Men have done administrative work for many centuries. But it is not clear when the room where paperwork was created began to be thought of an office. In the earliest European history it may have been a room in a palace where some kind of accounting was done for the king. Earlier forms of keeping records were known but were not confined to a room or rooms. For example, in ancient China string was knotted to keep count of things as a record. But the record-keeper's "office" was not a room but wherever he needed to be to count something.