A History of the World in a single tablet

Published : 29 June 2010

The BBC’s magnificent series A History of the World in 100 Objects broadcast an episode this month on the earliest recorded and extant communications writing device. This was a clay tablet used by civil servants in 3,300 BCE in the valley of Ur in Mesopotamia to record inventory and payments of beer to royal workers. 

Only a Scot, priding himself on his country’s  economic and engineering heritage, could take such delight as did Neil McGregor in pronouncing about the earliest example of the written word that “the accountants got there before the poets!”

But the British Museum Director missed the opportunity to make the obvious reference to the launch at the same time to great fanfare throughout the western world of another iconic tablet – the iPad. 

True the iPad seems cumbersome by comparison – at  4”X3” our Babylonian tablet comes in smaller and lighter than its Silicon valley cousin. Made from naturally recyclable materials  too, it has a battery life of over 5 millennia which is a good deal longer than the 10 hours promised by Apple. Plus the utility value – ensuring that workers have their daily supply of beer - a good deal more essential than many of the early iPad apps.

But we shouldn’t fail to acknowledge the ingenuity of these Silicon valley pioneers.  They are inspired by many of the great qualities of their fellow Babylonians – not least an urge for world domination for their inventions along with a quest to dominate the channels of trade. For Steve Jobs read Nebuchadnezzar (and Jobs is a heck of a lot easier to spell).

Plus they are united by not really being aware of how their invention may be utilised – how in the future poets might play as well as accountants !

Listeners to this truly noble series might care to vote for the iPad as the BBC’s 100th and final object - handheld  tablets  providing a dashboard for the human imagination at both ends of a five millennial divide.