The ‘scientific revolution’ was not a period of radical unidirectional change. Rather, early modern European science was made through a process of creative re-engagement with the global past. European scholars re-read ancient texts in light of new experiences. In doing so, they hoped to rediscover lost knowledge. This narrative is familiar to historians of early modern Europe. But what about the world beyond Europe? In this talk, I explore the connection between ancient and new knowledge in non-European empires across Eurasia. Drawing on recent work in the anthropology of history, I show how a remarkably similar process shaped the development of science in each society. Knowledge drawn from other cultures was typically understood as a way to recover that which had been lost. In making this argument, I also make the case for an expanded chronology of the ‘scientific revolution’. What we see as the beginning of European modernity was really just the mid-point of a much longer transformation.