 Are there any texts at all in existence from the very early days of the re-emergence of society following societal collapse in the very ancient past? Yes, such texts do exist in the form of religious scriptures that tell the stories of the struggles and happenings taking place on this earth in a time referred to as pre-history. The very ancient texts do tell us of cataclysmic occurrences and that humanity had taken a path that was not obliged by God's will and therefore a cleansing took place from which the current wave of existence has emerged from, hence we are the survivors. Another ancient religious text called the Avista tells the story of the Zoroastrian faith. These are texts written from much more ancient oral stories that began being documented by the prophet Zoroaster right around 1500 years before Christ. Avista is thought to translate as praise and the hymns contained in this scripture are written in the language known as Avistan, which is now a non-existent language, but because of ancient translations in other alphabets, we are left with the words that they contain and not a mystery which is so often the case with these types of texts that are so often lost in translation. The text contains the original writings of Zoroaster as well as religious laws, various ideas and contributions from hierarchy of the day as well, customs and beliefs which developed later after Zoroastrianism was accepted and became a widespread belief to the region. The core of the Avista is thought to have been recognized and recited by Zoroastrian Parisians from the Achaemenid Empire to the time of the Sassanian Empire which fell to the invading Muslim Arabs in the year of our Lord, 651. After the uncertainty, Zoroastrianism was suppressed and only preserved by the Parisian Zoroastrians who had managed to flee to India and of course the Iranians who managed to keep the faith alive in their native country, Iran. The Parisian Zoroastrians who fled to India are considered the primary custodians of the Avistan tradition, although Zoroastrianism is still a religious practice by people all around the world and one of the oldest religions in existence. In Luke's Gospel, when he mentions that the Wisemen came to visit Jesus, the Magi, it is believed at least by scholars that the Magi were in fact Zoroastrians. The tradition of Zoroastrianism is a collection of 21 different books by the one true God, Ahura Mazda who revealed the text to Zoroastra who recited them to the king who had them inscribed on sheets of gold. This was then memorized by a priest who recited the words of Ahura Mazda to followers of the faith at services. When the texts were lost and destroyed, the Avista became a memory of the recited words and this was eventually committed to the written text by the Sasanians. In the year of our Lord 651, the Sasanian Empire fell to the Muslim Arabs and Zoroastrianism was suppressed. People converted to Islam or continued the faith in secret or fled the region. The Parsees then took the religion to India where it continues to flourish. The Muslims burned the Zoroastrian libraries and either destroyed temples or turned them into mosques. Scholars regularly point to this period as one of the incalculable loss of Zoroastrian texts and lore including copies of the Avista. The loss of the history of these people is one that continues to confound our understanding of these things like the three wise men who visited Christ in Bethlehem. Incalculable is a word to describe the scale of the loss but it is also an understatement as the ensued loss led to a partial loss of an entire period of understanding from which we are piecing together today. The Parsees took the Avista with them to India and for the most part were only known through commentary by Greek, Christian and Muslim writers. The actual Avista was thought to have been lost in the Muslim conquest of the 7th century. It was not until the year 1723 when a merchant traveling in India brought back part of the Avista manuscript to Britain that Europeans became aware that the book still existed, at least in part. The manuscript was placed in the Bodleian Library of Oxford University where, in 1755, it came to the attention of a young French scholar who, upon embarking on an epic journey through India to recover the Avista, returned to France with over 180 Avistan manuscripts in 1762 and began to translate them. All western Avistan scholarship was developed and still develops from this monumental effort of recovery. The ancient texts are a completely original vision of its age, convincing of a single, all-powerful creative deity with a personal interest in the lives and morality of humble human beings here on earth. The god appears to the prophet with a purpose to appoint an educational authority, it is at this intersection that understanding begins and uncertainty falls to its knees. Its principles inform the policies of the greatest empire of the ancient east and its technology would influence the later monolithic face of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Zoroastrianism is the first monotheistic religion to introduce concepts such as judgment after death, heaven and hell, a messiah and end time, resurrection of the dead and a new world after the old is redeemed among others, all concepts developed by the later monotheistic face. These belief systems would have been informed by Zoroastrian thought as the concepts were shared through trade and travel up to 1500 years before Christ until the year 224 when the Sassanians wrote the work down for all time. Even if it had never exerted any influence on these later face, the Avista would still be a powerful work in its own right as it provides a vision of a completely loving deity, generous and just who only wants his creation to be the best it can possibly be in every respect. But what do you the subscribers of the Lost History Channel think about this anyway? Comments below and as always, thank you for watching guys.