ancient rome
The Census Has Always Been "Big Data"
The Census has always been “Big Data,” with or without computers and the automation of information.
Census and Sensibility: A Little History of Big Data at IEEE (Wayback Machine link)
Consider just one use of today’s big data with a deep history and a major impact on computational technology: keeping track of a country’s citizenry. This has often been accomplished through a periodic counting, or census. Many references to censuses exist in the ancient world, from Egyptian tomb inscriptions and the Hebrew Bible to, perhaps, most famously, the “worldwide” Roman census described in the Book of Luke in the New Testament.
The Virgin and Saint Joseph register for the census before Governor Quirinius. Byzantine mosaic at the Chora Church, Constantinople 1315–1320 – via Wikipedia
(Revised and republished March 28th, 2025)
Roman Ruins, 1966 - Rome, Italy
These photos of Roman ruins were taken in 1966 by my grandparents. These images are scanned Kodak slides, and they have not been altered. The first image with the inscription is near the Basilica Aemilia of the Forum. More information can be found on the inscription at the Index of Latin Inscriptions at the University of Chicago (97A23.11).
I’m assuming the last image is also in the Forum, and the other slides are some interesting takes of the Colosseum.
