I just wanted to note that the empires of the period didn't care about the welfare of their people. They were protection rackets, not modern social democracy. The "variable" that the Emperor of such an empire would want to maximize is the probability of him and his successors sitting on the throne of an intact empire. So public works weren't going to be interesting unless they enhanced the military abilities of the empire (e.g. roads, port facilities, river improvements, or canals for transport, irrigation works, relay stations and warning beacon system to inform the king of an attack), or reduced the probability of revolt (granaries and temples anyone?), and the King could care less about peasant housing. Also it should be pointed out that clay tablets could be fired (with a risk of breaking them), and that there are plenty of them still around, precisely because of that -- they were in effect fired in the inferno of the city's sack. Also, given that pottery was mass produced in the period we're talking about and that it was the standard solution to storage of goods of nearly any sort, the amount of clay for a small tablet couldn't have been too expensive, and given that kings loved big archives as prestige items this is exactly the sort of thing that a period monarch might like. The point that clay tablets are fragile is a valid one -- I imagine the stereotypes used to make them would be sent around the kingdoms for making copies to put up on a board or something. It should additionally be pointed out that many documents spanned multiple tablets (indeed most of any consequence did), though she is right that there isn't any real way to make codex or scroll-style books. I'm sorry if that came off as a bit irrelevant or screedy, but I was making the point that she was committing an anachronism here.