Record-keeping[edit]

Detailed account of raw materials and workdays for a basketry workshop. Clay, ca. 2040 BC (Ur III)

History of accounting
Objects used for record keeping, "bulla" and tokens, have been recovered from within Near East
excavations, dated to a period beginning 8000 B.C.E and ending 1500 B.C.E., as records of
the counting of agricultural produce. Commencing in the late fourth millennia mnemonic symbols
were in use by members of temples and palaces to serve to record stocks of produce. Types of
records accounting for trade exchanges of payments were being made firstly about 3200. A very
early writing on clay tablet called the Code of Hammurabi, refers to the regulation of a banking
activity of sorts within the civilization (Armstrong) of an era which dates to ca. 1700 BCE, banking
was well enough developed to justify laws governing banking operations. [nb 1] Later during
the Achaemenid Empire (after 646 BC.[16]), further evidence is found of banking practices in the
Mesopotamia region.[