Accounting ledgers and balances

What it is

Systematic records of the inflows, outflows and balances of grain, beer, cattle and workers, with verifiable totals and subtotals. Accounting by ledger is the first practical application of writing and arithmetic.

The Uruk IV-III tablets are 85% accounting documents; literature arrived centuries later.

What it led to

• Redistributive temple and palace economy: standardised rations for thousands of dependants
• Interest-bearing loans, debt and debt slavery
• Auditing, official accountability and the notion of fraud
• Planning of harvests and public works based on numerical forecasts

Built on

• Sealed clay bulla with tokensc. 3500 BCE
• Cuneiform writingc. 3200 BCE
• Industrial state bakery and breweryc. 2550 BCE
• Rationing system

Made possible

• Sexagesimal number systemc. 3000 BCE
• Standardized weights and measuresc. 2600 BCE
• Palace archive and libraryc. 2500 BCE
• Scribal school (edubba) and written curriculumc. 2500 BCE
• Silver by weight as money standardc. 2500 BCE
• Positional number notationc. 2000 BCE
• Sexagesimal system
• Interest-bearing loan
• Silver as a standard of value
• Standardised weights and measures

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