From Rome's holiest texts to a Chinese manuscript that wouldn't have fit inside a shipping container, here's our top ten list of the most important ancient documents that no longer exist:
Sibylline Books
Roman leaders consulted these oracular sayings during political crises for perhaps 900 years. The originals burned in 83 B.C. Their replacements were allegedly destroyed by a 5th-century Roman general who feared that invading Visigoths would use them.
Sappho's Poems
In the 6th century B.C. she composed 10,000 lines of poetry, filling nine volumes. Fewer than 70 complete lines exist. But those have made Lesbos' most famous daughter (as classicist Daniel Mendelsohn has called her) a revered lyric poet of erotic love.
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