman Titus in 75 AD, becoming his lover, living in his Roman palace. There are rumors he wanted to marry her, but was forced to send her away the year he came to the throne (most likely as an ultimatum) due to Roman public opinion against the relationship. (Marrying a foreign woman was illegal, and this was only 100 years after Cleopatra and Caesar/Antony romances). There was even talk of her being a ‘new Cleopatra’.
From 27 BC until 212 AD, there was a Roman law that banned Roman men from marrying foreign women. This started after Cleopatra, but obviously did not stop anyone from falling in love.
Emperor Augustus passed laws in 18 BC that restricted marriage to promote "traditional" Roman morality. These laws prohibited senators and their descendants from marrying freedpeople. He also prohibited soldiers from marrying while on active duty (and abroad). These rules were lifted in the 200’s AD, then initiated again in 370 AD, when new laws prohibited marriage between Romans and people from "barbarian" tribes living outside Roman borders. Illegal marriages were punishable with death.
Another decade later, Roman laws were passed banning marriage between Christians and Jews. Emperors Valentinian II, Theodosius I, and Arcadius made interfaith marriage illegal, classifying it as adultery punishable by law.
Even this did not keep her away: she briefly returned to Rome a couples years later, but after Titus died in 81 AD (most likely murdered by his brother), her final leaving from Rome marked the end of her presence in the historical record (the Peacock documentary “Those About to Die” insinuates she was killed).
Titus’ treatment of the defeated Jews was infamously brutal. His most notorious act was to have the Great Temple of Jerusalem destroyed (its only remainder today, the only piece of the temple to survive Titus’ wrath, is the famous ‘Wailing Wall’ – the most holy place to followers of the Jewish faith).
115-117 AD: The Kitos War (second major Jewish revolt)
132-135 AD - Bar Kokhba Revolt (third major Jewish revolt) and Final Destruction
Romans renamed Judea to "Syria Palaestina" around 135 AD.
Removing them from their homeland, making Hebrew a “dead” language for 200 years, illegal to be spoken, and the Roman overlords changing the name of the Jewish lands of Judea to “palestine” from the ancient Jewish enemy: “Phillistines”, known as “invaders”, aka the foreign Aegean (Greek islanders) people who were defeated. So the renaming of Jewish lands to “Palestine” was to remove the Jewish people from their namesake. The word “Palestinian” literally means “foreign invader”.
Under Roman Emperor Hadrian, teaching Jewish scriptures became illegal after the final major Jewish revolt
After crushing this revolt, Romans renamed Judea to "Syria Palaestina" to erase Jewish connection to the land
This began nearly 2,000 years of Jewish diaspora (dispersion) from their homeland
132 AD - Jewish Teacher Burned with Torah
Rabbi Haninah ben Teradion was burned alive while holding a Torah scroll
According to Jewish tradition, he told his students "I see the scrolls burning but the letters fly up in the air" - meaning ideas can't be destroyed by force
160 AD - Greek Philosophy Book Burned
A religious charlatan named Alexander burned books by the Greek philosopher Epicurus in a public marketplace
Epicurus taught that people should seek happiness and avoid fear
Early Christian Period (300-600 AD)
302 AD - Romans Burn Persian Religious Books
Roman Emperor Diocletian ordered that followers of Manichaeism (a Persian religion of the sun god as central) be burned alive along with their holy books
This was part of Roman persecution of non-traditional religions
303 AD - Large-Scale Christian Persecution Begins
The same Emperor Diocletian ordered a Christian church torn down and all Christian scriptures burned
This began years of systematic persecution where both Christians and their books were destroyed
325 AD - Christians Burn Other Christians' Books
The Council of Nicaea (a meeting of Christian bishops) ordered the burning of books by Arius, a Christian priest
Arius taught that Jesus was not equal to God the Father - this was declared heretical (against official Christian teaching)
364 AD - Entire Library Burned
Roman Emperor Jovian ordered the complete burning of the Library of Antioch (in modern-day Turkey)
This library had been built up by the previous emperor who wasn't Christian
367 AD - Bishop Orders Mass Book Burning
Bishop Athanasius of Alexandria ordered monks in Egypt to destroy all "unacceptable writings"
He created the first official list of which Christian books were approved (this became the New Testament)
All other Christian writings were to be burned
385 AD - First Christian Executed by Christians
Priscillian of Ávila became the first Christian to be executed by fellow Christians for heresy
All his writings were declared heretical and burned
Most were thought lost forever, but some copies were rediscovered in the 1800s
391 AD - Last of Alexandria Library Destroyed
The Serapeum (the "daughter library" of Alexandria) was demolished by order of Pope Theophilus
This was the final destruction of what remained of the ancient world's greatest library
435 AD - More Christian Books Burned
Books by Nestorius (a Christian bishop who taught that Jesus had two separate natures) were declared heretical
Emperor Theodosius II ordered them all burned
473 AD: Constantinople/Byzantine Empire:
The Imperial Library of Constantinople, containing over 100,000 volumes including ancient Greek and Roman texts, suffered multiple destructions: it was burned in 473 AD (losing 120,000 volumes), then destroyed again during the Fourth Crusade in 1204 when Christian crusaders from Venice destroyed and stole from its own city and burned the library. In this 4th Crusade, the “Crusaders” never left home territory.
During the Crusades, when Christian crusaders captured Tripoli in 1109, they destroyed the Banu Ammar library, "at that time, the finest Muslim library in the world. About 100,000 books of Muslim learning were cast into the flames."
Medieval Period (600-1400 AD)
650 AD - Official Quran Created, Others Burned
The third Caliph (Islamic leader) Uthman created one official version of the Quran
He ordered all other versions of Islamic holy texts to be burned to prevent confusion
1109 AD: Christian Crusades Destroy Further
During the Crusades, when Christian crusaders captured Tripoli in 1109, they destroyed the Banu Ammar library, "at that time, the finest Muslim library in the world. About 100,000 books of Muslim learning were cast into the flames."
Constantinople was seen as the "last repository of ancient knowledge", with an Imperial Library whose role was in preserving classical texts for nearly 1,000 years.
The Fourth Crusade's destruction of Constantinople ended humanity's direct link to the ancient world.
1085 AD - Trial by Fire in Spain
In Toledo, Spain, Christians couldn't decide between Roman Catholic and local Spanish Christian practices
They threw one book from each tradition into a fire to see which God would save
The Spanish book survived better (probably because it was made of thicker material)
1121 AD - Famous Theologian Forced to Burn Own Book
Peter Abelard, a brilliant Christian scholar and teacher, was declared a heretic
He was forced to burn his own book before being locked up in a monastery
Abelard was famous for his love affair with his student Héloïse
1193 AD - Massive Indian Library Burns for Months
Muslim invaders burned the library of Nalanda in India
This Buddhist and Hindu university library was so huge it reportedly burned for months
It contained hundreds of thousands of books about Eastern philosophy and science
1204 AD: Christian Crusaders Destroy Yet Again
The Fourth Christian Crusade destroys what remained of (its own Christian) library in Constantinople.
During the Fourth Crusade in 1204, Christian crusaders from Venice destroyed and stole from its own city and burned the library of Constantinople. In this 4th Crusade, the “Crusaders” never left home territory, or ever made it to the “Holy Land”.
Constantinople as the final ancient library: The destruction of this library in 1204 AD was actually more significant than Alexandria's fall - it ended the last institutional connection to classical antiquity
1242 AD - 12,000 Jewish Books Burned in Paris
The French king ordered about 12,000 copies of the Talmud (Jewish religious commentary) burned in Paris
The books were put on "trial" and found "guilty" of blasphemy against Christianity
This was the beginning of systematic burning of Jewish books across Europe
At the same time in Spain, in an isolated mountain community, a King is paying for translations of the same Jewish books now being burned in Paris
1258 AD - Baghdad's Great Library Destroyed
Mongol invaders destroyed the House of Wisdom in Baghdad (Iraq)
So many books were thrown into the Tigris River that the water turned black with ink for six months
This library contained much of the Islamic world's scientific and philosophical knowledge
1200s AD - Cathars Wiped Out, Books Destroyed
The Catholic Church waged war against the Cathars, a Christian sect in southern France
Nearly every Cathar book was destroyed to completely eliminate their beliefs
Today, historians know about Cathars mainly from their enemies' writings
1220s AD: Mongol destruction of libraries in Bukhara, Samarkand, and Merv
1258 AD: Middle Eastern Destructions
The Mongol invasions of the 13th century caused massive destruction across the Islamic world. In their first sweep, they destroyed the libraries of Bukhara, Samarkand, and Merv along with many smaller towns. The 1258 destruction of Baghdad was particularly systematic - they burned libraries and threw so many books into the Tigris River that the water ran black with ink, and some accounts claim enough books were thrown in to form a bridge that could support a man on horseback.
The House of Wisdom destruction, including the famous detail about books forming a bridge across the Tigris River
Late Medieval/Renaissance Period (1400-1600 AD)
1401 AD - English Law Orders Book Burning
English Parliament passed a law requiring followers of John Wycliffe (an English priest) to surrender their books
The books were to be burned and anyone who didn't give them up could be burned alive
This was aimed at stopping the Lollard movement, which challenged Catholic authority
1427 AD - Aztec Emperor Burns History Books
Aztec ruler Itzcoatl ordered all historical records burned because it was "not wise that all people should know the paintings"
This allowed the Aztec government to create their own version of history
This happened in what is now Mexico
1452: Pope’s Justification initiates the African Slave Trade
Dum Diversas (1452): In this bull, Pope Nicholas V granted King Afonso V of Portugal the right to "attack, conquer, and subjugate Saracens, pagans, and other enemies of Christ" and to consign them to "perpetual servitude". While originally intended to support Portugal against the Ottoman Empire, it was interpreted as a religious justification for the enslavement of non-Christians and the seizure of their lands.
Romanus Pontifex (1455): A few years later, Nicholas V issued this bull, reinforcing and expanding the grants made in Dum Diversas. It officially granted Portugal a monopoly on trade with Africa, including the slave trade, asserting that their conquest and enslavement of African peoples was for the purpose of their conversion to Christianity.
How the bulls fueled colonialism and slavery
These papal bulls laid the groundwork for the Doctrine of Discovery, a series of 15th-century edicts that provided the moral and legal framework for European conquest and exploitation of Indigenous peoples and Africans.
Authorization for expansion: The bulls confirmed to Portugal—and later, to Spain—that they had exclusive rights over territories they "discovered" and could claim sovereignty over non-Christian lands.
Precedent for further exploitation: The justifications used in the 15th century enabled later popes, such as Pope Alexander VI in 1493, to extend similar permissions for conquest and enslavement to Spain concerning the Americas.
Later popes did condemn slavery under specific conditions, though the effectiveness of these declarations was limited:
1537: Pope Paul III issued the bull Sublimis Deus, which forbade the enslavement of Indigenous peoples of the Americas. However, this did not address the enslavement of Africans, and it was widely ignored by colonial powers.
1839: Pope Gregory XVI issued the bull In supremo apostolatus, which officially condemned the slave trade and the institution of slavery, calling it an "inhuman trade".
1460 AD: Byzantine scholar Gemistus Plethon's heretical works burned
1490 AD - Spanish Inquisition Burns Jewish Books
The Spanish Inquisition (Catholic court system) burned Hebrew Bibles and other Jewish books
This was part of Spain's effort to force Jews to convert to Christianity or leave the country
1499-1500 AD - 5,000 Arabic Books Burned in Spain
Cardinal Cisneros ordered the burning of about 5,000 Arabic manuscripts in Granada, Spain
Only medical books were spared and saved in a library
This happened after Spain conquered the last Muslim kingdom on the peninsula
1520-1521 AD - Protestant vs. Catholic Book Burning
Martin Luther (German Protestant reformer) burned Catholic books
In response, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V banned all of Luther's writings and ordered them burned
This began widespread book burning during the Protestant Reformation
1562 AD: Maya Codex Destruction (1562)
This is perhaps the most catastrophic single book burning in the Americas: Spanish Franciscan Diego de Landa burned 27 Maya codices (though some sources claim "99 times as many") and 5,000 religious images in Maní, Yucatan. Only 3-4 Maya codices survive today worldwide. Landa wrote:
"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."
The Maya destruction was proportionally catastrophic - only 3-4 books survive from an entire civilization's written heritage
1589 AD - Pope Bans All Jewish and Muslim Books
Pope Sixtus V declared that all books written by Jews or Muslims were banned
For 17 years, the Catholic Church systematically destroyed books by non-Christians
Some books survived because Christians were allowed to publish them under Christian names for a fee
1591 AD: Arabs and Europeans Gang up on African Wisdom
An Arab-European invasion into Timbukty, Africa destroyed many manuscripts and took scholars like Ahmad Baba into captivity.
1700 AD - Qing Dynasty Systematic Book Destruction:
Massive Chinese cultural control: During Emperor Qianlong's reign, about 3,000 "evil" titles were decreed for destruction, with tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of individual copies confiscated and burned. 53 authors were executed, sometimes with their families.
1700s-1800s AD: Systematic manuscript appropriation by the Asiatic Society of Bengal
Ireland's Forest Destruction (Parallel Timeline)
10,000 years ago - About 80% of Ireland was covered in forests (so thick a squirrel could travel across the country without touching the ground)
6,000 years ago - Farmers began clearing land for agriculture, starting gradual deforestation
1540s-1660s AD - Systematic English Destruction
English policy deliberately destroyed Irish forests for two reasons:
To make money from timber
To eliminate hiding places for Irish rebels
English saying: "The Irish will never be tamed while the leaves are on the trees"
Queen Elizabeth I specifically ordered woodland destruction
1600 AD - Only 20% of Ireland remained forested
1666 AD - After the Great Fire of London, massive demand for Irish oak to rebuild the city
1900 AD - Only 1% of Ireland remained forested (most complete deforestation in Europe)
2021 AD - Restoration efforts have increased forest cover to 11%
Modern Period (1800-Present)
1835 AD - British Educational Destruction:
Macaulay's English Education Act with his infamous quote comparing Indian literature unfavorably to European books
The English Education Act of 1835 under Lord Macaulay withdrew support for Sanskrit and Arabic education, with Macaulay infamously declaring that "a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia." After 1857, "any Gurukul that teaches in Sanskrit or regional languages is illegal and running such a Gurukul is a punishable offense. This resulted in the closure of lakhs of gurukuls across the country with many Acharyas and disciples even being imprisoned or killed for disobeying the law."
There were previously "12,498 primary schools" connected to temples that provided education
Showed the scale: 12,498 temple schools destroyed, 732,000 villages unable to fund education
The British imposed heavy taxes on "7 lakh 32 thousand revenue villages" so "they were unable to fund their local gurukuls and patashalas"
Traditional manuscript collections in private libraries and gurukulas were dispersed or lost
The Asiatic Society of Bengal "collected all ancient and contemporary manuscripts of all languages. At present it has 47,000 manuscripts in 26 scripts" - effectively transferring India's written heritage to British control.
1856 AD - Prophetic Warning
German writer Heinrich Heine wrote: "Where one burns books, one will soon burn people"
This proved tragically accurate 77 years later
1857 AD - Direct Violence During a Revolt Against the British:
After 1857 uprising, British made teaching in Sanskrit or regional languages illegal
Post-rebellion criminalization of traditional education, closing "lakhs of gurukuls" and imprisoning teachers
"Any Gurukul that teaches in Sanskrit or regional languages is illegal and running such a Gurukul is a punishable offense"
During the 1857 uprising in India, "rebel soldiers attacked Delhi College and destroyed rare Arabic, Persian, and Sanskrit manuscripts" and "attacked Agra College, ransacked the library on 5 July, and destroyed rare Sanskrit and Persian manuscripts, as well as college records."
Resulted in "closure of lakhs of gurukuls across the country with many Acharyas and disciples even being imprisoned or killed"
Functioning system of 12,498 temple-based primary schools eliminated
732,000 revenue villages heavily taxed so "they were unable to fund their local gurukuls and patashalas"
This allowed for a type of “British amnesia” - as overlords, the British systematically dismantled a functioning education system in India that that served millions. The British stole manuscripts and moved them to their own institutions, then claimed superiority over the "backward" system in India they had destroyed. The scale was massive: transforming a decentralized network of hundreds of thousands of gurukulas into a centralized system designed to create "a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals and in intellect.” This represents cultural destruction through policy rather than fire - perhaps more insidious because it was legal and systematic.
Direct manuscript destruction during the rebellion at Delhi and Agra colleges
1868: British soldiers looted massive literary work in Ethiopia
British looting of Ethiopian manuscripts from Magdala
British soldiers ransacked Magdala, Ethiopia, taking thousands of priceless texts
These manuscripts remain in British institutions today
Massive quantities of manuscripts and treasures from Magdala, Ethiopia were looted by the British. Explorer H.M. Stanley wrote that "Over a space growing more and more extended, the thousand articles were scattered until they dotted the surface of the rocky citadel." Today, European institutions hold thousands of Ethiopian Ge'ez manuscripts, creating "epistemic violence" where Ethiopian students can't access their own cultural heritage.
Pattern of colonial appropriation across Africa through "unequal transactions, seizure by colonial administrations, and looting in military campaigns"
Colonial Pattern Across Africa: Manuscripts from across Africa were "acquired in unequal transactions, seized by colonial administrations, looted in military campaigns or bought by collectors with backing from the colonial powers." About 250,000 manuscripts survive in Ethiopia, thousands from medieval Sudan were found at Qasr Ibrim, and approximately one million manuscripts survive across the northern fringes of Guinea and Ghana to the Mediterranean.
1869 AD - Ottoman Empire burns Greek nationalist books
Following its publication in 1869, the book "On the Ancient Cypriots" by Greek Cypriot scholar Ieronymos Myriantheus "was banned by the Ottoman Empire, due to its Greek Nationalist tendencies, and 460 copies of it were burned."
1894: French Destruction of African Wisdom
During French colonial rule (1894-1959), many manuscripts were seized and burned by colonial authorities. Many families still refuse access to researchers today for fear of new pillaging.
Imposed French as dominant language, causing many families to lose ability to read their own cultural heritage
1900 AD - Chinese Hanlin Yuan:
Colonial destruction: During the Boxer Rebellion siege of Beijing, the Hanlin Yuan library—described as "the quintessence of Chinese scholarship...the oldest and richest library in the world"—was burned. Of 11,095 volumes existing in 1407, only about 800 remained by 1900.
1920-1950’s AD - Russian/Soviet Destructions:
Soviet libraries systematically destroyed books deemed "harmful" starting in the 1920s under Lenin and Stalin. Former Soviet diplomat Fyodor Raskolnikov reported that libraries circulated "long lists of books, pamphlets and pictures to be burnt on sight" after Stalin's rise to power. Soviet libraries "lost almost all of their book collections due to the various purges over the years" and "were void of any substantial books because the harsh censorship."
Soviet libraries circulated "long lists of books, pamphlets and pictures to be burnt on sight" after Stalin's rise
Soviet libraries "lost almost all of their book collections due to various purges over the years"
Became "void of any substantial books because the harsh censorship"
Perfected systematic book destruction as tool of ideological control
1933 AD - Nazi Germany's Book Burning
University students in 34 German cities burned over 25,000 books
Books by Jewish authors (Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud), American writers (Ernest Hemingway, Helen Keller), and others were destroyed
40,000 people gathered in Berlin to hear Nazi propaganda minister declare the end of "Jewish intellectualism"
Helen Keller responded: "You can burn my books and the books of the best minds in Europe, but the ideas in them have seeped through a million channels and will continue to quicken other minds"
1941 AD - Sarajevo Haggadah Hidden from Nazis
A Jewish manuscript from 1350 (the Sarajevo Haggadah) was hidden in a village mosque by an Islamic scholar
This saved it from Nazi destruction during World War II
1946 AD - India/Persian Book Printing Presses Shut Down:
Iran suffered book destruction when the Iranian army invaded the territory [Kurdistan], immediately shutting down Kurdish printing presses. They also banned the teaching of Kurdish, and burnt every Kurdish book they could find.
These actions were part of a broader, sustained effort by various Iranian regimes throughout the 20th and 21st centuries to suppress Kurdish identity and culture.
The Republic of Mahabad (January–December 1946): This was a short-lived, self-governing Kurdish state in northwestern Iran that was supported by the Soviet Union. During its brief existence, the republic allowed for the promotion of Kurdish culture, including the operation of Kurdish-language printing presses.
Iranian invasion (December 1946): When the Soviets withdrew their support, the Iranian army invaded and reasserted control over the territory.
Cultural suppression: Upon entering Mahabad, the Iranian forces immediately closed the Kurdish printing presses, banned the teaching of the Kurdish language, and burned every Kurdish book they could find.
Persistent persecution: Iranian regimes have historically suppressed and persecuted the Kurdish people, viewing their distinct ethnic identity as a threat to national unity. This has led to discriminatory policies targeting their culture, identity, and language. The suppression continued and intensified after the 1979 revolution. The regime launched both military campaigns and psychological warfare against the Kurdish population, portraying them negatively in state-controlled media and cinema.
1979 AD - Persistent persecution:
Iranian regimes have historically suppressed and persecuted the Kurdish people, viewing their distinct ethnic identity as a threat to national unity. This has led to discriminatory policies targeting their culture, identity, and language. The suppression continued and intensified after the 1979 revolution. The regime launched both military campaigns and psychological warfare against the Kurdish population, portraying them negatively in state-controlled media and cinema.
1981 AD - Sri Lankan Library Burned:
A modern ethnic cleansing example: The Jaffna Public Library in northern Sri Lanka was burned by Sinhalese security forces, destroying over 97,000 books and manuscripts. At the time, it was one of the biggest libraries in Asia.
Specifically targeted Tamil-language works as systematic cultural erasure
1984 AD - Sikh, Jaffna Public Library Destroyed (Sri Lanka)
One of Asia's largest libraries with over 97,000 books burned by Sinhalese security forces
One of most violent examples of ethnic biblioclasm of modern era
Specifically targeted Tamil-language works as systematic cultural erasure
Religious persecution in India: During India's Operation Blue Star attack on the Golden Temple, Indian forces ransacked the Sikh Reference Library, which held invaluable manuscripts and records related to Sikh and wider history.
The library held a collection of irreplaceable historical documents, rare books, and manuscripts related to Sikh history and religion. Some accounts allege that the library was still intact after the initial fighting subsided and was deliberately set on fire by the army sometime between June 6 and June 14, to conceal the removal of its contents. According to later admissions by the government, much of the library's material was not burned but instead was removed in sacks by military trucks. The materials were then handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for cataloging. While some (less important) items have been returned, the vast majority of the most valuable manuscripts remain unaccounted for. The government also admitted to destroying some items deemed "seditious". Over the years, individual pages and manuscripts have been reported to surface in the black market for historical artifacts.
This contained rare manuscripts of Sikh scriptures, including priceless handwritten birs of various religious leaders, and countless books on Sikh theology and history.
The destruction of the library is considered a deliberate assault on Sikh culture, and controversy has surrounded the event since it occurred.
Many Sikhs believe the destruction of the library was not accidental but a calculated act aimed at erasing the Sikh community's historical and cultural heritage. Some accounts suggest that the CBI was specifically looking for a letter from Prime Minister Indira Gandhi to militant leader Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, but after failing to find it, the army burned the library in a fit of rage.
The tragedy is often characterized as a conflict of "Indians against Indians" due to the significant role played by Indian state forces and the targeting of a community that is an integral part of the country. Many Sikhs view the military action and the destruction of the library as a state-sponsored attack on a minority community, rather than a simple military operation against militants. The event remains a deeply painful part of Sikh history and a source of mistrust toward the Indian government, still harboring evidence of colonial influence and prejudices.
1992 AD - Same Book Saved Again
The Sarajevo Haggadah Jewish manuscript was rescued by a Muslim librarian during the siege of Sarajevo
An Iraqi woman named Aida Buturovic was killed by a sniper while trying to save books from a burning library
2012 AD: Timbuktu (Modern Mali)
The most recent and well-documented case occurred in 2012-2013 when Islamic militants destroyed approximately 4,203 manuscripts from Timbuktu's libraries, though 350,000 manuscripts were successfully evacuated to safety by local librarians and families. This was only a downstream problem, linking us to more ancient documented destructions with much deeper historical roots:
1591, an Arab-European invasion destroyed many manuscripts and took scholars like Ahmad Baba into captivity.
In 1868, British soldiers looted massive quantities of manuscripts and treasures from Magdala, Ethiopia.
During French colonial rule (1894-1959), many manuscripts were seized and burned by colonial authorities.
2012-2013 AD: Modern Islamic militant destruction of 4,200+ manuscripts, but also the heroic rescue of 350,000 manuscripts by local librarians and families
2015 AD - Modern Russian Book Burning
In 2015, officials in northern Russia burned over 50 books deemed "alien to Russian ideology," published by the Soros Foundation.
Published by Soros Foundation, drawing immediate comparisons to Nazi book burning
2020 AD - Targeting language and education:
Iran's constitution recognizes only Persian as the official language, and the teaching and learning of the Kurdish language have been criminalized. In 2020, a Kurdish teacher, Zara Mohammadi, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for teaching her native tongue.
Following the 2022 protests ignited by the death of Jina (Mahsa) Amini, Iranian security forces severely cracked down on protesters in Kurdish regions, leading to numerous deaths, arrests, and the imposition of martial law in cities like Mahabad.
2021 AD - Ireland Forest Recovery
Restoration efforts increased forest cover to 11% (from 1% low point in 1900)
Hoping to reach 18% by 2046
2022 AD - Russian Destruction of Ukrainian Libraries
In 2022, during the invasion of Ukraine, "Russians burned all the books from the library of the church of Petro Mohyla" in Mariupol and "threw away books from the library collections of the Pryazovskyi State Technical University."
During invasion of Ukraine, Russian forces burned books from libraries in Mariupol
"Threw away books from library collections of Pryazovskyi State Technical University"
Shows continuation of same patterns from Stalin's purges to Putin's invasion
Why These Matter:
Maya destruction: Eliminated the written record of the only indigenous Americans with a true writing system
Sri Lankan case: Shows ethnic biblioclasm continues in modern times
Chinese examples: Demonstrate how systematic book burning was used for cultural control across multiple dynasties
Religious persecution: The Sikh example shows how minority religious texts remain targets
Diverse motivations: Religious conversion, ethnic cleansing, political control, colonial domination
Summary of African Manuscript Heritage
Scope of Survival and Loss:
Approximately 1 million manuscripts survive across northern fringes of Guinea and Ghana to Mediterranean
About 250,000 manuscripts survive in Ethiopia
Thousands from medieval Sudan found at Qasr Ibrim
Timbuktu once home to over 700,000 manuscripts spanning astronomy to poetry
Result of colonial appropriation: "epistemic violence" - African students cut off from their own intellectual traditions
Key Terms Explained:
Semitic peoples: Primarily Jews and Arabs, descendants of Abraham
but ANTI-semetism seems to mean “anti-jewish” alone.
Judaism: Religion started as semetic people left Egypt after many generations of peaceful living together
Greeks: Ancient people from Greece who conquered much of the Mediterranean, worshipped Egyptian idols
Romans: Ancient people from Rome who built a massive empire, hated, then conquered and assimilated Egyptian gods
Christians: Followers of jewish religion, revamped and stomped on
Muslims: Followers of Muhammad and Islam (religion began around 610 AD)
Heresy: “choice” in religious doctrine, ie Religious beliefs that go against official christian church teaching
Inquisition: Catholic Church courts that hunted down and punished heretics
Damnatio Memoriae: Roman practice of systematically erasing people from historical memory
Epistemic Violence: Cutting people off from their own intellectual and cultural traditions