Value

Ancient languages disappear.  Recorded in physical mediums, not just two-dimensional etches or scrawling, many are lost forever because the observer didn't know the object could be read.  Instead, it was disassembled for the value of its parts, not realizing it was worth far more than the sum of its parts.

Value is relative, though.  Even if known to contain a priceless recorded history, the time and cost of interpreting it would've made it valuable only to certain historians or collectors.  Then, you'd have to know how to get it to them, something difficult in the pre-internet days, when most of these artifacts would've been extant.  It would've certainly been easier to get value from the object by removing the pieces, especially if the pieces had any intrinsic value for their raw materials.

The history of the Americas would be an amazing read.  Almost all is lost, though.  A few codex of written language are all that are known to exist.  Rotten threads on hand-me-down wall hangers scatter their beads of knowledge to the wind.