Birth of accounting - Lecture 1

Question 1

What can we tell from the carved axe head dating back to the last ice age 30-10,000 BC?

Answer 1

Lunar notations with a strong feminine association

Question 2

What is Schamndt-Besserat’s interpretation of the lunar axe and fertility symbols?

Answer 2

.Exchange of women and goods
.Reduces women to commodities - patriarchal view

Question 3

What is the competing interpretation to Schmandt-Besserat’s view on the lunar axe?

Answer 3

.Lunar carvings indicative of the primacy of women in society - Matriarchal view
.Women were the dominant force and central to the control of reproduction
.Lunar axe tracked the menstrual cycles against the moon

Question 4

Where did agricultural societies develop?

Answer 4

Mesopotamia

Question 5

What form of currency was used throughout Mesopotamia?

Answer 5

Clay tokens

Question 6

What are the Knowledge limitations of Mesopotamia’s accounting practices?

Answer 6

.Wide scope - 5000 years not just one society
.Generalisations are problematic
.Incomplete evidence - Most sites not dug

Question 7

When did token accounting appear and how was it used?

Answer 7

.8000 BC with earliest farming
.System of one to one correspondence between tokens and commodities
.1 Sheep = 1 Token

Question 8

How did agricultural society differ to hunter gatherer’s in relation to accounting?

Answer 8

.Taxing obligations
.Property rights
.Population growth
.Unequal concentrations of wealth

Question 9

Why after the invention of property rights was there a need for reckoning technology?

Answer 9

To track the associated rights and obligations

Question 10

How did the lunar axe notations and the token system allow the controlling of events from a distance?

Answer 10

.Lunar axe - Enabled information to be separated from the original owner
.Token - Economic exchanges to be recorded and conveyed to other parties

Question 11

How does the token accounting of Mesopotamia link to the invention of writing?

Answer 11

.Shapes of tokens corresponded to the earliest cuneiform writing
.Implication that accounting came first and led to the invention of writing
.Discovered by Schmandt Besserat
.Token system replaced by clay writing tablets in 3000BC due to volume of transactions

Question 12

What are Accounting’s Three most elemental properties?

Answer 12

.Protecting property entitlements
.Controlling events at a distance
.Providing legal evidence existing from ancient times