Richard Mattessich UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA
FOLLOW-UP TO: “RECENT INSIGHTS INTO MESOPOTAMIAN ACCOUNTING OF THE 3RD MILLENNIUM B.C.:” CORRECTION TO TABLE 1.
In the following, the corrected version of Table 1 to the above-mentioned paper [Mattessich, 1998] is shown. The author apologizes for having supplied (on p. 16) an obsolete version (based on incorrect conversion rates). In consequence, the figures of this table did not match with the figures of the first 17 lines of the commenlary in the subsequent section, “UNEXPLAINED DISCREPANCIES AND OTHER TTEMS TO BE CLARIFIED” (p. 17). The present version does match this original commentary (a proof that two versions of the table got switched erroneously). However, I ask the reader to regard my interpretations of Nissen et al. [1993] as a preliminary attempt by an accountant, hardly iamiliar with the intricacies of Sumerian language and measurement systems. As was repeat¬edly hinted at, this area is worthy of continuing research.
The figures of the new Table 1 conform to the original conversion rates (for translating such Sumerian volume meas-ures, such as gur, barig, ban and sila, into each other and into liters) and to the conversions of various types of raw material and various finished products (types of flours) into their barley equivalents [for both types of conversion rates, see Mattessich, 1998, fn. 10, p. 14]. Above all, the new table matches with the commentary in Mattessich [1998, p. 17].’ This commentary may require (on p. 17, four lines from the bottom) the insertion of the following addition after the expression “of Table 1):”
¦For editorial reasons it was not possible to include here a reprint of the original table from Nissen et al. [1993, p. 85] of which my Table 1 is an “accounting interpretation.” However, for the sake of checking and compari¬son, I intend to include a reproduction of the original table in the planned book [Mattessich, 19991 that is to contain, among other papers, Mattessich [1998], including the revised Table 1.
However, those discrepancies vanish if one takes the 10,755 liter (35 gur, 2 barig, 1 ban, 5 sila) of “‘pounded’ flour” (listed in Section II, line 10) to be sig flour (which, perhaps, should have been emphasized in Nis-sen et al. [1993, p. 85]). This then has to be added to the 5,594 liter (18 gur, 3 barig, 1 ban, 4 sila) in Section II, line 9. The sum of these two figures, 16,349 liter (sig flour) or 32,698 liter in barley equivalents, is the same as the corresponding figure (of 54 gur, 2 barig, 3 ban minus 1 sila) shown in the total (of sig flour) in Section IV, line 7. As to “ground bread,” there no longer seems to be any discrepancy between the individual listing (Section II, line 15) and its total (in Section IV, line 9).
REFERENCES
Mattessich, Richard (1998), “Recent Insights into Mesopotamian Accounting of the 3rd Millennium B.C. — Successor to Token Accounting,” Accounting Historians Journal, Vol. 25, No. 1 :l-27.
Mattessich, Richard (1999), The Beginnings of Accounting Practice and Ac¬counting Thought: Accounting Practice in the Middle East (from 8000 B.C. to 2000 B.C.) and Accounting Thought in India (300 B.C. and the Middle Ages), planned (New York: Garland Publishing Co., Inc.)
Nissen, H. J., Damerow, Peter, and Englund, R. K. (1993), Archaic Bookkeeping — Early Writing Techniques of Economic Administration in the Ancient Near East (Chicago, 1L: University of Chicago Press), Paul Larsen (trans.).
