My Own Thoughts

Scribal Terror quotes Wikipedia:

Although the ancient peoples probably did not realize that fingerprints could identify individuals, references from the age of the Babylonian king Hammurabi (1792-1750 B.C.E.) indicate that law officials fingerprinted people who had been arrested. In China around 300 C.E. handprints were used as evidence in a trial for theft. In 650 C.E., the Chinese historian Kia Kung-Yen remarked that fingerprints could be used as a means of authentication.In his Jami al-Tawarikh [Universal History], Persian official and physician Rashid-al-Din Hamadani (a.k.a. “Rashideddin”) (1247-1318) comments on the Chinese practice of identifying people via their fingerprints: “Experience shows that no two individuals have fingers exactly alike.”

Another tidbit for Dielli.