Oldest Recorded Transaction On September 6, 2025, a blog post highlighted an image of the oldest known transaction database, dating back to 3100 BC from Sumer civilization. This ancient tablet recorded accounts of malt and barley groats and has survived for over 5000 years without downtime, demonstrating what the author calls "rock solid durability." --- Exploring Oldest Supported Database Dates The author then examined if modern databases can support such ancient dates, focusing on the three popular databases: | Database | Oldest Supported Date | |------------|------------------------| | MySQL | 1000 AD | | Postgres | 4713 BC | | SQLite | 4713 BC | MySQL does not support dates as old as 3100 BC. Postgres and SQLite support the Julian calendar down to January 1, 4713 BC, allowing the insertion of dates that old. Example SQL using PostgreSQL to insert the oldest date: Trying to insert a date older than 4713 BC returns an error: --- Questions Remain The author wonders how museums or historians manage dates older than the limit supported by typical databases: Do they store such ancient dates as text? Use custom epoch systems? Create custom data types supporting ancient date operations? The author reflects on how to replicate typical TIMESTAMP functionalities for such data. --- Additional Notes The image source is credited to the Sumer civilization Wikipedia page. The author discovered the ancient transaction tablet during Joran Dirk Greef's talk on performance interfaces, with timestamps at 38:10 in the related YouTube video. The talk contains other insightful material shared previously on the author's social channels. --- Acknowledgments to aku, happyshady, Mr. Bhat, and General Bruh for early feedback.*