This post is a compiled snippet from a Twitter thread that I've transported over here for posterity. The original thread started here: https://twitter.com/b_cavello/status/1168241054941732864

Curious about the history of archeology-aware creation: when did people begin concerning themselves with how future discoverers might understand, translate, and perceive them?

I spend a not-insignificant amount of time thinking about how to preserve knowledge to be robust against the elements and the passage of time.
99percentinvisible.org/episode/ten-thousand-years

Perhaps a better question: what is the history of archival? Especially long-term archival?
I suspect a lot of it (especially a lot of what we know of it) has to do with the physical embodiments that have lasted, but (as 99pi referenced) I also wonder about song/story as archival

The Rosetta Stone was almost certainly not designed to serve archeological purposes, but it does show us the robustness that can be gained from such multi-lingual and multicultural works.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_Stone

There are some concerted efforts like by @longnow and @internetarchive or even various libraries to collate information, but many of these projects seem to live in especially fragile, degradable forms like software.

I’m sure that #historytwitter could add color here, but it’s one of the most robust ways of preserving knowledge seems to be just making a lot of copies. Ancient trash heaps contain a wealth of information!

Could it be that mailing a bunch of translated copies “How it’s made” books around the world is one of our best bets for communicating forward?

Anyone else interested in purposefully distilling some knowledge into a more robust storage format?
@lachrob has been toying with a “technological codex” project to take a given technology (say, a laser) and detailing the steps from a level of presumed tech (like bronze tools)