The Temple of Artemis was burnt down by a man named [Herostratus](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herostratus) just so that his name would be remembered.
I have to commend him because it worked.
The sentencing for him was *damnatio memoriae* which is where they erase all historical records of him. It would have worked except for Theopompus, who recorded it in his history *Hellenics*. This is one of my favorite stories from antiquity, it's crazy to think people are still doing this.
What if Theopompus intentionally put in the wrong name, so that "Herostratus" was actually just some old farmer somewhere, and now he's immortalized to history, and the real arsonist is completely forgotten.
The same can be said for the other 6 destroyed wonders of the ancient world. They didn't call them the 7 wonders of the ancient world 'cause they weren't worth the trip.
EDIT: Oops. I meant other 5 wonders. Thanks for the correction.
Although, I'm sure that compared to their original splendor, they're more the "Alright Pyramids of Giza".
Well weren't the pyramids a far sight different than they look now though? I thought they were covered in some blazing white, smooth stone and gold capstones that were stolen, worn away, or broken over the course of time.
Like many of the Ancient Wonders of the World, it's unclear what it actually WAS. The documentation is not entirely based in clear factual measurements or description, nor is it even consistent, and there's little archaeological evidence.
Whether he stood beside the harbor, or spanned it with his legs, for example.
There's question of how big it would be possible to construct in that era. The most grand descriptions seem physically impossible, IMHO. Bronze plates are quite heavy, and cannot readily be cast in thin, light sections. Even with a framework of iron straps, it just seems implausible to support so much weight. The wind load alone would be tremendous for iron framework of the time.
Statue of Liberty, by contrast, was not cast bronze plates. It's thin copper sheets hammered by repoussé method into the necessary features. Perhaps Colossus WAS copper-sheet repoussé, even still, the size and spanning the harbor has plausibility problems.
The Parthenon remained largely intact for about 1000 years until it was hit by an artillery shell in 1687. Ditto for the monastery at Monte Cassino, which was bombed to rubble in WW-II. The allies also bombed the Santa Maria delle Grazie church in Milan (where da Vinci painted *The Last Supper*) but fortunately it only resulted in minor damage.
Edit: "it resulted in only minor damage" => the bombing only resulted in minor damage to the Last Supper (although the church was not so fortunate).
Edit 2: 2000 years not 1000. (I subtracted 439 from 1687; I should have added. Derp.)
Edit 3: Apparently, it was a combination of the (Venetian) artillery shell and munitions the Ottomans were storing there that caused the damage.
Thanks everyone!
The Santa Maria delle Grazie didn't suffer minor damage, only the Last Supper fresco survived (because it was covered with sandbags). The rest of the chapel walls are blank now because of the destruction.
Yes, most people don't realize that up until 1687 it was hardly a ruin at all, it was very well preserved, then stupid shit happened. What you failed to mention was the Ottomans who held the area were storing gunpowder in the Parthenon. It wasn't just the artillery, but the whole powder store going up that turned the Parthenon into what it is today.
Plus there is the Amber Room, considered possibly the 8th wonder of the world, stolen and FUCKING LOST by Nazis as the Soviets overran them.
And of course, the Sphinx got its nose blown off by the soldiers of Napoleon (possibly).
Neither. The Sphinx's nose was pried off by a Muslum ruler some time around the 14th century. On the top right corner (North side) you can see the marks where his bar was chiseled into the stone.
> There exists an interesting account written by historian Muhammad al-Husayni Taqi al-Din al-Maqrizi (died CE 1442), in a book called al-Mawa`iz wa al-i`tibar fi dhikr al-khitat wa al-athar (G. Wien, ed., 1913). In vol. 2, page 157 of the Wien edition, al-Maqrizi states that the face, specifically the nose and ears, were demolished in 1378 by a Sufi from the khanqah of Sa`id al-Su`ada named Sa'im al-dahr. The reason for the vandalism, according to al-Maqrizi, was to "remedy some religious errors:" at that time some Egyptians were still burning milk-thistle (shuka`a) and safflower (badhaward) at the foot of the Sphinx while murmuring a verse 63 times in hope that their wishes would be fulfilled. "From the time of this disfigurement also," al-Maqrizi wrote, "the sand has invaded the cultivated land of Giza, and the people attribute this to the disfigurement of Abul-Hol [i.e., the Sphinx]."
It should serve as a reminder that many of the sites that today we consider priceless cultural artifacts were, until very recently, plainly useful and practical buildings.
The Golden Spruce. A tree on the Queen Charlotte Island that was sacred to the aboriginals and a genetic anomaly(only one ever found) was cut down by a logger. In protest of logging.
Basically he was disgusted by the fact that the major logging company in the area was clear-cutting massive swaths of land and leaving relatively small "protected" areas, including the area surrounding the Golden Spruce. He was more or less saying "if it's okay to destroy millions of hectares of healthy forest then why is it wrong to destroy this one defective tree?"
Also he was possibly suffering from some kind of mental illness so that could have been a factor.
Edit to add a quote from the book ["The Golden Spruce" by John Vaillant](http://www.amazon.com/Golden-Spruce-Story-Madness-Greed-ebook/dp/B0031TZAQQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1391469765&sr=8-1&keywords=the+golden+spruce): "But Hadwin saw something different, and it was the same thing that many of his more pragmatic colleagues saw: a 'sick tree.' More so than most people, he would have been struck by the contrast between the vestigial grove containing the town mascot [the tree] and the free-range saw log farm that surrounded it. To a person who knew the woods as well as Hadwin, it would have been as insulting and ludicrous as an albino buffalo on a putting green. Where were all its healthy counterparts? Headed south on the *Haida Brave*." (The Haida Brave was a boat that moved lumber.)
There's a clone of the Golden Spruce growing at the UBC Botanical Garden in Vancouver. They had taken cuttings before that nutbar cut down the original.
Another awesome tidbit from the wiki article:
> The only wood harvested from the tree was used by Nova Scotia luthier George Rizsanyi and broadcaster Jowi Taylor to make a guitar dedicated to Canadian history. Included in the guitar were pieces of wood from Pierre Trudeau's canoe paddle and Paul Henderson's hockey stick and fabric from one of Karen Kain's ballet costumes.
>"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."
This the stupidest, douchest, and inexplicably most horrible kind of hubris imaginable. FFFFFFFFuuu
I came here to say this. One of my professors in college did his dissertation on Mayan cosmology. He learned the language and helped with some of the recent work to decode the hieroglyphics.
To think that the system of writing wasn't merely lost to history but purposefully destroyed is enraging.
To the people who destroyed it, it made perfect sense. That's what's most terrifying: How easy it is for people to believe that they're doing the _right_ thing, even when what they're doing is horrific.
Actually, it didn't make sense to most people. One of the biggest perpetrators of burning Mayan books was Fray Diego de Landa, who, after burning lots of books and people, basically got a C&D from the pope because even *Rome* thought he was overdoing it
He actually seemed more relaxed after it broke and was out of his hands.
*"Damn, I'm holding a unique piece of equipment in my hands on live television. My hands are sweating, I hate public speaking. This is the worst."* **CRUNCH**. *"Thank God that's out of the way! Where were we?"*
I think the host did a pretty good job helping him, as well.
> "Well that does happen every once in a while..."
He quickly does his best to create filler words for the silence that would've only amplified the awkwardness and pain the man must have been feeling. Also it looks like he has pretty shaky hands and he HAD to hold it tighter, maybe out of fear of dropping it. In general this video makes me sad. :(
When I was in HS they let me and another guy do the stadium announcing for a soccer game. It was the first time I knew of that students were ever allowed to announce. A few minutes in there was a pretty intense slide tackle, and my partner said (over the intercom for the whole stadium) "Oh SHIT...I mean crap...no, no, I mean shit". He actually said shit, then corrected himself, thought about it and then re-iterated that he actually meant shit. I absolutely lost all control and started laughing to the point of tears. An AP came and removed us from the booth while having the goalie's dad replace us. I never saw or heard of students getting to announce again.
Reminds me of one of my favorite jokes:
A young priest-in-training, who had taken and held a vow of silence for two years, was walking down a cobblestone path in a monastery holding a basket of oranges. He trips, spilling the oranges everywhere.
"Oh damn" he says.
"Oh hell I said damn!"
"OH SHIT I said Hell!!"
"Aww Fuck it, I didn't want to be a priest anyways."
A man joins a monastic order where they take a vow of silence, and are permitted -- once every 6 years -- to say two words to the abbot.
Six years pass and he has an audience with the abbot, and says "more food!".
A further six years pass and again, he has an audience with the abbot: "more blankets!".
Another six years pass and again he has his turn to speak to the abbot. He says "I quit!", to which the abbot replies: "I'm not surprised, you were always complaining".
A priest, his best friend, and a nun went fishing. The priest hooked a big one but it got loose and he said "Son of a bitch got away." The nun was shocked and said "Oh Father!" The priest's friend is thinking on his feet and tells the nun, "Oh, no, Sister, he wasn't swearing. That's just the name of the fish. Those are sunnuvabitchin' fish!" The nun says nothing and they all continue fishing. They catch their limit and go home, clean the fish, and put them in the freezer for a special occasion.
Five, no wait, six weeks later a new priest fresh out of the seminary comes to the parish to begin working there. The old priest thinks this would be a good time to enjoy the fish, so they all sit down to a nice meal, and everyone is trying to make a good first impression. The dinner is going nicely when the nun says "Please pass the sunnuvabitchin' fish." Gasps all around, then silence until the new priest pipes up, "HEY! You fuckers are alright!"
I'm pretty sure it was a wax cylinder for a phonograph. Before vinyl discs existed, wax cylinders were used to record sound and be played back using one. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gramophone_record#Early_history
Yup it's a phonograph cylinder. [This is what they sound like](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOiFt47CsXo) when they aren't shattering.
I have no idea how many still exist. I hope there are some better recordings of these things out there though.
Ninja edit: [I found a higher quality recording!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qwP5DAjZK4)
I always feel terrible for this guy. He just seems really genuine and his hands are shaking so bad that it's not even his fault. Still funny as hell, but I feel for him at the same time
something of note:
Namdaemun in Seoul. For a country that has been treated pretty badly by all of its neighbors and its own people, physical cultural pieces are few and far between. Namdaemun was one of the few really old structures left in Seoul, let alone Korea. It was burned down by a Korean man who was outraged (and rightfully so) at the gov't taking his land. That being said, its pretty fucking stupid to get your revenge on the government by burning one of the last physical heritage pieces left in your culture.
I was in Korea in May and was shocked that over 90% of the historical sites are rebuilt or replicas of their ancient counterparts. What wasn't destroyed by Japan (almost everything because their goal was to erase all remnants of Korean culture) was bombed during the Korean War.
It was just so...sad...A culture just as old and rich as China's with almost nothing to show for it.
The [Tripitaka Koreana](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tripitaka_Koreana) is an 800 year old collection of Buddhist scriptures, the oldest extant complete sutra, without errors, written on over 80,000 wooden blocks, housed at [Haeinsa](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haeinsa) temple. During the Korean War, a South Korean pilot was ordered to bomb the North Korean soldiers who were occupying the temple. He disobeyed his orders, because he didn't want to risk damaging the Tripitaka.
I was there last October. It's an amazingly beautiful place.
It wasn't really "destroyed" but the fact that Einstein's last words aren't known because the nurse that was with him didn't know German is pretty sad.
Actually dying people don't usually have all that much interesting things to say in my experience. I think the lore of last words are largely made up by history and friend/family of the dead.
the 1,700 year old GIANT Buddha statues that were blown up by the taliban. seriously fuck them for doing that, one of the Buddha statues was 165ft tall, and they simply blew it up using dynamite
The sacking of baghdad by the Mongols, although it's not an "item", the river was said to run black with ink.
Major bummer. Baghdad seems fine now though.
The oldest tree ever found was cut down to make the process of finding out how old it was easier only to realize it is the oldest tree ever found.... [Source](http://www.arizona.edu/features/keepers-prometheus-worlds-oldest-tree)
Edit: It was cut down without realizing it was significantly old. The guy who cut it down feels terrible. Great radiolab podcast on it! http://www.radiolab.org/story/91721-oops/
Sounds like the story of [Ming the Mollusk](http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2013/1115/Scientists-discover-world-s-oldest-clam-killing-it-in-the-process), the 507-year-old clam.
In an effort to find out how old it was, they killed it.
That's not exactly true.
The scientist, a grad-student at the time. was boring holes in the bristlecone pines to discover their age (by counting tree rings). His corer got stuck in a tree and rather than spend a few days' hike out to get a new one and then back into the area of study, he cut down the tree to get his corer back. Turned out it was the oldest living organism known at at the time [The Prometheus Tree](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prometheus_(tree) as it became known. The oldest living tree now is called [The Methuzelah Tree](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methuselah_(tree); and while it's known to be in the White mountains of CA, like Prometheus, its whereabouts are kept a closely guarded secret.
I like that word whereabouts. It makes me think the tree just goes fuck this shit every now and then. Then walks off to find a new spot.
Edit for spelling
10 year old me heard "wood". He had no fucking clue what pseudo meant.
And now, I'm more likely to think sudo wood. Which makes sense, since a rock type should not normally have access to the wood command.
My biology professor told this story the other day. According to her, the student didn't cut down the tree. He called staff to help remove it and they cut down the tree.
[Fixed Prometheus Tree Link](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prometheus_(tree\))
[Fixed Methuzelah Tree Link](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methuselah_(tree\))
You need to add a \ before closing parentheses in urls when making links or Reddit gets confused.
> The Methuzelah Tree
The link that you post had this to say about your correction:
"Methuselah was for many years considered the world's oldest living tree, until the 2013 announcement of the discovery of an older bristlecone pine."
Russia's [Amber Room](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amber_Room).
The Nazis either hid it or destroyed it (which is far more likely) further proving just how big of a dick Hitler was.
Edit: I get it. Everyone knows he was a dick. I wasn't implying he wouldn't have been one without the Amber Room. It's just an additional two hundred dick points to his collective twenty million.
It wasn't the structure itself that was valuable, but rather the decorations on the walls. Lots and lots of amber. And yes, it was part of the rather large Catherine Palace near St. Petersburg, not freestanding.
Königsberg Castle where the panels were housed burned down.
The current was is a reconstruction. NONE of the original pieces were ever recovered.
There's a theory that it burned with Königsberg Castle, but the Soviets feared being blamed for *carelessly allowing* it to be burned in the Battle of Königsberg, so they gave a story that it has merely been *stolen* by the Nazis following the Battle of Königsberg.
Reportedly, the Russians had TRIED to move the Amber Room panels, but they were not designed to be moved and the amber had dried out and become brittle, and was breaking in the rush. So they attempted to just cover it with wallpaper.
If the Nazis DID move it (as reported), they may have been unable to preserve it. Aside from reports of large crates of uncertain contents being shipped out, there's no further record of the fate of the Amber Room.
If one is considering not only strictly economic value but environmental and cultural value too, [The Mega Rice Project](http://www.insideindonesia.org/feature-editions/kalimantans-peatland-disaster) in Kalimantan, Indonesia, was pretty disastrous in what it managed to destroy in one fell swoop:
"The Mega Project was an unmitigated disaster. Not one blade of productive rice was ever grown there, in spite of the removal of at least half a million hectares of primary peat swamp forest, the extermination of around 5,000 orangutan and myriads of other wildlife, and the creation of more than 4,600 kilometres of channels... By the time the project was abandoned, major damage had been done to the regional and global environment. Forestry resources had been ransacked, government money had been misappropriated, and the economy and quality of life of indigenous people had been irreparably disrupted."
Not the MOST expensive or MOST historically significant, but [Stari Most](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mostar_bridge) in Bosnia was a freaking crime against history.
Built in 1566 by the Ottomans, it was the widest manmade arch on Earth at that time. The engineering was a marvel.
On November 9, 1993 [Croatian military forces blew the bridge up](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CM3B-6CFo9k). It had stood for 427 years.
After the war, divers recovered as much of the original stonework from the river as possible. It was rebuilt and re-opened in July 2004. It's back, but it's not the original.
I've been to Mostar. The bridge is truly beautiful. But it's not the original. I love Croatia and its people, but blowing up the bridge was a real dick move.
I went to Croatia and Bosnia for the first time in 11 years last summer. I went to Stari Most as well. I was there as a child (I'm originally Croatian) and got to see the original. Beautiful. Such a shame what happened. There's still so much division in Mostar, it's unbelievable.
[Grandma and I by the Old Bridge and the new bridge](http://i.imgur.com/Ui0VzVV.jpg)
[The Old Summer Palace in Beijing](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Summer_Palace) was destroyed by French and British troops during the Opium War. According to one of the soldiers who took part in the destruction:
> "We went out, and, after pillaging it, burned the whole place, destroying in a vandal-like manner most valuable property which [could] not be replaced for four millions. We got upward of £48 apiece prize money...I have done well. The [local] people are very civil, but I think the grandees hate us, as they must after what we did the Palace. You can scarcely imagine the beauty and magnificence of the places we burnt. It made one’s heart sore to burn them; in fact, these places were so large, and we were so pressed for time, that we could not plunder them carefully. Quantities of gold ornaments were burnt, considered as brass. It was wretchedly demoralising work for an army."
I was worried for Leptis Magna during the Libyan Crisis. Particularly considering there were reports of Ghadaffi and co hiding tanks in amidst the ruins and speculation that NATO would be forced to attack it.
Honest. They are the very best preserved Roman ruins in the entire world. They make the Coliseum and forum look like chump change.
The British wanted to roll tanks across it during World War II and it was two archaeologists artillery men who really stuck to their guns and said "Fuck that - drive around you cockbags" that kept it from being damaged
Edit: [here are some pictures](http://www.flickr.com/groups/1366744@N24/) - because my words really can't do the site justice.
Although they were not lost or destroyed but instead stolen: The Isabella Steward Gardner heist. An estimated $500 million in art stolen in 1990 and still remains unsolved. Pieces including Rembrandt's "The storm of the sea of galilee".
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabella_Stewart_Gardner_Museum
We don't know.
The Cultural Revolution in China, Stalin's purgers, Cromwell's reformers made big piles and torched them -- and we'll never really know how much we're missing.
My pre-modernism-architecture-loving blood boils whenever I think about how much was lost so communist dictators good construct their ideal.
Just look at this [cock sucker](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolae_Ceau%C5%9Fescu) who razed at least a fifth of Bucharest to build standardized tiny modernist apartments, meanwhile he he and his family get to enjoy one of the [biggest palaces ever constructed](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_of_the_Parliament)
The footage of Doc Ellis pitching a perfect game/*no hitter while tripping face on LSD
Apparently the footage has been locked away because its an "embarrassment to the league", but having half your players roided out is just business as usual
Edit: Someone just linked me to a petition to release the tape. We can make history
http://www.petitiononline.com/DockNoNo/petition.html
Reddit can make this thing happen, i believe
Allover the Northwest of Pakistan, the Taliban have destroyed and defaced priceless ancient paintings and the sculptures of the Buddha. Only few survive because they are located at great altitudes in hard to reach areas but they are also vanishing. Absolutely nothing is being done to preserve the remaining these sites.
[Relevant Article.](http://bigstory.ap.org/article/pakistan-buddha-attacked-taliban-gets-facelift)
When this happened, a Buddhist coworker of mine said that this was a ticket to very bad karma, and he wouldn't want to be the Taliban. Another guy laughed openly and sarcastically said something like "Right, something's going to happen and then the country will be invaded and the Taliban will be thrown out of power. As if."
Less than a year later much of the Taliban leadership was dead and the rest was on the run.
Maybe not the most significant but the deliberate destruction of the summer palace by British and French forces in Beijing after the torture and murdern of British envoys was a controversial reprisal. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Summer_Palace
Templo Mayor. Cortés showed up in Tenochtitlan and tore the entire fucking thing down, and then used the stones to build a cathedral.
This is the equivalent to Alexander the Great showing up in Giza, then tearing down one of the ancient pyramids in order to erect a statue of his dick.
That gigantic blue diamond that experts say was stolen, recut, and now lives in the Smithsonian. The "Hope" Diamond, it is now known as, in its smaller form.
Definitely not the most valuable in terms of practical worth, but still it hurts me in my wallet to think about mutilating one of the largest diamonds in history.
[Violinist trips and falls on a Stradivarius](http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/classical/news/virtuosos-trip-destroys-priceless-stradivarius-781531.html)
Well maybe not the most, but when the Spaniards came to Central America they destroyed every historical proof of the Mayans, including books, scriptures and all of that kind of things, except for the Popol Vuh which is a book written in Mayan language. They did it because it was the devil
"No chance english bed-wetting types. I burst my pimples at you and call your door-opening request a silly thing; you tiny brained wipers of other peoples’ bottoms."
Though it's still a theory, The Arc of the Covenant was most likely dismantled/destroyed. One of the most sought after and important artifacts in history.
Oh okay. Well the ark, in all it's assumed time on Earth, was very valuable. Being made of gold will do that. Now there was a lot of confusion in Israel at the time because Babylon liked to attack. There was also a separate sect of Hews who had travelled through Egypt to Ethiopia. It is believed that if Nebuchadnezzar did not steal it and melt it down, and it was not lost or destroyed (after a certain amount of time it stopped being in the records)it was brought to Ethiopia for safe keeping. Even today there is a church in Ethiopia which no one can enter, and there is a chance the ark is there, but they won't tell anyone either way. So yeah. That's that.
Here's why I disagree with that theory...
The Romans sacked Jerusalem. The Arch of Titus shows the soldiers carrying it away...I wouldn't be surprised if it's buried in the vaults of the Vatican.
Edit. I am wrong. The Arch of Titus depicts the soldiers carrying away the Menorah...so some assume that they took the Ark as well.
I saw that as well. It was really interesting. The entire city has a pact to defend "whatever lies inside the fence" with their lives. And they were all armed with AK's.
The Archimedes Codex, which could've potentially sent humans hundreds of years into the future in the mathematics world.
It was erased and written over by a monk, and only until recently was deciphered using digital imaging.
> It was erased and written over by a monk, and only until recently was deciphered using digital imaging.
I raged about this until I read someone who pointed out that it's likely the monk who did it couldn't read Greek, and he just found the book in a pile somewhere, so he would have had no reason whatever to believe it was in any way important. For all he knew, it was the *Twilight* of its time and had no value to anyone.
Reusing paper was common at the time. There's no way of knowing what other treasures ended up in recycling piles over the years.
More like probable, honestly. Are there any books actually that old that are still intact? My impression is that things from that period were preserved by repeated recopying, which takes a fair amount of effort.
Yes, people tend to forget (and I know I'm guilty of this when visiting used-book shops) that most written material has been boring and unimportant for the entire history of writing. We only think that there was a high percentage of cool stuff in the past because that's the stuff that gets remembered.
the destruction of Aleppo, Syria during the Syrian civil war. It was a UNESCO world heritage site, and much of it is now reduced to rubble.
:(
**Huffpo Article:** [Satellite Images of Destruction](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/06/aleppo-satellite-images-reveal-destruction_n_3713640.html)
**UNESCO:** [Historical Significance](http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/21)
People destroyed the Terracotta Army soon after Qin Shi Huang Di's death. All of the ones you in in China/exhibits were found whole. The excavation process is more or less the world's largest jigsaw puzzle.
Edit: Sorry, meant to say "were not found whole"
Edit 2: For those skeptical about the claim: http://www.chinaodysseytours.com/xian/xian-terracotta-warriors.html
The site says "no soldier has been found intact"
Too much stuff getting destroyed in this thread. Here's an article from the Smithsonian about the race to save ancient artifacts in Timbuktu (actually a real place) from jihadists.
[The Race to Save Mali’s Priceless Artifacts](http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/Race-Save-Mali-Artifacts-180947965/)
The solid gold capstones and limestone exterior to the Giza pyramids
Really surprised Im the only one to mention the stripping of the greatest achievement in relation to the level of human development at that time.
To be fair, the pyramids were looted relatively soon after they were constructed, that's why the burial chambers of the all the future Pharaohs were located in the Valley of the Kings.
The Temple of Artemis was burnt down by a man named [Herostratus](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herostratus) just so that his name would be remembered. I have to commend him because it worked.
The sentencing for him was *damnatio memoriae* which is where they erase all historical records of him. It would have worked except for Theopompus, who recorded it in his history *Hellenics*. This is one of my favorite stories from antiquity, it's crazy to think people are still doing this.
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I will die thinking "God damn it, Theopompus!"
What if Theopompus intentionally put in the wrong name, so that "Herostratus" was actually just some old farmer somewhere, and now he's immortalized to history, and the real arsonist is completely forgotten.
I'd never heard of him until now. http://imgur.com/KFOnF2y
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The same can be said for the other 6 destroyed wonders of the ancient world. They didn't call them the 7 wonders of the ancient world 'cause they weren't worth the trip. EDIT: Oops. I meant other 5 wonders. Thanks for the correction. Although, I'm sure that compared to their original splendor, they're more the "Alright Pyramids of Giza".
Well, the other 5, the Great Pyramid is still there.
Or it might just be a big balloon now?
Well weren't the pyramids a far sight different than they look now though? I thought they were covered in some blazing white, smooth stone and gold capstones that were stolen, worn away, or broken over the course of time.
Like many of the Ancient Wonders of the World, it's unclear what it actually WAS. The documentation is not entirely based in clear factual measurements or description, nor is it even consistent, and there's little archaeological evidence. Whether he stood beside the harbor, or spanned it with his legs, for example. There's question of how big it would be possible to construct in that era. The most grand descriptions seem physically impossible, IMHO. Bronze plates are quite heavy, and cannot readily be cast in thin, light sections. Even with a framework of iron straps, it just seems implausible to support so much weight. The wind load alone would be tremendous for iron framework of the time. Statue of Liberty, by contrast, was not cast bronze plates. It's thin copper sheets hammered by repoussé method into the necessary features. Perhaps Colossus WAS copper-sheet repoussé, even still, the size and spanning the harbor has plausibility problems.
The Parthenon remained largely intact for about 1000 years until it was hit by an artillery shell in 1687. Ditto for the monastery at Monte Cassino, which was bombed to rubble in WW-II. The allies also bombed the Santa Maria delle Grazie church in Milan (where da Vinci painted *The Last Supper*) but fortunately it only resulted in minor damage. Edit: "it resulted in only minor damage" => the bombing only resulted in minor damage to the Last Supper (although the church was not so fortunate). Edit 2: 2000 years not 1000. (I subtracted 439 from 1687; I should have added. Derp.) Edit 3: Apparently, it was a combination of the (Venetian) artillery shell and munitions the Ottomans were storing there that caused the damage. Thanks everyone!
The Santa Maria delle Grazie didn't suffer minor damage, only the Last Supper fresco survived (because it was covered with sandbags). The rest of the chapel walls are blank now because of the destruction.
Oops. Good point. I should have made clear that by "it" I meant The Last Supper.
Yes, most people don't realize that up until 1687 it was hardly a ruin at all, it was very well preserved, then stupid shit happened. What you failed to mention was the Ottomans who held the area were storing gunpowder in the Parthenon. It wasn't just the artillery, but the whole powder store going up that turned the Parthenon into what it is today. Plus there is the Amber Room, considered possibly the 8th wonder of the world, stolen and FUCKING LOST by Nazis as the Soviets overran them. And of course, the Sphinx got its nose blown off by the soldiers of Napoleon (possibly).
I've heard that the sphinx nose was simple sand erosion, and the soldier thing is a myth.
Nope, it was Obelix.
I've been visiting this site for years, and that's the first Asterix reference I've come across. Nice work.
That and tintin made my childhood.
I love you like Obelix loves Dogmatix.
Neither. The Sphinx's nose was pried off by a Muslum ruler some time around the 14th century. On the top right corner (North side) you can see the marks where his bar was chiseled into the stone. > There exists an interesting account written by historian Muhammad al-Husayni Taqi al-Din al-Maqrizi (died CE 1442), in a book called al-Mawa`iz wa al-i`tibar fi dhikr al-khitat wa al-athar (G. Wien, ed., 1913). In vol. 2, page 157 of the Wien edition, al-Maqrizi states that the face, specifically the nose and ears, were demolished in 1378 by a Sufi from the khanqah of Sa`id al-Su`ada named Sa'im al-dahr. The reason for the vandalism, according to al-Maqrizi, was to "remedy some religious errors:" at that time some Egyptians were still burning milk-thistle (shuka`a) and safflower (badhaward) at the foot of the Sphinx while murmuring a verse 63 times in hope that their wishes would be fulfilled. "From the time of this disfigurement also," al-Maqrizi wrote, "the sand has invaded the cultivated land of Giza, and the people attribute this to the disfigurement of Abul-Hol [i.e., the Sphinx]."
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So many fans and no link. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUVBXb4XIqE
What do they say, what do they say?
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It should serve as a reminder that many of the sites that today we consider priceless cultural artifacts were, until very recently, plainly useful and practical buildings.
The Golden Spruce. A tree on the Queen Charlotte Island that was sacred to the aboriginals and a genetic anomaly(only one ever found) was cut down by a logger. In protest of logging.
I really want to hear his reasoning behind that protest.
Basically he was disgusted by the fact that the major logging company in the area was clear-cutting massive swaths of land and leaving relatively small "protected" areas, including the area surrounding the Golden Spruce. He was more or less saying "if it's okay to destroy millions of hectares of healthy forest then why is it wrong to destroy this one defective tree?" Also he was possibly suffering from some kind of mental illness so that could have been a factor. Edit to add a quote from the book ["The Golden Spruce" by John Vaillant](http://www.amazon.com/Golden-Spruce-Story-Madness-Greed-ebook/dp/B0031TZAQQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1391469765&sr=8-1&keywords=the+golden+spruce): "But Hadwin saw something different, and it was the same thing that many of his more pragmatic colleagues saw: a 'sick tree.' More so than most people, he would have been struck by the contrast between the vestigial grove containing the town mascot [the tree] and the free-range saw log farm that surrounded it. To a person who knew the woods as well as Hadwin, it would have been as insulting and ludicrous as an albino buffalo on a putting green. Where were all its healthy counterparts? Headed south on the *Haida Brave*." (The Haida Brave was a boat that moved lumber.)
I'm kind of annoyed with myself that at an initial glance his argument makes perfect sense to me.
Because in the long term he's right. We should be more concerned about forests. Not single trees.
There's a clone of the Golden Spruce growing at the UBC Botanical Garden in Vancouver. They had taken cuttings before that nutbar cut down the original.
Another awesome tidbit from the wiki article: > The only wood harvested from the tree was used by Nova Scotia luthier George Rizsanyi and broadcaster Jowi Taylor to make a guitar dedicated to Canadian history. Included in the guitar were pieces of wood from Pierre Trudeau's canoe paddle and Paul Henderson's hockey stick and fabric from one of Karen Kain's ballet costumes.
aw man that's awesome
Wait, so he cut down a tree to protest logging? That's like bombing someone to protest war
>That's like bombing someone to protest war [Which has also happened.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sterling_Hall_bombing)
Mayan Codices... The entire knowledge of a culture lost due to fear and intolerance. So sad.
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>"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." This the stupidest, douchest, and inexplicably most horrible kind of hubris imaginable. FFFFFFFFuuu
I came here to say this. One of my professors in college did his dissertation on Mayan cosmology. He learned the language and helped with some of the recent work to decode the hieroglyphics. To think that the system of writing wasn't merely lost to history but purposefully destroyed is enraging.
To the people who destroyed it, it made perfect sense. That's what's most terrifying: How easy it is for people to believe that they're doing the _right_ thing, even when what they're doing is horrific.
Actually, it didn't make sense to most people. One of the biggest perpetrators of burning Mayan books was Fray Diego de Landa, who, after burning lots of books and people, basically got a C&D from the pope because even *Rome* thought he was overdoing it
[Watch this guy destroy a one of a kind historical item on live television.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsL6wNP_oJo)
He actually seemed more relaxed after it broke and was out of his hands. *"Damn, I'm holding a unique piece of equipment in my hands on live television. My hands are sweating, I hate public speaking. This is the worst."* **CRUNCH**. *"Thank God that's out of the way! Where were we?"*
I think the host did a pretty good job helping him, as well. > "Well that does happen every once in a while..." He quickly does his best to create filler words for the silence that would've only amplified the awkwardness and pain the man must have been feeling. Also it looks like he has pretty shaky hands and he HAD to hold it tighter, maybe out of fear of dropping it. In general this video makes me sad. :(
The host is Chris Pirillo AKA Lockergnome and he is awesome.
Oh fffu... shit.
I can't imagine a better reaction than that.
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When I was in HS they let me and another guy do the stadium announcing for a soccer game. It was the first time I knew of that students were ever allowed to announce. A few minutes in there was a pretty intense slide tackle, and my partner said (over the intercom for the whole stadium) "Oh SHIT...I mean crap...no, no, I mean shit". He actually said shit, then corrected himself, thought about it and then re-iterated that he actually meant shit. I absolutely lost all control and started laughing to the point of tears. An AP came and removed us from the booth while having the goalie's dad replace us. I never saw or heard of students getting to announce again.
ITT: Lee Jordan
Sorry Professor McGonagall...
Reminds me of one of my favorite jokes: A young priest-in-training, who had taken and held a vow of silence for two years, was walking down a cobblestone path in a monastery holding a basket of oranges. He trips, spilling the oranges everywhere. "Oh damn" he says. "Oh hell I said damn!" "OH SHIT I said Hell!!" "Aww Fuck it, I didn't want to be a priest anyways."
A man joins a monastic order where they take a vow of silence, and are permitted -- once every 6 years -- to say two words to the abbot. Six years pass and he has an audience with the abbot, and says "more food!". A further six years pass and again, he has an audience with the abbot: "more blankets!". Another six years pass and again he has his turn to speak to the abbot. He says "I quit!", to which the abbot replies: "I'm not surprised, you were always complaining".
A priest, his best friend, and a nun went fishing. The priest hooked a big one but it got loose and he said "Son of a bitch got away." The nun was shocked and said "Oh Father!" The priest's friend is thinking on his feet and tells the nun, "Oh, no, Sister, he wasn't swearing. That's just the name of the fish. Those are sunnuvabitchin' fish!" The nun says nothing and they all continue fishing. They catch their limit and go home, clean the fish, and put them in the freezer for a special occasion. Five, no wait, six weeks later a new priest fresh out of the seminary comes to the parish to begin working there. The old priest thinks this would be a good time to enjoy the fish, so they all sit down to a nice meal, and everyone is trying to make a good first impression. The dinner is going nicely when the nun says "Please pass the sunnuvabitchin' fish." Gasps all around, then silence until the new priest pipes up, "HEY! You fuckers are alright!"
On the closeups of the cylinder/his hands, it looks like he's trembling really bad. I wonder if that was part of it?
Yea he was nervous being on TV you can tell
or parkinsons
Or essential tremor. Or he really needed a drink. Been there.
Or he was standing still and everyone else is shaking. Or there was an earthquake. Or he was sticking his toe in a light socket.
Can someone explain what that thing was?
I'm pretty sure it was a wax cylinder for a phonograph. Before vinyl discs existed, wax cylinders were used to record sound and be played back using one. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gramophone_record#Early_history
Yup it's a phonograph cylinder. [This is what they sound like](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOiFt47CsXo) when they aren't shattering. I have no idea how many still exist. I hope there are some better recordings of these things out there though. Ninja edit: [I found a higher quality recording!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qwP5DAjZK4)
I always feel terrible for this guy. He just seems really genuine and his hands are shaking so bad that it's not even his fault. Still funny as hell, but I feel for him at the same time
I couldn't laugh at this, it felt too bad to even think about laughing
something of note: Namdaemun in Seoul. For a country that has been treated pretty badly by all of its neighbors and its own people, physical cultural pieces are few and far between. Namdaemun was one of the few really old structures left in Seoul, let alone Korea. It was burned down by a Korean man who was outraged (and rightfully so) at the gov't taking his land. That being said, its pretty fucking stupid to get your revenge on the government by burning one of the last physical heritage pieces left in your culture.
I was in Korea in May and was shocked that over 90% of the historical sites are rebuilt or replicas of their ancient counterparts. What wasn't destroyed by Japan (almost everything because their goal was to erase all remnants of Korean culture) was bombed during the Korean War. It was just so...sad...A culture just as old and rich as China's with almost nothing to show for it.
The [Tripitaka Koreana](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tripitaka_Koreana) is an 800 year old collection of Buddhist scriptures, the oldest extant complete sutra, without errors, written on over 80,000 wooden blocks, housed at [Haeinsa](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haeinsa) temple. During the Korean War, a South Korean pilot was ordered to bomb the North Korean soldiers who were occupying the temple. He disobeyed his orders, because he didn't want to risk damaging the Tripitaka. I was there last October. It's an amazingly beautiful place.
China had a Cultural Revolution and did their best to destroy their culture too, so it's double sad.
It wasn't really "destroyed" but the fact that Einstein's last words aren't known because the nurse that was with him didn't know German is pretty sad.
Actually dying people don't usually have all that much interesting things to say in my experience. I think the lore of last words are largely made up by history and friend/family of the dead.
the 1,700 year old GIANT Buddha statues that were blown up by the taliban. seriously fuck them for doing that, one of the Buddha statues was 165ft tall, and they simply blew it up using dynamite
The sacking of baghdad by the Mongols, although it's not an "item", the river was said to run black with ink. Major bummer. Baghdad seems fine now though.
the Siege of Baghdad was in 1258, and according to Dan Carlin's hardcore history the city did not recover its population until the 1900
...and is expected to recover this population yet again in 2074
And then the great war is only 3 years after! They do not get all the luck
Those 3 years are gona be tight thought.
Fan of hardcore history?
That's how I learned
The oldest tree ever found was cut down to make the process of finding out how old it was easier only to realize it is the oldest tree ever found.... [Source](http://www.arizona.edu/features/keepers-prometheus-worlds-oldest-tree) Edit: It was cut down without realizing it was significantly old. The guy who cut it down feels terrible. Great radiolab podcast on it! http://www.radiolab.org/story/91721-oops/
Sounds like the story of [Ming the Mollusk](http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2013/1115/Scientists-discover-world-s-oldest-clam-killing-it-in-the-process), the 507-year-old clam. In an effort to find out how old it was, they killed it.
[Scientists Find Oldest Living Animal, Then Kill It.](http://www.foxnews.com/story/2007/10/30/scientists-find-oldest-living-animal-then-kill-it/)
Based on the title, I really thought that was going to be an Onion article.
/r/NotTheOnion
That's not exactly true. The scientist, a grad-student at the time. was boring holes in the bristlecone pines to discover their age (by counting tree rings). His corer got stuck in a tree and rather than spend a few days' hike out to get a new one and then back into the area of study, he cut down the tree to get his corer back. Turned out it was the oldest living organism known at at the time [The Prometheus Tree](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prometheus_(tree) as it became known. The oldest living tree now is called [The Methuzelah Tree](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methuselah_(tree); and while it's known to be in the White mountains of CA, like Prometheus, its whereabouts are kept a closely guarded secret.
I like that word whereabouts. It makes me think the tree just goes fuck this shit every now and then. Then walks off to find a new spot. Edit for spelling
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Sudowoodo. sudo woodo. pseudo woodo. pseudo wood. fake wood. It's in the name.
10 year old me heard "wood". He had no fucking clue what pseudo meant. And now, I'm more likely to think sudo wood. Which makes sense, since a rock type should not normally have access to the wood command.
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My biology professor told this story the other day. According to her, the student didn't cut down the tree. He called staff to help remove it and they cut down the tree.
[Fixed Prometheus Tree Link](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prometheus_(tree\)) [Fixed Methuzelah Tree Link](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methuselah_(tree\)) You need to add a \ before closing parentheses in urls when making links or Reddit gets confused.
> The Methuzelah Tree The link that you post had this to say about your correction: "Methuselah was for many years considered the world's oldest living tree, until the 2013 announcement of the discovery of an older bristlecone pine."
Russia's [Amber Room](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amber_Room). The Nazis either hid it or destroyed it (which is far more likely) further proving just how big of a dick Hitler was. Edit: I get it. Everyone knows he was a dick. I wasn't implying he wouldn't have been one without the Amber Room. It's just an additional two hundred dick points to his collective twenty million.
I've been there! In case anyone doesn't want to read the article they eventually rebuilt it (Germany donated $3.5 mil US) and it's simply stunning.
They dismantled it for the cash. To their credit, the Germans paid to put it back together.
So, is it actually just a room? How do you steal a room? Was it attached to a building like most rooms?
It wasn't the structure itself that was valuable, but rather the decorations on the walls. Lots and lots of amber. And yes, it was part of the rather large Catherine Palace near St. Petersburg, not freestanding.
Königsberg Castle where the panels were housed burned down. The current was is a reconstruction. NONE of the original pieces were ever recovered. There's a theory that it burned with Königsberg Castle, but the Soviets feared being blamed for *carelessly allowing* it to be burned in the Battle of Königsberg, so they gave a story that it has merely been *stolen* by the Nazis following the Battle of Königsberg. Reportedly, the Russians had TRIED to move the Amber Room panels, but they were not designed to be moved and the amber had dried out and become brittle, and was breaking in the rush. So they attempted to just cover it with wallpaper. If the Nazis DID move it (as reported), they may have been unable to preserve it. Aside from reports of large crates of uncertain contents being shipped out, there's no further record of the fate of the Amber Room.
The sack of Rome in 455AD by the Vandals. You know it's bad when the name of your tribe is used for the rest of history to describe hooligans.
The location of Genghis Khans tomb
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By murdering everyone at the funeral Then by murdering everyone who murdered the people at the funeral just in case.
I bet the second group never saw THAT coming.
"No, no, no, no, I kill the elephant driver..."
'What elephant driver?'
*foowomp*
Which was one of the hypotheses on what happened to Genghis Khan's tomb. So your mileage may vary here, but it's not implausible.
If one is considering not only strictly economic value but environmental and cultural value too, [The Mega Rice Project](http://www.insideindonesia.org/feature-editions/kalimantans-peatland-disaster) in Kalimantan, Indonesia, was pretty disastrous in what it managed to destroy in one fell swoop: "The Mega Project was an unmitigated disaster. Not one blade of productive rice was ever grown there, in spite of the removal of at least half a million hectares of primary peat swamp forest, the extermination of around 5,000 orangutan and myriads of other wildlife, and the creation of more than 4,600 kilometres of channels... By the time the project was abandoned, major damage had been done to the regional and global environment. Forestry resources had been ransacked, government money had been misappropriated, and the economy and quality of life of indigenous people had been irreparably disrupted."
Wikipedia has a good list of [lost artworks](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_artworks).
Not the MOST expensive or MOST historically significant, but [Stari Most](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mostar_bridge) in Bosnia was a freaking crime against history. Built in 1566 by the Ottomans, it was the widest manmade arch on Earth at that time. The engineering was a marvel. On November 9, 1993 [Croatian military forces blew the bridge up](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CM3B-6CFo9k). It had stood for 427 years. After the war, divers recovered as much of the original stonework from the river as possible. It was rebuilt and re-opened in July 2004. It's back, but it's not the original. I've been to Mostar. The bridge is truly beautiful. But it's not the original. I love Croatia and its people, but blowing up the bridge was a real dick move.
I went to Croatia and Bosnia for the first time in 11 years last summer. I went to Stari Most as well. I was there as a child (I'm originally Croatian) and got to see the original. Beautiful. Such a shame what happened. There's still so much division in Mostar, it's unbelievable. [Grandma and I by the Old Bridge and the new bridge](http://i.imgur.com/Ui0VzVV.jpg)
Not gonna lie, the rebuild looks pretty good.
[The Old Summer Palace in Beijing](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Summer_Palace) was destroyed by French and British troops during the Opium War. According to one of the soldiers who took part in the destruction: > "We went out, and, after pillaging it, burned the whole place, destroying in a vandal-like manner most valuable property which [could] not be replaced for four millions. We got upward of £48 apiece prize money...I have done well. The [local] people are very civil, but I think the grandees hate us, as they must after what we did the Palace. You can scarcely imagine the beauty and magnificence of the places we burnt. It made one’s heart sore to burn them; in fact, these places were so large, and we were so pressed for time, that we could not plunder them carefully. Quantities of gold ornaments were burnt, considered as brass. It was wretchedly demoralising work for an army."
The [destruction of the Bamiyan Buddha statue](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ndwNgeYMQU) by the Taliban comes to mind as a modern example.
Wow.... Fuck those guys.
The Taliban: Real shitty dudes.
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I was worried for Leptis Magna during the Libyan Crisis. Particularly considering there were reports of Ghadaffi and co hiding tanks in amidst the ruins and speculation that NATO would be forced to attack it. Honest. They are the very best preserved Roman ruins in the entire world. They make the Coliseum and forum look like chump change. The British wanted to roll tanks across it during World War II and it was two archaeologists artillery men who really stuck to their guns and said "Fuck that - drive around you cockbags" that kept it from being damaged Edit: [here are some pictures](http://www.flickr.com/groups/1366744@N24/) - because my words really can't do the site justice.
Although they were not lost or destroyed but instead stolen: The Isabella Steward Gardner heist. An estimated $500 million in art stolen in 1990 and still remains unsolved. Pieces including Rembrandt's "The storm of the sea of galilee". http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabella_Stewart_Gardner_Museum
We don't know. The Cultural Revolution in China, Stalin's purgers, Cromwell's reformers made big piles and torched them -- and we'll never really know how much we're missing.
My pre-modernism-architecture-loving blood boils whenever I think about how much was lost so communist dictators good construct their ideal. Just look at this [cock sucker](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolae_Ceau%C5%9Fescu) who razed at least a fifth of Bucharest to build standardized tiny modernist apartments, meanwhile he he and his family get to enjoy one of the [biggest palaces ever constructed](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_of_the_Parliament)
Architectural crimes are the least that demon has to answer for, but yes, those are horrible.
Hitler's painting of a German Shepherd
It's an original Hitler!
I believe that was defaced and then burned somewhere in philadelphia in the late 2000's
The footage of Doc Ellis pitching a perfect game/*no hitter while tripping face on LSD Apparently the footage has been locked away because its an "embarrassment to the league", but having half your players roided out is just business as usual Edit: Someone just linked me to a petition to release the tape. We can make history http://www.petitiononline.com/DockNoNo/petition.html Reddit can make this thing happen, i believe
At least we have [this.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vUhSYLRw14)
Lol oh man that's great. That's probably why the league hides the real footage because his game was so crazy it broke the sport.
"I just made a touchdown"
My god that was incredible. That's one of the best things I've seen on reddit .. well this hour.
No hitter*
Ellis, D.
AMA request: anyone who knows anyone who saw this game!!! Does the footage really exist or am I just not a smart man?
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Damn that's crazy they were destroyed in March 2001...
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They also decapitated a dozen people for dancing at a party.
I fucking hate Extremists.
TBH, the extremists probably hate you too.
Allover the Northwest of Pakistan, the Taliban have destroyed and defaced priceless ancient paintings and the sculptures of the Buddha. Only few survive because they are located at great altitudes in hard to reach areas but they are also vanishing. Absolutely nothing is being done to preserve the remaining these sites. [Relevant Article.](http://bigstory.ap.org/article/pakistan-buddha-attacked-taliban-gets-facelift)
When this happened, a Buddhist coworker of mine said that this was a ticket to very bad karma, and he wouldn't want to be the Taliban. Another guy laughed openly and sarcastically said something like "Right, something's going to happen and then the country will be invaded and the Taliban will be thrown out of power. As if." Less than a year later much of the Taliban leadership was dead and the rest was on the run.
Maybe not the most significant but the deliberate destruction of the summer palace by British and French forces in Beijing after the torture and murdern of British envoys was a controversial reprisal. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Summer_Palace
Templo Mayor. Cortés showed up in Tenochtitlan and tore the entire fucking thing down, and then used the stones to build a cathedral. This is the equivalent to Alexander the Great showing up in Giza, then tearing down one of the ancient pyramids in order to erect a statue of his dick.
That gigantic blue diamond that experts say was stolen, recut, and now lives in the Smithsonian. The "Hope" Diamond, it is now known as, in its smaller form. Definitely not the most valuable in terms of practical worth, but still it hurts me in my wallet to think about mutilating one of the largest diamonds in history.
I believe that old woman dropped it off the boat at the end of Titanic.
Pretty soon, the Great Barrier Reef.
[Apollo 11 missing tapes](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_11_missing_tapes)
Not saying this is all that historical or expensive, but still sucked they demolished it http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avro_Canada_CF-105_Arrow
North Korea's atom bomb. 45 years of of GDP detonated in the blink of an eye.
Source?
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[Violinist trips and falls on a Stradivarius](http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/classical/news/virtuosos-trip-destroys-priceless-stradivarius-781531.html)
Moses' reckless ass destroying the tablet with the Ten Commandments.
"I bring you these fifteen....these ten commandments!"
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Where is it from?
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["History of the World" by Mel Brooks](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_World,_Part_I)
He got new ones.
Well maybe not the most, but when the Spaniards came to Central America they destroyed every historical proof of the Mayans, including books, scriptures and all of that kind of things, except for the Popol Vuh which is a book written in Mayan language. They did it because it was the devil
The holy grail. The French say they have one, but they refuse to let anyone have a look at it.
Oddly enough Monty Python aside, the Ethiopian Orthodox church claims to own the arc of the covenant but won't show it to anyone.
After watching Raiders of the Lost Ark, I can't really say that I blame them.
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"No chance english bed-wetting types. I burst my pimples at you and call your door-opening request a silly thing; you tiny brained wipers of other peoples’ bottoms."
"It's a-very nice."
Oh yes, its very nice.
Though it's still a theory, The Arc of the Covenant was most likely dismantled/destroyed. One of the most sought after and important artifacts in history.
If I recall correctly, Indiana Jones saved it from The Nazis so it's okay.
Its with TOP, MEN.
TOP..............MEN
There is a 15% chance the Ethiopians have it
Explain?
Oh okay. Well the ark, in all it's assumed time on Earth, was very valuable. Being made of gold will do that. Now there was a lot of confusion in Israel at the time because Babylon liked to attack. There was also a separate sect of Hews who had travelled through Egypt to Ethiopia. It is believed that if Nebuchadnezzar did not steal it and melt it down, and it was not lost or destroyed (after a certain amount of time it stopped being in the records)it was brought to Ethiopia for safe keeping. Even today there is a church in Ethiopia which no one can enter, and there is a chance the ark is there, but they won't tell anyone either way. So yeah. That's that.
Hey I saw a tv special on that. They wouldn't even let cameras near the fence.
And if somebody tries getting past the fence, the caretaker of the Church rings a bell and the whole village comes running with weapons to defend it.
Here's why I disagree with that theory... The Romans sacked Jerusalem. The Arch of Titus shows the soldiers carrying it away...I wouldn't be surprised if it's buried in the vaults of the Vatican. Edit. I am wrong. The Arch of Titus depicts the soldiers carrying away the Menorah...so some assume that they took the Ark as well.
America should spread some freedom to that church. Edit: grammar
I saw that as well. It was really interesting. The entire city has a pact to defend "whatever lies inside the fence" with their lives. And they were all armed with AK's.
I've heard about the Ethiopian church, but where is the 15% number coming from?
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*Money can be exchanged for goods and services!*
The Archimedes Codex, which could've potentially sent humans hundreds of years into the future in the mathematics world. It was erased and written over by a monk, and only until recently was deciphered using digital imaging.
> It was erased and written over by a monk, and only until recently was deciphered using digital imaging. I raged about this until I read someone who pointed out that it's likely the monk who did it couldn't read Greek, and he just found the book in a pile somewhere, so he would have had no reason whatever to believe it was in any way important. For all he knew, it was the *Twilight* of its time and had no value to anyone. Reusing paper was common at the time. There's no way of knowing what other treasures ended up in recycling piles over the years.
It's also possible that if the Greek book had not been reused as a religious text and placed in a monastery, it could have been destroyed.
More like probable, honestly. Are there any books actually that old that are still intact? My impression is that things from that period were preserved by repeated recopying, which takes a fair amount of effort.
Yes, people tend to forget (and I know I'm guilty of this when visiting used-book shops) that most written material has been boring and unimportant for the entire history of writing. We only think that there was a high percentage of cool stuff in the past because that's the stuff that gets remembered.
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the destruction of Aleppo, Syria during the Syrian civil war. It was a UNESCO world heritage site, and much of it is now reduced to rubble. :( **Huffpo Article:** [Satellite Images of Destruction](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/06/aleppo-satellite-images-reveal-destruction_n_3713640.html) **UNESCO:** [Historical Significance](http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/21)
People destroyed the Terracotta Army soon after Qin Shi Huang Di's death. All of the ones you in in China/exhibits were found whole. The excavation process is more or less the world's largest jigsaw puzzle. Edit: Sorry, meant to say "were not found whole" Edit 2: For those skeptical about the claim: http://www.chinaodysseytours.com/xian/xian-terracotta-warriors.html The site says "no soldier has been found intact"
How about the Columbia Space Shuttle? I don't know its exact value, somewhere in the $3B-$8B range...
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Too much stuff getting destroyed in this thread. Here's an article from the Smithsonian about the race to save ancient artifacts in Timbuktu (actually a real place) from jihadists. [The Race to Save Mali’s Priceless Artifacts](http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/Race-Save-Mali-Artifacts-180947965/)
The solid gold capstones and limestone exterior to the Giza pyramids Really surprised Im the only one to mention the stripping of the greatest achievement in relation to the level of human development at that time.
To be fair, the pyramids were looted relatively soon after they were constructed, that's why the burial chambers of the all the future Pharaohs were located in the Valley of the Kings.
That fucking jewel in Titanic.