On the influence of geography On the development of accounting operations in Ancient Egypt

Evolution path of any country depends on various factors, including, among others, local geographical features. This geographical factor in Ancient Egypt had a dramatic impact on the people and their culture. But the relations between the Nile and accounting practices development are not clear yet. In this paper we will try to show the evidences that the Nile had diverse influence on the accounting evolution in the formative years of Ancient Egypt. Many studies usually perceive main river of Egypt mainly as a source of valuable food resource for active population growth and for local elite enrichment processes. This process in turn leads to the bureaucratic apparatus rapid expansion and also to the development of accounting operations that are used to control the various stages of the harvesting, processing and distribution. Besides this obvious way of influence we can find many other interconnections between the Nile and incipient accounting methods. Recent studies show that artificial irrigation process could already exist in the predynastic era. A low flood could lead to famine, and too high a flood could destroy dikes and other irrigation works. Even a two-meter drop in the river's flood level could leave as much as a third of the floodplain unwatered. Nile flooding could bring famine as well as prosperity, so precise knowledge of the river level was of great importance on the highest (pharaoh) level. This information was carefully gathered and regularly stored in the Royal Annals (also known as Palermo Stone - black stela from the end of Old Kingdom) along with the main annual events and other important royal records. Palermo stone contains fifty two survived annual flood level records during the reign of nine Egyptian kings. It was a reference to the maximum height of the Nile, which no doubt served as an indication of the produce that could be harvested. This was of great statistical importance in order to calculate the taxes due on agricultural land. Statistics of maximum heights of Nile also considered as evaluation of particular pharaoh activity because pharaoh regarded as mediator between gods and common people. Relief of floodplain often changed due to mighty river inundation and for the purpose of establishing of new boundaries additional counting and measurements were needed. The Nile facilitated the emergence and development of accounting methods, which later became the basis for a scientific approach to data processing that led to the formation of statistics as a separate science.

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