The ancient Romans and Greeks were known to use the Memory Palace technique, as other commenters here have mentioned. (It's mentioned by Cicero, in Ad Herrenium (of unknown authorship), and St. Augustine, among others.)
This was continued into the middle ages, by e.g. Christian monks, see Mary Carruthers' work [0], and the Rennaisance (e.g. Matteo Ricci), see e.g. Frances Yates.
For non-western uses of the memory arts, I'd recommend Lynne Kelly. She writes about aboriginal Australians' use of songlines, the African Luba people's use of lukasas, etc. (Lynne Kelly has done multiple podcast interviews that make for fascinating listen, as she's both an accomplished practitioner of the memory arts as well the history behind them.)
For a modern, practical introduction, Alex Mullen has some great youtube videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2_Zsm4K3xE&list=PL5fi_YS6Tf...
[0] Thomas Bradwardine's 14th century essay: https://books.google.no/books?id=sFxuCwAAQBAJ&pg=PT210&lpg=P...
This was continued into the middle ages, by e.g. Christian monks, see Mary Carruthers' work [0], and the Rennaisance (e.g. Matteo Ricci), see e.g. Frances Yates.
For non-western uses of the memory arts, I'd recommend Lynne Kelly. She writes about aboriginal Australians' use of songlines, the African Luba people's use of lukasas, etc. (Lynne Kelly has done multiple podcast interviews that make for fascinating listen, as she's both an accomplished practitioner of the memory arts as well the history behind them.)
For a modern, practical introduction, Alex Mullen has some great youtube videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2_Zsm4K3xE&list=PL5fi_YS6Tf...
[0] Thomas Bradwardine's 14th century essay: https://books.google.no/books?id=sFxuCwAAQBAJ&pg=PT210&lpg=P...