Preaccounting History
Osman Sirkeci* & Yadigar L. Yurt**
Abstract：
Purpose - The study suggest that the beginning of history of accounting is 100.000 BC or older.
Methodology – The study is based on a review of found new findings on accounting history to
100.000 BC. Materialism and dialectical analysis methods of ordinal and cardinal mathematical approaches
were used.
Findings – This study is offered of the contribution to the efforts to provide lighting on accounting
historical roots alleged to have “a history as old as civilization”, the process of evolution by taking an
approach interdisciplinary among others archaeological discoveries, historical reviews, technological
assumptions, and taking into account the anthropological work relationships and interaction with other
disciplines.
Research limitations – This study has been deepened and enriched to reinterpret accounting history
with mathematician and accountant approaches by the help of new archeological and anthropological
findings on the Upper and Middle Paleolithic Era.
Originality – Numbers produce accounting, and accounting manages numbers.
Keywords ：Preaccounting；Accounting History；History of Numbers
【摘
要】
目的 - 研究表明，会计的历史开始为 100.000 BC 或以上。
方法 - 这项研究是基于对审查会计历史上的新发现公元前 100.000。序和基数的数学方法的
唯物主义和辩证分析的方法被使用。
结果 - 该研究的贡献占被指有“历史老文明”，进化的过程中，通过采取跨学科的方法等等
的历史根源的努力提供照明提供的考古发现，历史的评价，技术假设考虑到人类学的工作，与其他
学科的关系和互动。
研究的局限性 - 这项研究已深化和丰富了重新诠释会计历史与数学家和会计方法的帮助下，
新的上中游旧石器时代考古和人类学的调查结果。
创意 - 数字产生的会计，会计管理的数字。
【关键词】预会计，会计学历史，历史数字
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Introduction
History of accounting and numbers has been started with the Sumerians documents in
4000 BC (icaew 2013) by new and old studies about it. This means that accounting has a past
about 6000 years to the present (GÜVEMLI as cited in WITTY 1938: 112). However, it is
claimed that accounting history begins in 10.000 BC or 15.000 BC with another inefficient
and non-comprehensive resources and documents by some researchers.
There has not yet been accounting history study serves as a basis to the researcher
generally accepted in the global dimension. However, local studies made in different
dimensions provide us to obtain a general opinion from the US to China. So Accounting is a
discipline that spans the globe and is an internationally recognized profession (CARNEGIE
2007: 442). To display the current situation in terms of major approaches before presenting
the data obtained as a part of our search will make sense in our paper.
Consequently, in light of the current data obtained, looking to accounting and
accountancy history more determined and certain can be gained from the window which
history of numbers, calculus, and mathematics enlighten. Can define that accounting is the
oldest in management science, techniques, and applications (as cited in PLUNKETT; 1979).
Some accounting historians have based the invention of writing and numbers on accounting.
In other words they have maintained that writing and numbers have come into being and
developed from accounting (settlement) necessity (CAN 2007: p. 12).
Accounting has naturally undertaken and interpreted with numbers and mathematics in
historical development process. Consequently, accounting history has mixed somewhat with
the history of numbers, calculus, mathematics, and therefore the history of taxation.
While mathematicians have been researching numbers and their languages, they either
have documented the requirement that reveal these images by means of archaeology or they
have interpreted in accordance with the historical age.
First, Homo sapiens start to use presymbols and presigns producing from vary
geographical and chronological practices, which are not to be only ancestor of numbers but
also interpret directly as the meaning of objects. In process, they learned that these symbols
and signs could be independently used and abstracted from objects. They transformed into
more independent signs and lines with counting objects and measuring activities. And so,
notch or lines, which are to be mean digit one “1” and “a”, occurred.
During a period, these signs and lines are used to symbolize objects to determine their
amount or manyness with assembling and clustering lines next to each other. Previously they
were used to have been added objects and shown in the same cluster. Later developed and
sophisticated process, simple adding and making cluster began not to be adequate to use
manyness of objects.
Multiply and Divine Period
Homo sapiens, who lived as scattered and small groups for a long time, began to be
more durable and dominant across wild nature with their increasing skills. These skillful
humans outmaneuvered with thinking and manufacturing tools to their competitors. This
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ascendency made easy their life conditions. Their reproduction opportunities increased.
Population grew. Homo sapiens got to use ground and forests. They came across inadequate
of symbols adding their own objects and increasing ownership amounts. So they began to
define new multiply methods for expressing the similar manyness and clusters (JONES,
2005).
The first motivation for people to create number was the human desire to the
manyness of a set of objects. In other words, to know how many duck’s eggs are to be divided
amongst family members or even how many days until the tribe reaches the next watering
hole, how many days wills it be until the days grow longer and the nights shorter, how many
arrow heads do one trade for canoe? Knowing how to determine the manyness of a collection
of objects must surely have been a great aid in all areas of human endeavor (DUTTA; 2011).
The new archaeological findings make reviews useless which didn’t base on
documents about the history of accounting. This should put an end to the conflict. Then the
recent archaeological finding and their materialist technical reviews with accounting history
shall be referred to the year 100,000 BC.
Cornerstones of Accounting History since 40.000 Years
In 2010, The 2nd Balkans and Middle East Countries Auditing & Accounting History
Conference in Istanbul was presented a special title "Cornerstones of Accounting History".
The study dealt with the subject on the accounting history of the world from different
perspectives and approaches are studied by us. At the study presented with name of
“Cornerstones of Accounting History”, accounting history are explicates and examined with
the 40-thousand-year history of thematic and chronological details and evolutionary approach
to dealing with the dialectical process of development. And this study is a continuation of
improving on aforementioned article’s basic study.
The aim of this study is to contribute to the efforts to provide lighting on accounting
historical roots alleged to have a history as old as civilization, the process of evolution by
taking an approach interdisciplinary among others archaeological discoveries, historical
reviews, technological assumptions, and taking into account the anthropological work
relationships and interaction with other disciplines.
The same study taking away accounting history as old as 40,000 years is to aim to
expand its horizons enriching with more movement that is a bit older than that time and traces
its roots in the past. At the mentioned study, accounting history 40,000 years of study of the
development processes have been seemed to study by grouping four parts. Accounting history
of the beginning accepted as “15,000 years, with the invention of writing 3000 - 4000 BC” at
the former approaches discussed in this study is adjusted by placing a logical and dialectical
process of evolution. New findings basing on more perspective on old arguments a
convergence of accounting history is enriched and updated in this study.
Practice to Theory, Division of Labor Produced Counting
Homo sapiens felt the need for distinction and counting encountered objects as
singular or plural and as small or big. Then they tried to hunt herd easier with reducing them
from large number to few. And also they tried to hunt animals to distinguish whether they are
old or not, moreover small or not.
These practice and application processes covered a period, which could be relatively
counted a long time. In this process brain of Homo sapiens developed, because they
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consumed meat, thereby protein. It is known that, on one hand one numerical and
mathematical half of brain evolves; on the other hand another half of brain evolves, too.
Their needs for distinguishing differences between greatness and smallness or
manyness and fewness, and measurement of these differences were considered to define
similar and to compare with others. For example, Assyrian from recent past sent a bird, a
mouse, a frog and five darts to Persian. This is meant of war. Thus human communicated and
expressed themselves with symbols, goods and pictures (HERODOTOS IV: 131-132).
When coming to concern on the process of accounting and numbers, hunter stated
directly hunted animals with their leather, head, specially bone. Later they counted and
determined amounts with their pictures and making notch on them. In this process Homo
sapiens meant size of hunted animal with directly their own organ, e.g. fingers, foots, steps
and arms.
Preaccounting History
Cornerstone of Accounting History named article is discussed four basic areas. The
first basic process of accounting history is examined accounting, account, accounting and the
most important means of numbers and the emergence of numbers. In this study, “preaccounting history” called in the form of 100,000 year period with new findings are examined
in an evolutionary process.
Findings
The period, the current accounting activities, accounting historical origins and
evolution of the account will be enabled better detection and
understanding. In this study the process of production
activities with the smart and thinking human beings with
their own needs and social needs of socialization markings
(notches on the stones, side by side with the lines in the
walls of the cave, until the notches on the bones) will be
examined the formation and operation processes.
For example, as The History of Computing Project is
written, the first tools used for calculation aids were almost
certainly man's own fingers, and it is no coincidence that the
Latin word "digit" is used to refer to a finger (or toe) as well
as a numerical quantity. As the needed to represent larger Figure 1 Counting with fingers at ancient
numbers grows, early man employed readily available times,
http://www.thocp.net/timeline/0000.ht
materials for the purpose. Small stones or pebbles were used m
to represent larger numbers than fingers and toes, which had
the added advantage of easily storing intermediate results for later use. Thus, it is no
coincidence that the word "calculate" was derived from the Latin word for pebble: calculus.
When connection with the help of the light of developments in other disciplines with
each other is established, account and accounting can be examined with production life of
people and the potential positive and historical contributions.
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Figure 2 Lartet Bone, http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/28/rosenberg.php
Figure 3 Mussel Shell Paint Container, 100.000 BC,
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2049154/Ancient-artmaterials-discovered-South-African-cave.html (21.02.2013)
The Lartet bone was unearthed at the Gorge d’Enfer in the Vézère Valley in Southern
France in 1865, very near the as-yet undiscovered caves of Cro-Magnon and Lascaux. It is
assumed that it is about 30,000 years old. It has various markings that are neither decorative
nor random. These markings are different sets that are made different tools, techniques, and
stroke directions. Some researchers suggest that the marks are meant to record different
observations of the moon (ROSENBERG, 2007).
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There have not been much source data that has reached today and that is enlightening
the data user about math created by Homo sapiens lived in prehistoric ages. The history of
known of math or numbers is that starts with that of modern men’s that can be accepted as
close to today. It is known and admitted fact that maths and calculation take a vast place in the
life of men that have lived in touch with nature and achieved to continue their existence until
today by surpassing it in many fields. This indication shows that the history of calculation,
numbers and maths should go down to older times than supposed. It is known that men of the
period living in caves and tree holes, became familiar with the calculation and maths thanks to
the nicks and lines engraved on cave walls, stones, bones and tree pieces. These findings and
similar commentaries have been some of signs that counting action and even counting notion
are daily needs and actions in the prehistoric eras.
Men succeeded in taming animals and produced paint from the mixture of various
substances in different scales and proportions and wanted to know the quantity of the animals
that they possessed, felt the need for calculation to count and amount with calculi-like objects,
stones and clay scales and dices. With the help of these data and with archaeological and
anthropological findings that are unearthed day by day even they are very limited, the need of
men in their life adventures for calculation and recording and grouping and thus accounting
has been become clear.
According to the data and information that are get through some tribes that live their
primitive life is without technological
developments even in today in Australia
islands, South America and Africa, it has
been confirmed that these tribes use
numbers, simple and complex math when Figure 4 Ancient Mesolithic Notched Stone (100 Thousand
compared to their position. With this Year Old and Found in South Africa) – 8cm
approach, it shows that these tribes that are http://blog.everythingdinosaur.co.uk/blog/_archives/2012/
personifications of prehistoric eras that 02
have reached today feel the need for
counting, calculation and maths to ease their lives in the prehistoric times as it is in today.
Figure 5 Kerbholz – (30.000 BC); Mayer, Jan, Die Geschichte
der
mechanischen
Rechenhilfsmittel,
http://www.rechenhilfsmittel.de/kh_curta.pdf
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The Middle Stone Age, the period of geological time used by archaeologists to
describe the period of human evolution from the ending of the Mesolithic Ice Age phases to
the beginning of sedentary farming, arts and human remains have been hold a mirror the
period. Ancient residual that was found in the excavation made during University of
Witwatersrand Institute for Human Revolution researches in Klasies River Cave, South Africa
and that was definitely created by Homo sapiens creating lines on and the fragment of 8 cm
long whose large part sheared off seen in Figure 3, set another example of prehistoric times. It
is concluded as a result of the X-ray florescence and microscopic analyses that the finding
presumed to be 100.000 years old was made deliberately by men or man.
It not exactly known that various sharp stone tools on which there 7 lacerations and
that were showed a few little shallow linear characteristics were made by the same person or
by different engravers. There is also that these large and small lines that were deliberately
made were formed for a certain aim.
The Blombos Ocher Plaque is a great example. Dating to around 75,000 BCE in South
Africa, this stone contains clearly organized markings. Photo below courtesy of Smithsonian
Institution, Chip Clark. Thousands of years ago, humans began recording information on
objects, such ocher seeing picture. This ocher plaque has marks that may have been used to
count or store information. A close-up look at the object shows that the markings are clearly
organized. However it's difficult to identify exactly when decorations on rock became
systematic patterns containing representations of information. And this systematic pattern
suggests to some researchers that the markings represent information rather than decoration.
Figure 6 Source: Basri Celik, Rakam Ve Sayilarin Tarihi Gelişimi, http://homepage.uludag.edu.tr/~basri/ ders/2008.pdf, Page 2, Figure: First Hunters and Accountants.
The life and existence adventure of men have continued its existence going through various
phases during the long and complex history in strong communication relations within specific
norms. Thinking men, Homo sapiens being one of the important steps of evolution, have been
in communication during the periods that they continue their existence and have been in
relation to the activities made for meeting the needs. Human beings, discovering taking notes
of required information that needs not to be forgotten while they live active lives, have served
in the generation of numbers, being a cornerstone and foundation pier of today’s maths with
this way and methods, and Figure 6 thus, digits. For example, it is the cave man of 100.000
years before that showed representatively in the Figure 6.
A hundred thousand years ago, human meeting the needs of everyday life, producing
and consuming, began to put mark and to shape objects in this process. To give a shape to the
objects has transformed into facilitating tools of primitive human manufacturing operations at
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the process of production. This tool production has transformed into knowledge on Homo
sapiens. The intellectual accumulation began at the primitive sense. However, these human
were quite far from such a detailed describe of it.
The cycle of people, Homo sapiens, learned to draw and break and cut and shape to
hard substance and soft substance. One of the best examples is Blombos Plaque Ocher. It is
estimated that ocher, which is founded in South Africa, is 75,000 years old thanks to the help
of dating technique. This stone has been expertly worked with very fine precision. It is exactly
contained unsolved signals on. The lines on ocher have a clear expression that Homo sapiens
have had the other tools to make the scratches.
In the process, in order to count the human has used more than straight lines. Thus, the
lines and marks on a piece of stone have turned into symbols. These symbols used for
expression something and communicate with each other primarily in closed communities. It is
also a message to those outside the community, and the meaning of communication. In this
process, people arrange the lines and symbols to determine the amount of the number of
objects, which they own.
New archaeological discoveries and findings indicate that Homo sapiens use cave
walls in the domain of communication and, as communication tools, stone, bone and wood in
pre historic. The era of media as a means of primitive lines, they provide the first images and
symbols through communication. Then lines turn the twist and shorten and lengthen. Thus
they transformed into signs and symbols. This evolution has created the first steps easier,
accelerated according to the need of communication between them.
Communication Homo sapiens of each other is concentrated in parallel batches
between the passages of the built-centered
life. And thus, the emergence of
communication tools produced led to. The
growing population of Homo sapiens
accelerated communication and ideas have
evolved intensified in war and peace in their
own communities and foreign.
Due to the growing needs and owned
things of Homo sapiens, they first led to
distinguish “a lot and few". Later they
discovered to distinguish single and plural.
Covering a long period of time in the
process, at the same civilization sections in
7 Dating to around 75,000 BCE in South Africa,
different geographies in different historical Figure
http://eduscapes.com/history/beginnings/10000bce.htm
stages of human clusters of symbols but
similar to the marks and numbers of lines
were required to use. At the different geographies, it is relatively different historical stages of
social development processes, but also symbols similar to the human race, counting lines and
signs created pre-conditions. And it paved the way. In other words, modern accounting
initiated to live in the first stages.
Homo sapiens began keeping the first counting records directed to identify and
domesticate animals in prehistory. These records are sometimes scratches and marks on a
piece of a rock, and sometimes a piece of wood from scratches, sometimes in the form of a
slurry symbols on the tablet.
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These examples are the cornerstones of today's accounting. These examples, which are
primitive numbers as the same time, are well-preserved examples of the 5 and 10 and 12
number clusters. Period in 1937, one of the oldest dated materials found was the scoreboard
bar in Czechoslovakia during excavations at Vestonice. This log was a young wolf 7-inchlong forearm bone. It has notched notch 55 on the bone. The first 25 of them are divided into
groups of five. At the end of the series, the previous one notch notches were twice as long.
These signs are considered to reflect one by one, counting and grouping the same time.
In addition, some researchers in Austria even today show that the tribes do not have
the words to count. For example, when asked a parent living here how many children have,
they answered that "many" to means more than one. Indeed, there are really four children.
Analysis
After seeing the approaches about the accounting history with main features, it’s
appeared that writing a serious world and human accounting history is an inevitable duty. In
the light of success and achievements of modern archaeology, it’s become definite that
founding the bases of accounting to the division of labor of “Wise Man” or “Homo Sapiens”
is accurate1 .
By reason of first written documents and scripture had been started to use in a
common and known manner, initiating the accounting history with 3500 or 4000 BC has
caused very important humanitarian activity has been misinterpreted and ill-defined
disconnected from its historical and dialectical origins. And this can’t be a scientific style and
approach.
Available information, logical interpretations, and elucidated activities of human life
present accounting history had started to come up in the simplest form as accountancy with
first counting activities and requirement.
With division of labor, collecting and producing of human over from own needs has
accelerated to the trade-off and commerce process. The domination process of human to the
nature and the environment has been the period of modern accounting and economy which
have been laid the foundations.
Numbers Produce Accounting – From Numbers to Accounting
Numbers is a tool to arrive way of counting point. So we needs to know how to
numbers come out. Accounting is produced together with beginning of numbers.
1
According to paper named “How to Become a Qualified Accountant” of Richard Alfred Witty (1906)
“The most widely-known records about monetary transactions were seen in epigraphs quoting mercantile
establishment businesses which had gone too far and were related to Babylonian empire about 2600 years ago
and about 600 BC. Many epigraphs like this were found in the last century. Records included of these epigraphs
couldn’t be expressed as “calculation” in the meaning of today, however they could be an absolute document
about accounting and record method which was used 5000 years ago. As far as it’s accepted that there had
been sufficient commerce 2000 years before this age, accepting to be made any bookkeeping entry in primary
period is a proper methodology...” and Oktay who translated this comment highlights that “The information
foregoing about the period and region that accounting had been born in given by British and American authors
draw an attention, because both of them had come upon to the first period of Turkish civilization and it’s worth
to analyze.” http://www.akademikbakis.org/12/makale/pacioli.pdf Access: (02.03.2010).
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The history of numbers had been started with the invention of digit one (1) had dated
back before the invention of zero. For in fact the whole history of humanity is spread out
backwards between the time when it was realized that the void was “nothing” and the time
when the sense of “oneness” first arose, as humans became aware of their individual solitude
in the face of life and death, of the specificity of their species as distinct from other living
beings, of the singularity of themselves as distinct from others, or of the difference of their
sex as distinct from that of their partners (IFRAH 2005: pp. 8-9).
Far from being an impeccable sequence of concepts each leading logically to the next,
the history of numbers is the story of the needs and concerns of enormously diverse social
groupings trying to count the days in the year, to make deals and bargains, and people needed
to be able to count and measure time, or at the very least to develop some practical means
managing in such circumstances (IFRAH 2005: 9).
Discussion
“The history of accounting is as old as civilization,
key to important phases of history,
among the most important professions in economics and business,
and fascinating”
(GIROUX, Gary)
Small clay symbols named “token” or “calculi” in Latin which had taken broad
distribution range in the earliest district of Asia Minor (Anatolia) and in Mesopotamia has
loomed large in accounting history. Each of these variously calculi and calculation stones
corresponded to a different object and gave information about the product line and the
measure standard of the tradable goods. For example, goatherds and shepherds needed to
know when they brought their flocks back from grazing that none had been lost; people who
kept stocks of tools or arms or stood guard over food supplies for a community needed to
know whether the complement of tools, arms or supplies had remained the same as when they
last checked. These “calculation stones” handled extremely easily on trade in terms of getting
along in long distance line (CELIK 2010).
The oldest example unearthed so far dates back to Paleolithic times, and is a wolf bone
found in 1937 in Moravia, Czechoslovakia, that had fifty-five deep notches carved into it. It
has similar length of twenty-five notches, which arranged in-groups of five, followed by a
single notch twice as long which appears to terminate the series. Then starting from the next
notch, also twice as long, a new set of notches runs up to thirty. This wolf radius bone clearly
denotes the concept of five, and corresponds to the digits on each hand, which doubtless led
Diluvial man to think in terms of numbers. The Ishango bone was found in 1960 in the
African area of Ishango, which was centered near the headwaters of the Nile River at Lake
Edward. This fossilized baboon bone, which was dated at 18.000 BC, has clear markings
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believed to be for mathematical calculations, making it the earliest evidence for a calculator.
In African prairies, which stone has been lacking entirely in, pebble stone blocks used in
counting and exhumed from the ground were found. These pebble stones are supposed to
determine the animal numbers. While this counting was occurred in the old world, in the US,
natives in Peru were taking the inventories with rope knots2. Nobody knows where or when
the history of numeration began, but it was certainly a very long time ago. That was when
people were unable to conceive of numbers as such, and therefore could not count. They were
capable, at most, of e concepts of one, two, and many. Fundamental principles in this field
were revealed by psychologists and ethnologists (SIRKECI and BAHCE and ARIKAN 2010).
Like some of the higher animals, the human adult with no training at all has direct and
immediate perception of the number 1 to 4 only. Beyond that level, people have to learn to
count. To make that they need to develop, firstly, advanced number manipulating skills, then,
for the aims of memorization and of communication, they need to develop a linguistic
instrument, and much later on, they require to devise a scheme for writing numbers down.
However, these excellent counting tools has not been required in the first times yet to make
sure that the sheep and the goats that set off to graze have all come back to byre. As
illustrated, different countries have implied numbers in different styles(SIRKECI and BAHCE
and ARIKAN 2010).
Even in the complete absence of the requisite words, of sufficient memory, and of the
abstract concepts of number, there are all sorts of effective substitute devices for these kinds
of operation. Nowadays various populations in Africa, Asia, Oceania, and America whose
language contains only the word for one, two, and many, but who nonetheless understand
one-for-one parities perfectly well, use notches on bones or wooden sticks to keep a tally.
Other populations use piles or lines of pebble stones, shells, knuckle bones, or sticks. Still
others tick things off by the parts of their body as fingers, toes, elbows, knees, eyes, nose,
mouth, ears, breasts, and chest3. Furthermore early humanity used more or less whatever came
to hand to manage in a quantitative as well as a qualitative universe. Nature itself offered
every cardinal model possible as birds with two wings, five-fingered hands, and four-legged
animals. As everyone began counting by using their ten fingers, most of the numbering
systems that were invented used base 10 and with adding feet human chose base 20. From this
point of view, human consider numbers abstractly.
Our ancestries had also invented the first elements of accounting, since what they were
actually doing was writing numbers in the simplest notation known. They had written the
numbers with reasonable digital signal hierarchy.
Although this invention seemed to be primitive, it turned out to be remarkably robust,
and is probably the oldest human invention apart from fire and more important than using the
wheel still in use today. Various tallies found on cave walls next to animal paintings leave us
in little real doubt that we are dealing with on animal counting tool. In a similar way, formerly
Alpine shepherd in Austria and Hungary, just like Celtic, Tuscan, and Dalmatian herdsmen,
have checked off their animals by scoring vertical bars, V and X signs on a piece of wood,
and that is still how they do it today. Moreover knotted string was used to represent numbers
by Inca administration in South America. Knotted string was with such a device that Incas
sorted the archives of their very effective administration (IFRAH, 2000: 11, 179, 180, 191).
2
“Eski Uygarlikta Sayi Birimi”, http://www.sonforum.org/eski-uygarlıkta-sayi-birimi-t6222.html?t
Access: (19.02.2010).
3
For example, Muslims count 99 names of Allah with touching their hand ganglions instead of rosary
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However certain information has not been existed in order to when the first accounting
records had been used and they had been used by which civilization, general tendency among
accounting historians, it has accepted that accounting practices had started in “Mesopotamian
Civilizations” and “Ancient Egypt” which first-writing and numbers had come in to use.
Classical accounting historians have based on the beginning of accounting history
researches to ancient Egypt, the period of Pharaohs and have evaluated the developments
within the framework of this line. On the other hand, there have not been any findings
relevant to these years; especially have taken place in accounting history (GUVEMLI 1995).
Time Table of Accounting History
“Cornerstone of Accounting History” named article is discussed four basic areas. The
first basic process of accounting history is examined accounting, account, accounting and the
most important means of numbers and the emergence of numbers. In this study,
“preaccounting history” called in the form of 100,000 year period with new findings are
examined in an evolutionary process.
It’s possible to take up the accounting development process in 4 main stages with this
approach. We have learned that the oldest foundlings could have dated back to 100.000 BC
which accounting and accounts record process had been started by means of archaeology with
on the one part numbers in cave paintings, on the other side counting and algorism history
with pebble stones, and calculi or calculi (in English calculus’s), besides these with notched
bones and jaggy bars. With taking these data into consideration and making cursory
examinations and researches are inevitability, for now it’s required to be accepted that
initiating the accounting history from this period is the truest approach.
Table 1 Accounting History Eras
Middle Paleolithic Era
First Era – Preaccounting Era
Upper Paleolithic Era/
Neolithic Era
Second Era
Modern History
100.000 - 10.000
10.000 – 0
0 – 1960
Third Era
Fourth Era – Modern Accounting Era
1960 – Millennium
Source: Arranged by us.
Human time periods are divided into two section as prehistorical (before history began
to be recorded) and historical (when written records began to be kept).
In archaeology and anthropology, human prehistory is subdivided around the three-age
system. This list includes the use of the three-age system as well as a number of various
designations used in reference to sub-ages within the traditional three.
The dates for each age can vary by region. On the geologic time scale, the Holocene
epoch starts at the end of the last glacial period of the current ice age (around 10,000 BC) and
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continues to the present. The beginning of Mesolithic is usually considered to correspond to
the beginning of the Holocene epoch4.
Various Views in Beginning of the Accounting History
History does not repeat itself.
But it rhymes.
Mark Twain
Different historical periods have been articulated by many researchers, authors, and
scientists from different countries with respect to the beginning and the developmental stages
of general accounting history. Notwithstanding that this circumstance is a research subject in
itself; it is possible to be taken in the form of certain clusters for common denominators of
itself. In this context, we come across with an accounting history which has spread in
thousands of years, the beginning and the developmental stages of its undetermined; to 3500
BC, 7000 BC, 35000 BC or date back to the late history, Italian mathematician and
Franciscan friar Luca Pacioli known as the father of accounting history in 1494.
Missing links of accounting history that its roots dated back to old times as old as the
life of social person can be completed with advanced anthropological researches and
excavation works in recent years, and with the aid of convenient conditions created by global
information exchange opportunities.
Tally sticks are used in the globe in 13th century. These narrow shafts of wood are
receipts. They are made of hazel wood and were originally stored in leather pouches or canvas
bags. The notches in the wood indicate the amount that has been paid. Tally sticks were used
by accountants and by officials of the Exchequer who managed the revenue of the Crown.
They were a physical proof of payments made into the Treasury. The “Dialogue of the
Exchequer” describes a tally as: “the distance between the tip of the forefinger and the thumb
when fully extended... The manner of cutting is as follows. At the top of the tally a cut is
made, the thickness of the palm of the hand, to represent a thousand pounds; then a hundred
pounds by a cut the breadth of a thumb; twenty pounds, the breadth of the little finger; a
single pound, the width of a swollen barleycorn; a shilling rather narrower than a penny is
marked by a single cut without removing any wood” (http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk).
Table 2 Tally (Notched) Stick in Various Countries
UK and the US:
France:
Italy:
Switzerland:
Spain:
Austria:
Hungary:
Latin:
Greece:
4
Tally
taille, bâtons de taille
taglie di contrassegno
Degen, Alpscheit, Tesslen, Tesseln, Beigli, Beile, Tessere
talla, tara, tarja
Raitholz, Rechenholz, Robi(t)sch
Rovás
Tessera
Symbolon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_time_periods
108
Turkey:
Kertikli, Çentikli Çubuk
Source: http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kerbstock&action=edit&section Access:
(11.10.2009).
In Table 2, a reference is made to tally stick language in various countries. Made of
various animal bones, the number and form of the tallies on it that express the meanings and
numbers (29 unit number images) which are very definetly resolved show that they represent
a record of an early hunter's kills and the other properties by means of these tools and
calculating techniques in Swaziland, dating to around 35000 years ago.
Table 3 Tally Stick Languages in Various Civilizations
Tally Stick Languages
Many languages have their own
Tally Stick Sprachen
Viele Sprachen haben ihre eigenen
Chinese— chi
Chi
German—kerbholz
(notched wood- gekerbt Holz)
Hebrew—teomin
(twins- Zwillinge )
Greek—symbolon
(put together- zusammen)
Adams, L. C. (n.d.). Fraud in other words:
Professional jargon and uncensored street slang.
Adams, L. C. (n.d.). Betrug mit anderen Worten:
Professional Jargon und unzensierte Street Slang
Source: REHSE, Ernst-Ehrich,
http://www.buchen.ch/Geschichte_der_doppelten_Buchhaltung.pdf Access: (12.09.2009).
Human beings had used these tools as both calculation board and calendar for ten
thousands of years until the last century. According to L.C. Adams, these bone pieces and
wood sticks had functioned as paper in the ages of paper had not been discovered yet. In the
same time, these tools had provided people settled accounts via each other with the same sizes
and concepts. Tradeoffs and commerce had been figured out through the ages with these
primitive calculators, notched inventories, and calculation tools could be named as the earliest
mathematical table. Despite the fact that Luca Pacioli is known as the father of accounting
and placed a considerable cornerstone to accounting and calculating methods with one of his
basic work of accounting and calculation, it’s defended that Mesopotamia has gone down to
4.000 BC and 35.000 years history of numbers are needed to replace to accounting history.
Tally sticks had functioned as guaranteed calculation tools against the errors and
counterfeiting for thousands of years. Giroux takes the accounting history back about 8.000
years ago from the archaeological remains found in ancient Jericho excavations near the Dead
Sea site in present Israel.
109
Also Rehse points at, not only needed to research the development of counting but
also required to look for counting, calculating stones, accounting marks diggings in Babylonia
excavations dated to 7000 BC, and the numbers of today which imagine first ones, and twos
on clay figures in that days. In other words, he defends that writing in generally had not come
into existence as a desire and requirement of speech and self expression of human, more
likely and naturally it had come up as an economic control tool and requirement.
Leyer, takes primarily counting boards used in simple counting, safekeeping and then
delivering, clay calculi or pebble stones as the most primitive form of accountancy. He takes
the functional accounting that had come up in Mesopotamia and had written to register and
clay tablets as the first stage of accounting history. He approves the second historical stage
after 1200 AD. After the developmental stage between 1200 AD and 1500 AD, it has entered
the period of present day accounting in the modern sense and the third historical stage.
However certain information has not been existed in order to when the first accounting
records had been used and they had been used by which civilization, general tendency among
accounting historians, it has accepted that accounting practices had started in “Mesopotamian
Civilizations” and “Ancient Egypt” which first-writing and numbers had come in to use.
Classical accounting historians have based on the beginning of accounting history
researches to ancient Egypt, the period of Pharaohs and have evaluated the developments
within the framework of this line. On the other hand, there have not been any findings
relevant to these years; especially have taken place in accounting history.
It’s known that first inventory procedures in history were done with the aim of follow
up goods in Egypt. With especially starting to record transactions of foodstuffs in ancient
Egypt (3400 BC), accounting system started to be constituted with also daily records beside
periodical inventory method. Further innovation that notable for accounting history in ancient
Egypt was budgetary step of accounting started to be constituted and written plans started to
be used.
Quipus or khipus (sometimes called “talking knots”) were recording devices used in
the Inca Empire and its predecessor societies in the Andean region. Quipu is the Spanish
spelling and the most common spelling in English. Khipu is the word for “knot” in Cusco
Quechua, the native Inca language. Most of the information recorded on the quipu consists of
numbers in a decimal system. In the early years of the Spanish conquest of Peru, Spanish
officials often relied on the quipu to settle disputes over local tribute payments or goods
production. Spanish chroniclers also concluded that quipus were used primarily as mnemonic
devices to communicate and record numerical information. Quipucamayocs could be
summoned to court, where their bookkeeping was recognised as valid documentation of past
payments. Quipucamayocs (Quechua khipu kamayuq, “khipu-authority”), the accountants of
Tawantinsuyu, created and deciphered the quipu knots. Quipucamayocs could carry out basic
arithmetic operations such as addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. They kept
track of mita, a form of taxation. The Quipucamayocs also tracked the type of labour being
performed, maintained a record of economic output, and ran a census that counted everyone.
The system was also used to keep track of the calendar. This system was used throughout the
world until the 16th century.
Civilizations in Mesopotamia, especially in ancient Babylonia, differently from
ancient Egypt established a connection with accounting and time (time-related accounting)
and assessed the records and the course of events together. It’s seen that delivery date was
110
written to clay tablets besides type and number of property, and names of buyer and seller.
Again in ancient Babylonia, first written rules also emerged related to accounting.
Hammurabi is known for the set of laws called Hammurabi's Code, one of the first written
codes of law in recorded history (2200 BC-2150 BC). These laws were written on a stone
tablet and there were written provisions related to accounting in the Code of Hammurabi.
In ancient Iran-Persia, accounting appeared in the way of recording wages with cash
payment or truck. Moreover, in Persian Empire [Achaemenid Empire also called “The First
Persian Empire (558 BC-330 BC)”], accounting was used again as an auditing tool at the time
of supplying nutritional and clothing requirement of armies.
In ancient Greece (ancient Greek civilization), the importance of accounting reached a
very different dimension with using of gold or metallic coins (400 BC-300 BC). The system
of coinage was developed by the ancient Greeks shaped the way trade and business was done.
The inventory procedures appeared as incurring pecuniary liability operations. Governmental
accounting was at the forefront in ancient Greek civilization, records of government-owned
assets made by people elected from the public. At its economic height, in the 500 BC-400 BC,
ancient Greece was the most advanced economy in the world. According to some economic
historians, it was one of the most advanced preindustrial economies. With reference to ancient
Greece, documents were found that specialized accounting had started to arise in especially in
the field of agriculture and architecture.
In ancient Rome, government and banking accounts evolved from records traditionally
kept by the heads of families, wherein daily entry of household receipts and payments were
kept in a daybook, and monthly postings were made to a cashbook known as a codex accepti
et expensi. These household expenses were important in ancient Rome because citizens were
required to submit regular statements of assets and liabilities, used as a basis for taxation and
even determination of civil rights. An elaborate system of checks and balances was
maintained in Rome for governmental receipts and disbursements by the quaestors, who
managed the treasury, paid the army and supervised governmental books. Public accounts
were regularly examined by an audit staff, and quaestors (In the Roman Republic, a quaestor
was an elected official who supervised financial affairs). One of accounting innovations of the
Roman Empire was the use of an annual budget, which attempted to coordinate diverse
financial enterprises, limited expenditures to the amount of estimated revenues and levied
taxes in a manner which took into consideration its citizens' ability to pay.
After ancient Roman civilization, in the first 5th century AD, the concept of inventory
was developed, and the classification of assets became more pronounced. During the middle
ages, in Western Europe, travelling accountants were emerged and they started to compile
reports in exchange for money. In the Byzantine Empire, land and territorial inventory
methods were developed and the territories of the Byzantine Empire were regulated.
Von Alfons and Jutta Pausch, in their short review of public accountant history, base
accounting history on Mesopotamia i.e., clay tokens used in trade off with calculating and
recording of these clay tokens in Sumerians, and the authors express that accounting system
was developed 11000 years ago by Sumerians with calculating and counting figures.
According to others, to our accounting historians as well; approaches starting with “we
have seen that from 14th century AD, accounting of the states and the churches were recorded
as incomes and expenses, in these centuries well-read and experienced accountants were
priests. In this context, Italian mathematician and Franciscan friar Luca Pacioli determined the
111
beginning of systematic accounting and double entry bookkeeping system which leaded up
the accounting science in 1494.” took part in his work entitled “Muhasebe Mesleginin
Tarihcesi” published by Adnan Guclu Dede, and submitted paper of Sabri Tumer in 17th
World Accounting Congress.
Guclu different from Tumer has kept his work up to date with the correction as “it’s
seen that accounting science is older than the profession of accounting. It was understood
from the historical records that accounting science had been known by Egyptians dated back
to 3000 BC, afterwards it was known by Phoenicians, Indians, Greeks, Chineses, Turks, and
Romans”.
Can imply that Pacioli was instrumental in development of double entry bookkeeping
method which has been especially used in accounting today, however he was not the inventor
of this method on the contrary to be articulated in numerous publications. Because when the
earlier applications and written works before Pacioli are reviewed, it can be seen obviously
that there were also “grandfathers of accounting”. Pacioli touched on the accounting subjects
in a part of his famous encyclopedical work named as “Summa de Arithmetica, Geometria,
Proportioni et Proportionalita” which was fundamentally a mathematical book .
The bookkeeping method of Pacioli in fact was a model of medieval merchant Venice
and its business needs. Pacioli had several distinct characteristics; first of all, the substantial
power is cash. Then secondly, a good accountant (buon ragioneri) and a sharp bookkeeper and
the third characteristic is good order in order to arrange all business to debit (debito) and
credit (credito).
Pacioli was indeed the first one who put the basis of the accounting as a science in
economics corpus. All his opinions and remarks were included in his masterpiece Summa, in
which he described the bookkeeping in the first maritime power of the time, the Republic of
Venice. This fact is due to Italian merchants who invented and used the double entry
accounting, in order to measure and keep records on inputs and outputs from the trade,
especially from foreign trade, for a better understanding of cost and revenues of the
companies. From the prosperity of Venice, and other Italian mercantile states, started the
movement of the Renaissance and were gone far the foundations of the modern world.
Can has determined that the first written documents related to accounting appeared
approximately 5000 BC in Sumerians, 4000 BC in Hebrews, 3000 BC in Egyptians, 2000 BC
in Babylonians (as cited in Datta, 1933), 500 BC in Greeks. But references that wrote
developments related to accounting continued with Romans in the Christian era never
mentioned about Turks and Arabs. Similarly not mentioning about Iranians (Persians),
Indians, and Chinese; it was explained that developments related to accounting continued with
Venetians until 1500 AD. Although recorded history dated back to 7000 years ago, it was
implied that accounting records which reflected borrowing and lending relationships regularly
and carryover bookkeeping records were encountered after 14th century.
In addition to that, it’s seen that there are entries consistent with the double entry
bookkeeping system made before Luca Pacioli, who is accepted as the inventor of the double
entry bookkeeping system by the majority. But, it is known that these entries don’t show
continuity and when there is an income, if there is also an expense, income-expense accounts
take place in the same entry. Because of its shape, this accounting system was called the
“Stairs Method” or “Merdiban”, in Turkish, from Persian.
112
On the other hand, in the medieval period, while Europe was in an underdeveloped
situation in several fields, Islam civilization was in improved condition. In fact, accounting
entries made in accordance with the logic of the double entry bookkeeping system are seen
before Pacioli. In Uighurs 745 AD, there was a comprehensive governmental accounting. The
first examples of the Merdiban Method, which was used in state accounting, can be observed
in the 8th century Abbasid State. In Karahanli State, one of the most important written work
“Kutadgu Bilig” (1072) proved first serious opinions about state affairs, accounting order, and
accountants. Especially, four books written about accounting during the Ilhanians period
(1256-1353) have important features. “Risale-i Felekiyye” (1363), the last of four books is
used by the Ilhanians. Furthermore, it is possible to see entries which are consistent with the
logic of double entry bookkeeping system in the culture of the Seljuks who ruled before the
Ilhanians. The method was abandoned in 1879 by an imperial edict of the Ottoman Empire
and gave way to the double entry bookkeeping system. This connotes that the Merdiban
Method was used for at least 1100 years.
Accounting is accepted a branch of mathematics. The aim of accounting is keeping the
accounts and activating these accounts in terms of comparative of material values. According
to European philosophers; accounting, a branch of mathematics, has taken part among the
completed sciences.
On the other hand, beside the manner of starting the recorded accounting history with
starting to use of writing, although it’s known that starting to use accounting systematically in
745 AD in Uighurs, later continued with Ottoman Empire, starting with the concept of double
entry bookkeeping system which is taken in mathematical based work written by Luca Pacioli
accepted as “The Father of Accounting” in 1494 run into a contradiction with objective
scientific approach. As seen from these samples, common researches and approaches can be
classified in different categories with based on many different criterions.
Conclusion
This study is an important milestone in the journey of preparation for global
accounting history. And also, this study is a cornerstone, which accounting belongs together
with the mathematics and other sciences into the world of accounting history. At the same
time, this study is an expression of the process of reproduction of needs of millions of years of
human evolution and human existence. Homo sapiens laid the foundations of knowledge and
theory when producing practice.
And then they managed to the higher stages of production with the accumulation of
the intellectual. This process can be summarized in terms of intellectual study with “Number
produce accounting and accounting manages numbers.”
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