It seems to me that the Persians were just as good at record-keeping as any relatively sophisticated ancient civilization.

The Persepolis Fortification Archives, for example, contain about 20,000 records that deal with the movement of several commodities (e.g. cereals, fruit, livestock, etc.) in the region around Persepolis, and dates to exactly this period (c. 510-490 BC): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persepolis_Administrative_Arch...