‘First data storage system’

• Scientists have discovered the world’s “very first data storage system” — 5,500-year-old clay balls unearthed in Iran that were used for record-keeping in Mesopotamia.

• The clay balls, excavated in the 1960s, were made about 200 years before writing was invented. The balls were sealed and scans revealed that they contain tokens in a variety of geometric shapes, varying from golf ball-size to baseball-size.

• The interpretation that they were for data storage is based on a 3,300-year-old clay ball found at a site named Nuzi that had 49 pebbles and a cuneiform text containing a contract for a shepherd to care for 49 sheep and goats.