...and of course, the earlier Christian book burnings occured with the Alexandrian library.
These are, along with numerous others, abominable acts.
They can certainly be understood as the effort of those in power to retain this power. Alternatively, they can also be understood (but not excused), as motivated by the desire to see anything which may have 'infected' the Soul of the converted. In this context, not only Jewish manuscripts, but also numerous people, amongst them Cathars, Jews, Muslims, and other heathens were burned or otherwise destroyed.
Much of this part of history is, of course, documented. The Roman Catholic Church wanting to present the Jewish scrolls as 'gifts' is more than regrettable, and I certainly will write yet another letter to representatives of the Pope to add my small voice.
This, however, does not show that history has been a concerted effort to hide abominations. Numerous individuals, for either their own sake or what they may see as the greater good, may have heled, conceiled, destroyed, or in other ways occulted abominations which may have otherwise implicated or shown in negative terms their, or their movement or church's, activity. We do not need to go to the Catholic Church, unfortunately, for this. It recurs in myriad guises.
With the Tarot, does this indicate that possibly, just possibly, the Tarot as a set of images (whether on paper stock, temple painting or relief carvings) was anterior to the middle ages? No. It indicates, at most, that if Tarot did exist prior to the middle ages, part of the process of oblitirating certain texts and images may account for the destruction of these (and even more so in Muslim lands). This, if any kind of evidence whatsoever was found for Tarot's earlier - and reasonably widespread - existence, would possibly account for the lack of direct finds.
Problem is, whether one looks at the images directly, or looks at remnants of other texts and images, of which thousands do remain, none have yet yielded to such possibility.
Apart from the Egyptian revival period prior to and following the Napoleonic expeditions, and hence part of the coloured glasses through which De Gebelin and many of his peers was to see their world, no Egyptian element, as directly Egyptian, was to be seen in the set of images.
This still of course leaves the possibility for certain individual Egyptian or other early images to have been, in metamorphosised form, incorporated in the Tarot (as I partly argue for especially the Empress card in this Forum). This is of course quite a different argument.
But enough of this longish post for now...