An economics professor of mine in college (might have been an accounting prof—it’s been a long time) said the very first written document was probably an IOU.;-)
The earliest cuneiform documents were warehouse inventories. Kept the custodian from selling all the goods.
The earliest cuneiform documents were warehouse inventories. Kept the custodian from selling all the goods.
I used to know a guy back in my days at The Globe (the forum system, not the newspaper) who claimed that the Sumerian writing system got more sophisticated when they improved their system of accounting. The way I remember it, he said they used a form of ‘dime accounting’ and altered the basis. He’d learned about this during his time in university. I’d try to track him down, but I can’t remember his name, or his nick, but I do recall that when he retired (and that would be in the area of 20 years ago) he moved to Indonesia, for the malaria or something.
https://search.brave.com/search?q=sumerian+dime+accounting