The First Memory:: Sumerian Clay Tablets and the Evolution of Human Data Systems

This book discusses the existence of clay tablets in ancient Sumer as the first recorded medium of recording, storing and managing human knowledge. With the development of writing as a necessary tool of administration, economy, and cultural memory, Sumerian institutions, especially temples and large administrative households, began to develop special rooms in which increasing amounts of tablets were stored. The proto-libraries and archives are the steppingstone of the transition between knowledge that relies on memories and external and persistent data systems. Through discussing the development of these early information environments, the work identifies how the Sumerians pioneered subsequent archival traditions, organization of libraries and the general idea of organized human networks of knowledge.