"Not only do some attempts at destruction [of information] achieve a less
than satisfactory outcome; on occasion they become the outright cause of
preservation. The Assyrian empire was brought down in the seventh century,
BC, by an invading force of Babylonians, Scythians amd Medes. The
conquerors put the great library of Ashurbanipal to the torch. Becasue the
library's contents were written on clay tablets, the consequence was to fire
the archives as if they were so much pottery. Some 20,000 cuneform tablets
survived in the form of accidental ceramics."
Cullen Murphy, "Innocent Bystander," The Atlantic Monthly, May 2002
(vol.289; no. 5) pp16-18


";