Archaic Bookkeeping: Writing and Techniques of Economic Administration in the Ancient Near East by Hans J. Nissen, et al

Abstract

TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 197 orthodox Darwinian response set out at all: that mankind’s environmen­ tal irresponsibility, linked to revival of a disease or two, could render the planet uninhabitable or have, say, the same effect as bubonic plague had on the later Middle Ages. The other difficulty I have with this otherwise stimulating and provocative chapter is the discussion of rival attitudes to, and conclu­ sions about, so many environmental problems. Bowler’s exposition emphasizes that there are opposing views among scientists employed by industry and those who appear to be in independent postions and that their conflicting evidence has shaken public confidence in both of them. Writing as someone who was originally in the latter position, but found himself in later life advising governments on pollution and related problems, I miss in his analysis the fact that most environmental problems are not cut and dried, so that science can rarely be certain about their origins and even less about their solutions. The conflict between industrialists and environmentalists arises in part because of those uncertainties. The two essays noted above in Science and Nature, and several of the others as well, reveal just how complex are the factors that make up a political decision. Moreover, once a problem is in the public domain the emphasis changes toward obtaining politically satisfactory solutions, however unreasonable these may be. Thus, if the Swedish government is demanding certainty in knowing that the proposed bridge joining Sweden to Denmark will have no environmental effects on the Baltic, it has set a question to which there is no present answer nor ever likely to be one. Both books are valuable contributions to the literature of the subject and can be recommended for any university library. Dennis L. Simms Dr. Simms was a member of the Toxic Substances Division of the U.K. Department of the Environment and chairman of the European Commission’s Advisory Research Committee on Environmental Protection before he retired. Archaic Bookkeeping: Writing and Techniques of Economic Administration in the Ancient Near East. By HansJ. Nissen, Peter Damerow, and Robert K. Englund. Translated by Paul Larsen. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993. Pp. xi+169; illustrations, bibliography, index. $34.95. Change brought about by technological development is an integral part of the human condition, but there are times when change appears particularly rapid. Such is the case today when computers allow us to store, manage, and communicate information with vastly increased efficiency; such was also the case around 3100 b.c. when writing was developed, or invented, in the city of Uruk on the lower Euphrates. The 198 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE very first written documents include signs for quantities and thus provide a clue for what was always recognized as a driving factor in the development of writing: the need to record matters of economic administration. During theJemdet Nasr period (3100-2900), the script spread from Uruk to the rest of the alluvium of Euphrates and Tigris, and to the alluvium of Kerkha and Karun (Khuzistan), where it was strongly modified to suit local requirements. Writing in general and bookkeeping in particular in this period and these areas are the subjects of Archaic Bookkeeping. In several introductory chapters, H.J. Nissen provides the spatial and chronological frame; then R. K. Englund and P. Damerow treat various areas of bookkeeping: numerical notation, field administration, labor, and husbandry. The treatment is by interpreta­ tion of sample records from theJemdet Nasr period and comparison of parallel records from subsequent periods. Other chapters describe more general topics: scribes and writing, numerical notation, development of arithmetic, evidence for different levels of administrative hierarchy, and the development of bookkeeping in subsequent periods. Most of the discussed records from the Jemdet Nasr period come from the sale ofa private collection and have not been published before. Unlike the records of this period that were excavated in construction fill in Uruk as tablet fragments, the new records, which derive from an unknown site, are very well preserved. They are presented in photo­ graphs and copies that are produced by tracing the digitalized photo­ graphs, a new method of copying; also new are many photographs of records that...