Ancient knowledge Memes

Nothing like losing centuries of knowledge to make you appreciate proper backup systems. The Library of Alexandria was basically ancient civilization's hard drive that crashed without a Time Machine backup. We'd probably have smartphones in the 1700s and be colonizing Mars by now if some folks hadn't decided book burning was the hottest trend of 48 BCE. Instead, humanity had to spend the next thousand years rediscovering that washing your hands is actually a good idea.