Did the ancient people of Mesopotamia have a “computerized” filing system?
Some researchers claim to have found evidence of the world's oldest data storage system. Is it possible that the people of Mesopotamia were familiar with computers? Could the oldest data storage system date back more than 5 thousand years?
A team of scientists tried to crack an ancient code that could reveal surprising knowledge of data storage system of our ancestors, several millennia ahead of our modern storage systems.
The term Mesopotamia identifies the geographical area delimited by the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, corresponding to modern Iraq, the northern section of Syria and a small part of south-eastern Turkey. Mesopotamia is considered the cradle of civilization, as the complexity of its ancient societies has continued down to our current way of life.
The classic example is that of the Sumerians, whose writings reveal a society with a complex organization, with rulers, laws, literature, schools and libraries. In reality, it cannot be said with certainty that the Sumerians were the true inventors of writing. According to some scholars, some previous civilizations may have created the first writing systems that were then handed down to the Sumerians.
Some artifacts discovered in the region reveal the presence of lost and mysterious cultures, whose existence is only now beginning to be realized. A case in point are the mysterious clay spheres unearthed in the late 1960s in western Iran. Balls range in size from that of a golf ball to a baseball.
The purpose and meaning of these artifacts is completely unknown, although some researchers are putting forward some truly intriguing hypotheses. The researchers were able to look inside the enigmatic spheres thanks to the use of CT technology and 3D modeling. The scan revealed that the spheres are hollow, with some geometric shapes called tokens inside them.
Christopher Woods, a professor at the Oriental Institute in Chicago, is convinced that the spheres represent the world's first data storage system. “These spheres probably represent humans' first effort to store information permanently, at least according to our current knowledge,” Woods explains.
Unfortunately, only 150 complete spheres exist and museums are reluctant to dissect them, as this would mean permanently damaging them. Some of them are crossed by enigmatic channels with a diameter of 1 – 2 millimeters. The spheres resemble some prehistoric artifacts of unknown origin found mainly in Scotland, England and Ireland. Could there be a connection between these artifacts?
It is unclear how the spheres were used by ancient Mesopotamian peoples, but researchers believe the devices served as receipts for various administrative tasks such as tracking flows of materials, goods and labor.
Analysis revealed that the tokens inside the spheres come in 14 different shapes, including spheres, pyramids, ovoids and cones. Each type could represent a different value. A pyramid, for example, could mean a certain quantity and used to count a certain stock of goods.
All clay spheres have some sort of outer seal running through the center. At the poles, however, there are two seals. Woods believes the two seals represent the seller and the buyer. But this is only speculation.
To hope to solve this ancient mystery, researchers must decipher the hidden code and understand what the two seals were for. The code, in fact, contains clues to understand the meaning of the internal tokens and their use.
Does it mean that the ancient civilizations of the Mesopotamia invented a data storage system, significantly before our modern civilization?
