The Original Ledger of Record

Before your grandparents, George Washington, Jesus, or even Moses, there was Kushim.

He was someone no different than you or I.

A regular worker bee.

He was a record keeper, the original CPA, in ancient Sumeria.

Over 5,000 years ago this human inscribed on a clay tablet a record of a barley, likely beer, transaction.

It has been translated to, “29,086 measures barley 37 months Kushim” or meaning, “A total of 29,086 measures of barley were received over the course of 37 months. Signed, Kushim.”

It’s the first known writing of a named person.

Before that, for generations, individuals were nameless to us.

According to Yuval Noah Harari in his book “Sapiens”, “It’s telling that the first recorded name in history belongs to an accountant, rather than a prophet, a poet, or a great conqueror.”

Since the beginning of time, humans have been doing business which requires a promise then a record as proof.

This simple clay tablet was the first example of a ledger of record.

Some 5,000 years later, we are again recording transactions which is becoming the basis for a new economy, the crypto-economy.

Today, all of our transactions can be stored immutably on the blockchain.

What we do over the next 5,000 years, only the ledger will tell.