Accounting in Ancient times: A Review of classic References

European accounting scholars have made significant contributions to the history of accounting. Some of these contributions were not translated into English and as such were not integrated in the evolving comprehensive coverage of the evolution of the accounting function. The purpose of this paper is to review the evolution of accounting under different civilizations based on the writings of various European scholars. The paper, divided into four sections corresponding to the known civilizations the Sumerian, Egyptian, Greek and Roman, traces the history of accounting over four thousand years describing, illustrating and analyzing how records were kept and used and the various differences between different accounting practices. Special focus is made on the development of accounting under the Egyptian and Roman Empires. In particular, some scholars have supported the hypothesis that the double entry bookkeeping could have been invented even during the Roman Empire. To this end, the paper incorporates the contributions of some scholars in particular of F. Melis1 , G. Rossi2, P. Bariola3, D’Errico4, H. G. Amedee5