Oneforthebooks: firstknown human was an accountant

WHO is the first real person in history we actually know the name of?

I presume it was some great king or emperor, or a pharaoh from ancient Egypt, but who? – T.

In his excellent book, Sapiens: A Brief History Of Humankind, Yuval Noah Harari claims the first human we definitively know the name of was someone called Kushim.

A clay tablet, which is believed to date back more than 5000 years, was found in Uruk (the city of Gilgamesh, the Biblical Erech) in Iraq which was then the kingdom of Mesopotamia.

On it, a inscription appears to record a business deal which has been translated as: “29,086 measures barley 37 months Kushim”.

“The most probable reading of this sentence,” according to Harari, “is: ‘A total of 29,086 measures of barley were received over the course of 37 months. Signed, Kushim’.”

That means the first human we definitely know the name of, from around about the year 3200BC, was an accountant, not a king or pharaoh.

It’s not really surprising, as accounting is as old as civilisation because the sedentary life brought with it money, numbers, goods and trade. In general, wherever you find early human settlement, you find accountants tallying and recording the costs of civilisation.

The first pharaoh, believed to have ruled around 3100BC went by the name of Narmer, or possibly Menes, who founded the First Dynasty and unified Upper and Lower Egypt.