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Pre-history
Clay token
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
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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
Footnotes
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.
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