Economic organization in the earliest civilizations of the
fertile crescent was driven by the need to efficiently grow
crops in river basins. The Euphrates and Nile valleys were homes
to earliest examples of codified measurements written in base 60
and Egyptian fractions. Egyptian keepers of royal granaries, and
absentee Egyptian landowners reported in the Heqanakht papyri.
Historians of this period note that the major tool of accounting
for agrarian societies, the scales used to measure grain
inventory, reflected dual religious and ethical symbolic
meanings. The Erlenmeyer tablets give a picture of Sumerian
production in the Euphrates Valley around 2,200-2,100 BC, and
show an understanding of the relationship between grain and
labor inputs (valued in "female labor days") and outputs and an
emphasis on efficiency. Egyptians measured work output in man-
days. The development of sophisticated economic administration
continued in the Euphrates and Nile valleys during the
Babylonian Empire and Egyptian Empires whe