The Case of the Clay Tablet
February 20th 2008 04:18
The Case of the Clay Tablet
Or why we still need books and backups?
Before there were books and paper clay tablets were a popular writing medium.
Ironically the clay tablets that do survive did so because they were abandoned and forgotten and buried in storerooms that were later built over.
In Greece all we have are ten or twenty years of accounts and lists ... no literature or history on the Linear B tablets ... the permanent records and any unknown literature were possibly translated to lead or gold tablets and later melted down for jewellery. That's an educated guess based on references to metal tablets and writings in later legends.
Point being that even records on metal dont always survive.
A lot of books are being transferred into digital media or released online with no hardcopy?
I contribute to Yahoo answers under a different avatar and its always a hassle to get kids and teenagers to use books. They want quick easy answers.
This is why I'm thinking about clay tablets and other media.
As we transfer data from one medium to another are we presuming we have preserved all the relevant data and maybe we are not?
Clay tablets as a recording media lasted for three to two thousand years.
Books as bound volumes have been around for about 1500 years in the West.
The use of Books as scrolls overlapped with clay tablets in history.
Currently Books overlap with Digital media which often has a "scroll" format !
Have things come full cycle?
Has clay replaced plastic?
We are returning to flat slabs for recording information?
How ironic "progress" can be!
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