Usually we put "properties" as column headers while rows represent entities whose those properties are assigned or recorded.
It would be interesting to understand why it's not been the other way around or whether Sumerians used both orientations.
It would be interesting to understand why it's not been the other way around or whether Sumerians used both orientations.
A quick test to that hypothesis (which I'm too lazy to try to perform but offer to anyone who might be interested in looking or who might already know) would be looking at ancient Chinese table layouts. :)