Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 13:24:44 -0800 From: Henry Baker <hbaker1@pipeline.com>
Interest tables are some of the oldest known artefacts. I don't know offhand how old, though.
About 5000 years, according to the below.
Some businessmen would claim that the invention of interest ranks right behind the invention of money in the promulgation of commerce. I'd be interested in knowing approx when interest was invented.
Will Goetzmann, a finance professor at Yale, has been writing a book called _Financing Civilization_, about just such things. Chapter 1, "Borrowing in Babylon" is on the web: http://viking.som.yale.edu/will/finciv/chapter1.htm It's been on the web for years; dunno if he's ever gonna finish it. Some of the things Goetzman says in re interest: * Excavations at Uruk dating ca 3700-3500 BCE found hollow clay envelopes called bullae, containing tokens for animals, bread, jars, and so on. They were apparently contracts for the future payment of some amount of commodities. The exact interest rate isn't calculable, since their symbols for time are either not found or not understood. Encasing them in fired clay prevented tampering. * Around 3100 BCE they began to use cuneiform, and contracts from that day survive. Fired clay tablets not only survive for millennia, but also prevented tampering by the parties involved. Shortly after that, there were professional scribes and accountants. So call it 5000 years old for the oldest tables of interest. * Early words for "interest" are intriguing: - Sumerian "mash" means "calves" - Greek "tokos" means "offspring of cattle" - Latin "pecus" (root of pecuniary) means "flock" - Egyptian "ms" means "to give birth" ... so perhaps they thought of interest like the natural multiplication of flocks of animals. -- Steve Rowley <sgr@alum.mit.edu> http://alum.mit.edu/www/sgr/ ICQ: 52-377-390