Follow-up to: "Recent insights into Mesopotamian accounting of the 3rd millennium B.C.:" Correction to Table 1

              Accounting Historians Journal
Vol. 25, No. 2
December 1998
Richard Mattessich
UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA
FOLLOW-UP TO: "RECENT INSIGHTS
INTO MESOPOTAMIAN ACCOUNTING
OF THE 3RD MILLENNIUM B.C.:"
CORRECTION TO TABLE 1.
In the following, the corrected version of Table 1 to the
above-mentioned paper [Mattessich, 1998] is shown. The
author apologizes for having supplied (on p. 16) an obsolete
version (based on incorrect conversion rates). In consequence,
the figures of this table did not match with the figures of the
first 17 lines of the commentary in the subsequent section,
"UNEXPLAINED DISCREPANCIES AND OTHER ITEMS TO
BE CLARIFIED" (p. 17). The present version does match this
original commentary (a proof that two versions of the table got
switched erroneously). However, I ask the reader to regard my
interpretations of Nissen et al. [1993] as a preliminary attempt
by an accountant, hardly familiar with the intricacies of
Sumerian language and measurement systems. As was repeat­edly
hinted at, this area is worthy of continuing research.
The figures of the new Table 1 conform to the original
conversion rates (for translating such Sumerian volume meas­ures,
such as gur, barig, bán and sìla, into each other and into
liters) and to the conversions of various types of raw material
and various finished products (types of flours) into their barley
equivalents [for both types of conversion rates, see Mattessich,
1998, fn. 10, p. 14]. Above all, the new table matches with the
commentary in Mattessich [1998, p. 17].l This commentary
may require (on p. 17, four lines from the bottom) the insertion
of the following addition after the expression "of Table 1):"
1For editorial reasons it was not possible to include here a reprint of the
original table from Nissen et al. [1993, p. 85] of which my Table 1 is an
"accounting interpretation." However, for the sake of checking and compari­son,
I intend to include a reproduction of the original table in the planned
book [Mattessich, 1999] that is to contain, among other papers, Mattessich
[1998], including the revised Table 1.