Most of the books themselves were destroyed as the work of heretics, e.g.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_codices

This stuff drives me so nuts. It also seems to be something that I've only ever noticed being done by religious people who follow done monotheistic believe. Does anyone know if any destruction of a culture and its artifacts had happened by someone not motivated by monotheistic delusions?

Do you consider the Chinese cultural revolution to be the product of monotheistic delusion? What about the more recent Chinese occupation of Tibet?

What about the Nazi party? The Japanese occupiers of Korea and China during WWII?

The British burning the Burmese royal library in the late 19th century? Or the current massacres of Muslims in Myanmar by Buddhists?

The US Army in its genocide of indigenous North American tribes?

My impression is that there are at least some anti-intellectual authoritarians in every country, religion, and political movement.

This was a honest question. With so many atrocities going on it's hard to differentiate which ones don't only seek out to kill all members of a given culture but also their cultural artifacts. Thank you for listing several that fit the bill.

"Do you consider the Chinese cultural revolution to be the product of monotheistic delusion?"

Yes, actually. The religion was Marxism (i.e., the most murderous religion in history), with Mao Zedong as its Prophet.

There was a interesting discussion somewhere (can't remember where) that called communism the first techno religion. The idea was that everything is build around the expectation that labor will become less important and owning means of production becomes paramount because of automation. Very relevant thoughts nowadays. Nice to look in the mirror of the past.

I highly recommend Eric Hoffer's The True Believer if you're interested this topic at all. It's a short book full of major ideas.

Hoffer's treatment of the phenomenon is just as fresh and relevant today as it was when he wrote the book in the 1950s.

I got downvoted for suggesting that Maoism was a religion, but it quite clearly had more commonalities than differences with the more extremist religious cults (as did Stalinism, Nazism, etc.)

It was common in the ancient world -- "we won because our god(s) are greater than your god(s)."

Look at the (pagan/polytheist) Romans' actions in the seige and destruction of (monotheist) Jerusalem, for one example. Or (pagan) Viking raids on English/Welsh/Irish Christian monasteries for another.

That’s exactly what I just said... the Spaniards burned all of the books except for a small handful which were sent back to Europe as curios.

> We found a large number of books in these characters and, as they contained nothing in which were not to be seen as superstition and lies of the devil, we burned them all, which they regretted to an amazing degree, and which caused them much affliction. – Bishop De Landa

Anything survives in a museum?

As for Mayan codices, only three (The Dresden Codex, The Madrid Codex, and The Paris Codex) are known to survive.