History

This is prompted by a post over on "Comic Strips@lemmy.world" about what Photographic Memory was called prior to the invention of photographs.

Looking into it, it seems that perhaps it was not notable until recently.

Photographic Memory, Eidetic Memory, Total Recall, and Hyperthymesia are all currently used for the ability, though often with different connotations.

Does anyone know of ancient writing on the subject?

I am discounting the trained memorization of bards and storytellers of old, which I understand typically used memorization and not "Total Recall". Please let me know if I am incorrect.

The Wikipedia pages on Eidetic Memory and Hyperthymesia cover different aspects, but neither cites anything older than “Funes the Memorious”. Funes the Memorious was written after the camera was invented. “Total Recall” is also used for the ability, but also does not appear to have a long history.

Unrelated but fun: ‘Photographic Memory’ The story of how we stored digital photographs