Abstract
Accounting is a routine activity. Through repetition, the scribes of the Ebla Archives (Syria, 24th cent. BCE) have been able to record thousands of transactions. They organized and stored accounting data referred to more than thirty years of the Palace G activities. The recurring textual patterns characterizing the administrative corpus are a byproduct of this routine-based approach. The ability to see recurring patterns in the textual record is fundamental when dealing with an administrative corpus: however, this ability fails when the patterns are buried in data. In this paper, I argue that theoretical aspects of data mining are not far from theoretical and methodological tenets of the historical approach. Data mining is a useful technique for the identification of document clusters and relevant information which would otherwise remain hidden. Furthermore, textual pattern recognition is critical to address topics such as the study of society: belonging to a category of complex problems, any socio-historical investigation requires dealing with multiple interconnected variables. However, not all research topics require such an approach. I define the line beyond which digital approaches are extremely useful (if not indispensable) as 'visibility threshold’. The position of this interface is relative and subjective.
Highlights
Most ‘sentences’ found in the administrative documents of the Ebla Archives
According to modern accounting theory, the input for the accounting procedure is an economic event (Marriott et al, 2002, pp. 1–2); this event generates the production of a record, a document that is generally drafted on the spot since any delay increases mistakes and might compromise the entire process
The Ebla Archives are the most ancient ‘living’ administrative archives found in situ1; no coeval collections of documents of comparable consistency have been found in modern Syria2
Summary
Most ‘sentences’ found in the administrative documents of the Ebla Archives BCE) can be compared to mathematical formulae. They appear hundreds of times with very few variations; these patterns point to specific activities and are in most cases ( not all) characterized by an economic perspective. Accounting is a process characterized by two main moments: recording transactions and reporting information. According to modern accounting theory, the input for the accounting procedure is an economic event 1–2); this event generates the production of a record, a document that is generally drafted on the spot since any delay increases mistakes and might compromise the entire process. Through an accounting procedure based on routine, the scribes of the Archives were able to record and summarize an impressive amount of data
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