Don't forget the capability for mental retention of abstract names and events, to pass the story from mouth to ear across generations for millennia, before the invention of writing.

To the ancient Greeks, memory was a crucial element of all art forms, as shown by there being Muses for three types of poetry (epic, romantic, nationalistic), two types of theater (drama and comedy), one for music, one for dance, one for history and one for astronomy, which kept track of the movement of objects across the night sky.

Notice the absence of painting and sculpture.

To top it off, the Muses were the nine daughters of Mnemosyne - goddess of memory - and Chronos - god of time. And there you have it, according to the Greeks: the inspirations of man are intimately tied to memory, information being passed along. Tweaked a little each time, to be sure, it keeps growing, getting more complex, which also makes for a slightly bigger memory challenge each time.