People have been doing accounting for a long time, way before hledger was created. I was reminded of this when visiting a museum this summer. One of the displays had two Assyrian tablets with cuneiform writing. They were identified as accounting documents from 4,400 years ago.
Here is a photo that I took:
These tablets bring to mind two scenes from the book The Richest Man in Babylon. The first is from the eponymously named chapter. In it Arkad recounts how he worked all night to inscribe some clay tablets so that in return he could learn the secrets to becoming wealthy.
The second is from the chapter “Clay Tablets from Babylon.” This is where a professor is given some ancient clay tablets to translate into English. These tell the story of Dabasir, who uses a plan to move from indebtedness to wealth.
Fun to be reminded of this classic book, and fun to see evidence in the museum that people were doing accounting (plain-clay accounting?) several thousand years ago.