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You make some good points here on the fragility of memory.

Consider this:
There are a few different methods for submerging an entire civilization or parts therof into oblivion.

One is by accident. As is your memory of the old mall. The human memory is not detail oriented. It generalizes.

Watch this video:
http://viscog.beckman.uiuc.edu/grafs/demos/12.html

And this one:
http://viscog.beckman.uiuc.edu/grafs/demos/10.html

They demonstrate rather well just how much detail people pay attention to. And these videos are in regard to human faces which are what people pay attention to far more than they do anything else on the planet!

The videos are 3 megs each and require Java, so be sure to click the link on a high speed connection or be prepared to wait.

I'll give a quick explanation of what happens in them. A man stops and asks someone for directions. They talk for a couple of minutes. And then a couple of construction workers come along carrying a door. They walk between the two people and the person asking directions changes place with one of the construction workers. So. The guy is left talking with someone completely different. And he does't notice a thing....

The first link shows a switch between a couple of nondescript guys. The second shows a guy with a bright yellow hardhat and a blue shirt being exchanged for a bright yellow hardhat and a black shirt.

There are many other videos like this on this page: http://viscog.beckman.uiuc.edu/djs_lab/demos.html
I wish someone would fucking watch these! I've posted them several times in various threads and have never received a response on any of them. The videos are pretty amazing. Watch them! Try not to read the descriptions before clicking the link as some of them give the trick away. You're supposed to see if you notice the strange thing in some of the videos.


Anyway. So I was saying that the human memory generalizes being the first method for a vanishing civilization.

The second is a purposeful decimation of said culture. The Romans eradicated the culture of the Etruscans and countless others. The Christians wiped out far more civilizations (even though they called them barbaric.) History is written by the victors and in a single generation the world could be completely rewritten.
Completely.


Consider also the nature of writing. In Babylon, for instance, The writing was idiosyncratic. Few could actually read and write. And because of this, the language vanished rather easily. Also, writing in Babylonian was more of a memory aid rather than writing the full story. One has to fill in the gaps between words in such writings.

Egyptian was also a language of the elite. And hence vanished. Minoa is still a bit of a mystery as far as I know. Natural disaster wiped out it's memory. The language of the Maya was lost. The Inca quipu and manuscripts.

Languages come. Languages go. And when they were only in the hands of a select few to begin with, they vanish all the easier. And when knowledge of the language vanishes. All those pretty pictures mean nothing. Until some bright-eyed genius comes along and solves Minoan B, that is.

Consider also the evolution of language. I've already desribed how Babylonian differed from modern writing. But, consider also the purposes of ancient writings. Writing wasn't originally designed for epics and for history. It was made for mundane tasks such as keeping track of stock, trade, slaves, etc... Day to day things. It took time for it to be adapted to newer ways of thinking. New ways of keeping track of history.

It was, I think, with the Greeks, that this first was made solid and plain. The Greek became educated and created much of the concept of world which we inhabit. The greek took a tenuous strand and made it a thick cable. He tied together history and we still hang by that rope even now. As has practically all that came after him.

Of course, this is a eurocentric viewpoint. The east has it's own story to tell. And neither story should really be told in the absence of the other, but I am unable to tell the story of the east. Maybe someone else could fill that in.


he same exact way a Puebla native today, who is Catholic, has forgotten that a ‘pagan’ empire the size of 10 Cubas even existed in his own country.

Are you referring to the Anasazi before their fall and diaspora?

JUst as an illustration of how easily culture can be lost and forgotten, consider this; there used to be six laungauges spoken in Britain other than English (which is itself an amalgam of all sorts of languages). Romany, Welsh, Cornish, Scottish Gaelic, Erse (Irish Gaelic) and Manx (Celtic, on the Isle of Man). Cornish passed out of existence in the Eighteenth Century. Ned Mandrell was the last speaker of Manx, and I think he died in the 1980's. Erse and Welsh had to be revived and taught in schools, and is now reasonably well spread so far as I know. Scottish Gaelic is still spoken, though by how many I couldn't say.

I think the main power of the English language is threefold. Firstly, it was the language of arguably the most powerful and widespread empire the world has ever seen. Secondly, it was the language of the current American Empire--in which case, ironically, the Americans can thank the English for spreading the use of the English language over the entire world, which has made their own progress in spreading thru the outside world that much easier. Thirdly, the main reason why English spread throughout the world so widely was because it acts as a sponge, soaking up words in other languages.

For example, speaking from New Zealand, I can tell you that the average well-educated person here has a vocabulary of about 4000 words. One quarter of these words are direct or mutilated borrowings from the language of the Maoris, who were here when the Europeans arrived. Other varieties of English could show the same trend. H. L. Menken wrote a book about the American English language, in which he traced the strands of different influence that produced the current (1936) American language of his day. Its well worth a read. It's also interesting to see how the language has changed in the 70 years since he wrote.

In summary, civilisations are sometimes totally smashed. However, usually the pieces are picked up and absorbed, be that absorbsion ever so slow. The amalgam that produces becomes the matrix of the new culture, which merely a localised reformation of the old pieces of several jigsaws.