what is one literary work which has been lost to time which you wish you could get back?
Man, this is one hell of a hard question 😩 😮💨
There's a few possible answers, based on how you interpret the question:
#1 - The Maya codices
If we allow a broad category like this, it's the obvious choice. These were almost all actively destroyed by the Spanish (only four precontact manuscripts survive), and they would be of unimaginable value.
The Maya were the only Pre-Columbian civilization with a true manuscript tradition and a writing system that is both complex and also now largely deciphered. And since, based on inscriptions, we know the writing system stretched back at least to the 3rd century BC, and any texts on religion, history, or even potentially narrative works would be absolutely invaluable. It would shed light on a world that has been tragically ignored and erased.
#3 - The Poems of Sappho
If we can only limit it to a single specific work that was intentionally destroyed, this is the best I can come up with off the top of my head. I worry that it's not as important in shedding light on wider history though.
Sappho is one of the few ancient writers whom we know was genuinely subject to mass book burning. Modern people often think it happened because of her erotic homosexual content, but it seems just as likely to have happened due to the religious "pagan" elements.
Her poems were of amazing quality and yet only fragments survive. They totaled nine books, estimated to be around 10,000 lines. And today, only ONE complete poem of hers survives.
As an extremely early ancient female author of the highest caliber, I'd say that her work would be extremely important
Bonus - The Etruscan Brontoscopic Calendar
This is the most unusual choice because it's not very well-known, it's extremely short, it has little literary value, and, as far as we can tell, it was NOT actively destroyed.
This work basically listed omens associated with lightning strikes on various days. So it would be something like "April 11th - There will be a bountiful harvest this year" and so forth.
But the interesting thing is that we have complete word-for-word translations into Greek. The Etruscan Language is unique because we have a sizeable corpus, we know what sounds all the letters make, and yet we cannot manage to decipher it. It appears to be unrelated to any existing language. So a text like this, in the original Etruscan would be of immense value in the efforts to decipher it.
