A data table thousands of years old (2020)
A 4,000-year-old Sumerian clay tablet laid out as a table of rows and columns prompts reflection on how deeply “spreadsheet thinking” is embedded in human record‑keeping. Commenters connect this ancient data layout to modern tools like Excel and relational databases, debate how information survives across millennia compared with today’s fragile digital media, and explore why tabular formats feel so intuitive and enduring across cultures and technologies.
Ancient data durability vs modern storage
- Clay tablets may outlast modern digital records; fire accidentally “baked” many, preserving them for millennia.
- Some argue our own artifacts might be similarly preserved by chance; others doubt any existing electronic medium (tape, SSD, etc.) can last comparably long.
- Mention of experimental long‑lived media (e.g., glass storage) as an attempt to match clay’s durability.
- Anecdote about an old MIT AI Lab backup recovering a frozen screen buffer illustrates how random snapshots of digital life can survive by accident.
Tables, spreadsheets, and databases
- Tables are praised as a visually intuitive way to read data by rows and columns; relational databases and spreadsheets are seen as descendants of this idea.
- Discussion over whether relational schemas are inherently fixed‑length or whether variable‑length types (varchar, blob, CSV) are mainstream; some note that fixed length is an optimization, not a requirement, and that systems like SQLite store variable‑length by design.
- Historical notes: early spreadsheets (LANPAR, VisiCalc, SuperCalc, Lotus 1‑2‑3) and pre‑computer tabulation on paper.
- Debate over columnar vs object‑oriented thinking: some prefer “it’s rows and columns” simplicity; others point out event data with heterogeneous fields pushes toward JSON or NoSQL.
“Obviousness” and cognition of tabular layouts
- Thread explores a positive term for “obvious” structures like tables: suggestions include “self‑evident,” “intuitive,” “natural,” “emergent,” and several Germanic expressions meaning “lying nearby / close at hand.”
- Commenters note that 2D grids feel inevitable on a 2D medium, yet higher‑dimensional arrays appeared very late and mostly with machines.
- Observations that simple, minimal depictions (in art or layout) can be deeply “beautiful” and cognitively powerful.
History, language, and accounting context
- Tablets are linked to early administrative work in sizable ancient cities, challenging caricatures of purely survival‑focused ancient life.
- Disagreement over ancient mortality: some emphasize child death skewing averages; others dispute extremely low adult life expectancy claims.
- Accounting discussion: tablets seen as early tabulated tallies; double‑entry bookkeeping is much later but also inherently tabular.
- Etymological note: “table” and “tablet” share a root as flat surfaces for laying out data.
Modern echoes, projects, and humor
- References to historically important tables (e.g., Alfonsine tables) and modern tooling influenced by tabular thinking (Great Tables, DuckDB talks).
- Personal projects to encode long‑lasting information on clay or metal (including aluminum foil in an urn) explicitly mimic Babylonian durability.
- Numerous jokes: “Excel is in our DNA” (and genes misparsed as dates), inevitable “all software becomes Excel,” alien/time‑traveler origins of spreadsheets, and “Excel ‑2k” macro humor.