Art Exhibition on Cuneiform Accounting in Ancient Mesopotamia

Your Name
Instructor Name
Course Number
Date
Art Exhibition on Cuneiform Accounting in Ancient Mesopotamia
Introduction
Accounting is among the most critical drivers of civilization. It dates back to ancient Mesopotamia and emerged alongside other developments like counting, money, and, most importantly, writing (Oldroyd and Dobie 96). The role of accounting was to record financial transactions motivated by the need to account for taxes and business transactions in emerging urban centers and to recognize and measure the results of effort and labor. Aside from business transactions and taxation, it was also crucial for priests (in temples) to keep a record of offerings (Saidu). As the ancient societies expanded into more complex civilizations, the need for an improved form of communication (writing), quantification of wealth (counting), and trade gained momentum leading to the formation of private property, systems of commerce, capital, and currency (Mattessich).
As a result, various accounting forms were adopted to keep track of land-based trade, labor, agricultural products, land ownership, and land use (Carmona and Ezzamel 200). Further, the need for recordkeeping was accelerated by the emergence of centralized governance, military operations, conquest, and public work projects. Thus, accounting became an essential tool for rulers to maintain social order through accountability. In this view, the current paper is an art exhibition demonstrating the various accounting forms adopted in the ancient eras of the modern Middle East. This ancient civilization relied on cuneiform tablets to record financial or trade interactions for future reference and as a form of communication.
Use of Cuneiform Tablets
According to Bnayan (pr. 2), early payroll records marked the first steps toward a writing system. In other words, the need for accounting for the exchange of wealth and property among citizens in the Ancient Mesopotamia was central to developing a writing system. Historians also show that the civilization of the Fertile Crescent, known for its expertise in pottery, domestication of animals, and the invention of the wheel, led to the bloom of modern writing. Thus, this need for accounting led to the development of cuneiform, making it possible for the emergence of engineering, mathematics, astronomy, and medicine (Chiriu, Ricci, and Carbonaro). In essence, cuneiform became the first technique of writing in Mesopotamia. Thus, according to Harford (pr. 5), the world’s first accountants counted on cuneiforms to keep records of transactions, property, trade, and taxes.
As the earliest writing system, cuneiform was made by impressing triangular-shaped reeds wedges into wet clay molded into tablets. These tablets were then hardened by heat to provide an almost-permanent record that could not be altered unless through destruction. In their research, Chiriu, Ricci, and Carbonaro argued that the binary engraving technique used on cuneiforms was akin to a black-and-white tale. This is because there were no further details, except for the triangular impressions to differentiate one tablet from another based-on information they carried and their relevance to governance, offerings in temples, or transactions among individu...