How the world's first accountants counted on cuneiform

[Judi Lynn]

By Tim Harford
BBC World Service, 50 Things That Made the Modern Economy
2 hours ago





SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY
This tablet has an account in Sumerian cuneiform describing the receipt of oxen


The Egyptians used to believe that literacy was divine, a gift from baboon-faced Thoth, the god of knowledge.

Scholars no longer embrace that theory, but why ancient civilisations developed writing was a mystery for a long time. Was it for religious or artistic reasons? To communicate with distant armies?

The mystery deepened in 1929, when a German archaeologist named Julius Jordan unearthed a vast library of clay tablets that were 5,000 years old.

They were far older than the samples of writing already discovered in China, Egypt and Mesoamerica, and were written in an abstract script that became known as "cuneiform".

More:
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-39870485

[wasupaloopa]

1. Must have been hell carrying those around in a brief case to a client's office.

[eppur_se_muova]

3. Pity the dog that ate your homework. nt

[eppur_se_muova]

2. "Scholars no longer embrace that theory" ... Hmmmm ... have you checked with Fox News on that ?

They might hold otherwise.

[Igel]

5. Mostly not.

The only ones I've run across that think that writing was somehow divine have been some rather strange Jews deeply into the Talmud without acknowledging it.

But it's funny. Writing was the result of needing to record trade and transactions. Pure business. Then you look in literature departments and you see mostly utter contempt for such pedestrian enterprises.

Then again, it was taken over by priests (who were big into contempt), and mostly it was religious institutions that dealt with education. Even if trade and military were a big part of it.

[Loki Liesmith]

4. Base 60. Counted on their joints

instead of their fingers.

[pansypoo53219]

6. i did an estate sale last year. not much for me, i found silver plate tho, then i spotted a

'cuniform' tablet. i was all OOO as i had just see a PBS thing w/ cuniform. the guy at checkout was very curious about WHAT IS THAT. AND I COULD SAY! its cuniform. now i have cuniform.