Re:Authorities say Hobby Lobby's Gilgamesh tablet is stolen,...
by craftinator on Tuesday May 19, 2020 @08:03PM
(#23241827)
Based on some quick back of the napkin calculations, we'd probably be facing severe overcrowding and famine; same as if Genghis Khan had been a stillborn.
Because the region had been extremely wealthy and advanced for centuries, with plenty of intra-Empire cultural exchange, itdid eventually recover. Most (not all) of the “advances” were translations of and commentaries on Greek/Roman and Persian works, and notably, most of them were from the pre-existing conquered strata population in pre-existing centers of learning. Of course, as time went on, people did build up higher, but the conquests were a major setback.
So let’s not hype it up too much - where would the world be, if, as Gibbon wrote, Mohammed had died in the cradle, and all those people hadn’t been killed, books burned, and cities sacked?
There’s no way to know - it might have been worse off in both cases.