History of ancient numeral systems

Pre-history

Main articles: Prehistoric numerals and Tally stick

The rst method of counting was counting on ngers.[1]
This evolved into sign language for the hand-to-eye communication of numbers which, while not writing, gave
way to written numbers.
Tallies made by carving notches in wood, bone, and stone
were used for at least forty thousand years.[2] Stone age
cultures, including ancient Native American groups, used
tallies for gambling with horses, slaves, personal services
and trade-goods.
Roman numerals evolved from this primitive system of
cutting notches.[3] It was once believed that they came
from alphabetic symbols or from pictographs, but these
theories have been disproved.[4][5]

Clay token

The earliest known writing for record keeping evolved

from a system of counting using small clay tokens. The
earliest tokens now known are those from two sites in
the Zagros region of Iran: Tepe Asiab and Ganj-i-Dareh
Tepe.[6]
To create a record that represented two sheep, they selected two round clay tokens each having a + sign baked
into it. Each token represented one sheep. Representing a
hundred sheep with a hundred tokens would be impractical, so they invented dierent clay tokens to represent different numbers of each specic commodity, and by 4000
BC strung the tokens like beads on a string.[7] There was
a token for one sheep, a dierent token for ten sheep, a
dierent token for ten goats, etc. Thirty-two sheep would
be represented by three ten-sheep tokens followed on the
string by two one-sheep tokens.

Uruk period: globular envelope with a cluster of accountancy

tokens, from Susa. Louvre Museum

side became the rst written language for writing numbers in clay. An alternative method was to seal the knot
in each string of tokens with a solid oblong bulla of clay
having impressed symbols, while the string of tokens danTo ensure that nobody could alter the number and type of gled outside of the bulla.[8]
tokens, they invented a clay envelope shaped like a hollow
ball into which the tokens on a string were placed, sealed, Beginning about 3500 BC the tokens and envelopes were
and baked. If anybody disputed the number, they could replaced by numerals impressed with a round stylus
angles in at clay tablets which were then
break open the clay envelope and do a recount. To avoid at dierent
[9]
A
sharp stylus was used to carve pictographs
baked.
unnecessary damage to the record, they pressed archaic
representing
various tokens. Each sign represented both
number signs and witness seals on the outside of the enthe
commodity
being counted and the quantity or volume
velope before it was baked, each sign similar in shape to
of
that
commodity.
the tokens they represented. Since there was seldom any
need to break open the envelope, the signs on the out- Abstract numerals, dissociated from the thing being
1

EXTERNAL LINKS

counted, were invented about 3100 BC.[10] The things be- gradually replaced by a reed stylus that had been used
ing counted were indicated by pictographs carved with a to press wedge shaped cuneiform signs in clay. To repsharp stylus next to round-stylus numerals.
resent numbers that previously had been pressed with a
The Sumerians had a complex assortment of incompati- round stylus, these cuneiform number signs were pressed
ble number systems, and each city had its own local way in a circular pattern and they retained the additive signof writing numerals. For instance, at about 3100 BC in value notation that originated with tokens on a string.
the city of Uruk, there were more than a dozen dier- Cuneiform numerals and archaic numerals were ambiguent numeric systems.[11] In this city, there were separate ous because they represented various numeric systems
that diered depending on what was being counted.
number systems for counting discrete objects (such as animals, tools, and containers), cheese and grain products, About 2100 BC in Sumer, these proto-sexagesimal signvalue systems gradually converged on a common sexagesvolumes of grain (including fractions), beer ingredients,
weights, land areas, and time and calendar units. Fur- imal number system that was a place-value system consisting of only two impressed marks, the vertical wedge
thermore, these systems changed over time; for instance,
[14]
numbers for counting volumes of grain changed when the and the chevron, which could also represent fractions.
This sexagesimal number system was fully developed at
size of the baskets changed.
the beginning of the Old Babylonia period (about 1950
The Sumerians invented arithmetic.[12] People who BC) and became standard in Babylonia.
added and subtracted volumes of grain every day used
their arithmetic skills to count other things that were un- Sexagesimal numerals were a mixed radix system that rerelated to volume measurements. Multiplication and di- tained the alternating base 10 and base 6 in a sequence
vision were done with multiplication tables baked in clay of cuneiform vertical wedges and chevrons. Sexagesimal
numerals became widely used in commerce, but were also
tablets.[13]
used in astronomical and other calculations. This system was exported from Babylonia and used throughout
Mesopotamia, and by every Mediterranean nation that
3 Conversion of archaic numbers used standard Babylonian units of measure and counting,
including the Greeks, Romans and Syrians. In Arabic nuto cuneiform
merals, we still use sexagesimal to count time (minutes
per hour), and angles (degrees).

4 See also
Sumer
History of numbers
History of Sumer
History of writing
Arabic numerals
Cuneiform script
Prehistoric numerals

5 External links
History of Counting Systems and Numerals. Retrieved 11 December 2005.
The Earliest Precursor of Writing
Middle Babylonian legal tablet from Alalah in its envelope

Two Precursors of Writing: Plain and Complex Tokens

Between 2700 BC and 2000 BC, the round stylus was

Reckoning Before Writing

Footnotes

[1] The Earliest Calculating The Hand, Ifrah (2000), pages

4761.
[2] Tally Sticks, Ifrah (2000), pages 6467.
[3] The Origin of Roman Numerals, Ifrah (2000), pages 191
194.
[4] Paul Keyser, The origin of the Latin numerals 1 to 1000 ,
American Journal of Archeology 92 (1988), pp. 529546.
[5] Stephen Chrisomalis, Numerical Notation: A Comparative History (2010).
[6] http://en.finaly.org/index.php/Two_precursors_of_
writing:_plain_and_complex_tokens
[7] How Writing Came About, Strings of Tokens and Envelopes, Besserat (1996) pages 3954.
[8] String of tokens sealed with a bulla of clay
[9] Impressed Tablets, Besserat (1996) pages 5562.
[10] Tokens, Their Role in Prehistory, Besserat (1996) pages
123124.
[11] Archaic Numerical Sign Systems, Nissen (1993) pages
2529.
[12] The Development of Arithmetic, Nissen (1993) pages
125127.
[13] Picture of a multiplication table, Nissen (1993) pages
144145.
[14] Sexagesimal Place Value System, Nissen (1993) pages
142143.

References
Denise Schmandt-Besserat HomePage, How Writing Came About, University of Texas Press, 1996,
ISBN 0-292-77704-3.
Georges Ifrah. The Universal History of Numbers:
From Prehistory to the Invention of the Computer,
Wiley, 2000. ISBN 0-471-37568-3.
Hans J. Nissen, P. Damerow, R. Englund, Archaic
Bookkeeping, University of Chicago Press, 1993,
ISBN 0-226-58659-6.

8 TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

8.1

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History of ancient numeral systems Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_ancient_numeral_systems?oldid=750859512

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