Why are there no ancient chronicles? Why are all the chronicles available to modern official historical science not the same ancient primary sources, but copies from more ancient manuscripts, but these ancient manuscripts themselves are lost? Why are some leaves replaced at a later time in some manuscripts? These are the most frequently asked questions from supporters of history falsification.
I am not at all going to prove that there was no falsification of ancient sources. But I want to give the described phenomenon a simple and logical explanation.
Knowledge has always been valued. This explains the huge library archives in many world capitals. But many libraries were completely destroyed in the flames, such as the Alexandria library. Some libraries, such as the notorious library of Ivan the Terrible, were simply lost.
But why, even in surviving libraries, instead of the ancient primary sources themselves, are their later copies often presented?
Here I will give a simple analogy.
In 200-300 years, our clothes that have survived until that time will become of a certain value to historians of the future, as an example of our way of life. And for us, our clothes are a completely utilitarian attribute. When clothes become unusable, they are either repaired or disposed of and replaced with new ones.
At the same time, old clothes cease to have any value for us.
Likewise, having made repairs while preserving the functional content of the interior, we do not at all worry about the safety of the elements of the old interior. They lose their value for us at the very moment when they are replaced by new ones, even if they are generally the same, but new.
Same with historical literature. It is difficult to imagine that the same “Tale of Bygone Years” (1110s) was not used for centuries, but lay and collected dust somewhere on a shelf of some monastery. At a minimum, it was reread and rewritten several times. Its lists are presented in the Laurentian Chronicle (XIV century), the Ipatiev Chronicle (XV century), and the Radzivilov Chronicle (XV century). But these lists have come down to us, including in the form of even later lists.
How were books copied in those days? Manually, let's be honest, with not very clean hands, in dirty, cramped cells, by candlelight. Inevitably, the original showed wear and tear, stains from wax and ink, and page tears.
What to do with deteriorated or damaged original sheets? That's right, somewhere to restore an unreadable fragment, write a new one right on top of the old text, and maybe even replace the old sheets with new ones. And the original should be disposed of as having become unusable.
What to do with an original that has become unusable or damaged in general? That's right, replace it with a new list. And the original should be disposed of as having become unusable.
It should also be noted that the more ancient the original was, the more primitive the technical level of execution it was created at, and the faster it fell into disrepair.
I will repeat my thought. It was not the book itself, as a physical carrier of knowledge, that had value, but solely the knowledge contained in it. Therefore, when rewriting books, people sought to preserve the knowledge itself, and not at all its carrier. Essentially, having been rewritten, copied, the tattered, barely readable original often no longer had value to them.
There are many examples of such disregard for works of art in the past. For example, scientists often discover that some great paintings by great artists are painted over other, older paintings, but no less famous today. This is now the previous picture, if suddenly discovered today in its “pure form”, it would have a value with many zeros in dollars. And then for the artist the previous painting was only a ready-made material on which he created what, in his opinion, was valuable.
The same thing happened with ancient manuscripts, which were carefully and repeatedly copied and restored. That is, the knowledge contained in the book was valued. But the original had only a symbolic meaning, as a carrier, a shell of knowledge, and not the knowledge itself.
I can give a simpler example. I really liked one book as a child. I liked it so much that it was read almost to the holes, as a result it turned into a set of separate sheets that were not fastened together in any way, and some of the sheets were lost over time. As an adult, I bought a similar book, but new. Because what was important to me was not the old dirty sheets of paper, but what was printed on them.
So can we blame the ancient chroniclers for rewriting books but not caring about the original? They, from their point of view, brought good, preserved knowledge for future generations, and not worn-out sheets of paper, birch bark or parchment cracked over time.