Hellenistic era disappearance?

Question

How could so many Hellenistic ideas/inventions be lost until they were "rediscovered" hundreds of years later?

I thought it might be due to Alexander the Great's death?

Answer 1

They lived on into the period of the Roman Empire. When the Arabs invaded out of Arabia to conquer Egypt, about AD 650, and the Middle East up to the southern border of modern Turkey, they translated Greek writings into Arabic and preserved them. The Arabs spread across North Africa and invaded Spain in AD 711. In the 1000's, Western Europeans learned Arabic, came to Spain, and translated Greek works into Latin from Arabic. That's how Aristotle and Plato were transmitted to us westerners.