Back Home	Seminar on Records and Archives in Society
Course This Week Past Readings History Archives Students'Projects	Silvia Hansman, Hist0647, spring1999   Book keeping in Ancient Sumer Jones, tom B., Book keeping in Ancient Sumer, Archeology Record keeping in Sumer began in the 3000 BC. Most Sumerian texts known are "economic" rendering lists of workers, temple industries, agricultural work, transportation and trade. Most of them dates from the end of the sumerian period just before 2000BC. Record keeping was done in the the developed from simple lists to sophisticated and precise procedures. Jones attribute the orderliness of sumerian record keeping to two main factors: Mesopotamia base it survival on a complex system of canals that provided irrigation and prevent floods. This required a high level of organization and collective efforts for the construction, maintenance and supervision of the irrigation network. Sumerian society was a theocracy. The kings was gods representative on earth. Land and animals were considered to belong to the gods. Kings and their subjects have had to render account of their administration to the gods. In 1908 local antiques hunters, excavated a mound in Drehem and find many records in cuneiform writing from the city archives. They start selling this tablets in small groups to dealers al over the world. Thousands have been published as "autograph copies", but many remain unknown. For that reason it was very difficult to get a complete picture of the operations performed in the ancient city. Even thou, a cross examination of several tables make possible to reconstruct some of the procedures. Drehem (cattle market) is thought to have functioned as a receiving depot of animals destined to official use in the city of Lagash. People brought animals to the city were official Some of the record keeping procedures: A separate record was made for each transaction (receipt or disbursement) Such records where incorporate into daily monthly and yearly summaries. Expenditures where also summarized monthly there were also "Balanced accounts" summarizing receipts and disbursements for a period of a month or year. duplicates were made. One stayed at Drehem the duplicate went to the place where the animal came from. a record was inscribed in a tablet; tablets were filed in a basket. Baskets were stored in archives. A clay label was attached to each basket, summarizing contents and year.