[Jurist]

Thereupon one of the priests, who was of a very great age, said:

O Solon, Solon, you Hellenes are never anything but children, and there is not an old man among you.

Solon in return asked him what he meant.

I mean to say, he replied, that in mind you are all young; there is no old opinion handed down among you by ancient tradition, nor any science which is hoary with age. And I will tell you why. There have been, and will be again, many destructions of mankind arising out of many causes; the greatest have been brought about by the agencies of fire and water, and other lesser ones by innumerable other causes...."
http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/timaeus.html

Keep in mind, the collective Western memory has been largely destroyed by the Burning of the Library of Alexandria, along with all the book burnings from the Sack of Rome, to the Dark Ages forward. We in the West suffer from a collective cultural amnesia.
Library of Alexandria #1
Library of Alexandria #2
Library of Alexandria #3

Jurist

[RightWhale]

World Heritage Site

Isn't this one of the infamous UN projects? Money should be no problem. Of course since it is in town now, doing any work on adjacent lots to protect from flooding would require permits and buying up land, all requiring money.

Knowledge and history from the old days isn't really lost, it's just mixed in and jumbled together. Anyway, the contents of this library would be a private collection of contemporary works, and would bring this period to life. Whose ox could be gored; it's been a long time.

[fire_eye]

Cyril's army of monks murdered the prefect and were cannonized by him for this deed; marauding through the city they came across Hypatia, daughter of the Museum's last great mathematician Theon. She was a Neoplatonist philosopher and astronomer whose teachings are partially recorded by one of her admirers and pupils, the Christian Synesius, and she was also supposedly an advisor to Orestes and one of the last members of the Museum.

Driving home from her own lectures without attendant, this independent woman and scholar epitomized the suspect nature of Paganism and its heretical scientific teachings. She was dragged from her chariot by the mob, stripped, flayed, and finally burned alive in the library of the Caesareum as a witch. Cyril was made a saint.

And we're still waiting for the Church to "Apologize..."

[TomSmedley]

Keep in mind, the collective Western memory has been largely destroyed by the Burning of the Library of Alexandria, along with all the book burnings from the Sack of Rome, to the Dark Ages forward. We in the West suffer from a collective cultural amnesia.

A more recent "cultural revolution/lobotomy" -- FDR's stooges eradicated a vast American popular literature by calling in and melting down pre-set lead printing plates in the early 1940s.