The mechanisms by which people to this day use to memorise large quantities of information were first discovered in ancient Greece. Simonides of Ceos, an ancient Greek poet realised one way in which the brain can organise memories when he attended a banquet. At one point he was called away from the banquet, and just as he had left the roof of the building collapsed, killing all the remaining guests and leaving their bodies unidentifiable. Through remembering where each guest was sitting, Simonides alone was able to identify the bodies. In this way the principles of mnemonics (systems of aiding memorisation), and spatial and narrative mnemonics in particular were born...

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