Module No.

& Title : MTE 111 - History of Mathematics

Module Overview :

Hello Students! Welcome to Module 1 of MTE 111 – Early Number Systems and
Symbols. This module will help you understand the ancient system of
numeration, their primitive counting and the early civilization. It will also give
us an idea of how numbers evolved and the places where numbers started its
name. Enjoy learning!

Module Objectives/Outcomes:

At the end of this lesson, you will be able to:

1. Discuss the early number systems and distinguish the symbols used
by ancient civilizations.
2. Translate ancient number notation to our present number system.
Lessons in the module:
Lesson 1: a. Primitive Counting

b. A Sense of Number

c. Notches as Tally Marks

d. The Peruvian Quipus: Knots as Numbers of

Mathematics

Module No. and Title : M1 - Early Number Systems and Symbols

Lesson No. and Title : L1-Early Number Systems and Symbols
Learning Outcomes :
• Trace the development of the concept of number
systems and number.
• Familiarize the early number systems.
Time Frame : 3 hours
Introduction:
Hello dear students! Welcome to Lesson 1 – Early Number Systems and
Symbols. In this module, you will learn the system of numeration of the ancient
people. You will also learn the history behind system of numeration and
appreciate what we have now as our system of numeration. You may begin
now.
Activity: SETTING GOALS

Did you learn anything about numbers outside of school? For example,
you might have learned to count prior to attending school, or you might have
come to know about money, age or sharing things equally from your life
outside of school. How did such learning happen?

Analysis:
1. What is the system numeration of the prinitive people?
2. How did numbers evolve?
Abstraction:

Primitive Counting: A Sense of Number

The root of the term mathematics is in the Greek word mathemata,
which was used quite generally in early writings to indicate any subject
of instruction or study. The Pythagoreans are said to have used
mathemata to describe arithmetic and geometry - a basis for the notion
that mathematics began in Classical Greece during the years from 600
to 300 B.C. But its history can be followed much further back.
Three or four thousand years ago, there already existed a
significant body of knowledge that we should describe as mathematics.
Mathematics involves the study of issues of a quantitative or spatial
nature—number, size, order, and form.
In every time and culture, there have been people with a compelling
desire to comprehend and master the form of the natural world around
them. To use Alexander Pope’s words, “This mighty maze is not without
a plan.”
Mathematics originated with the practical problems of counting
and recording numbers. Our remote ancestors of some 20,000 years
ago—who were quite as clever as we are—must have felt the need to
enumerate their livestock, tally objects for barter, or mark the passage of
days. Anthropologists tell us that there has hardly been a culture,
however primitive, that has not had some awareness of number.

• Australian aboriginal tribes counted to two only, with any

number larger than two called simply “much” or “many.”
• South American Indians along the tributaries of the Amazon
were equally destitute of number words. They are able to count
 to six, but had no independent number names for groups of
three, four, five, or six.
• Bushmen of South Africa, who counted to ten (10 = 2 + 2 + 2
+ 2 + 2) with just two words.
Tallying
The earliest and most immediate technique for visibly expressing the
idea of number is tallying. The term tally comes from the French verb
tailler, “to cut,” like the English word tailor; the root is seen in the Latin
taliare, meaning “to cut.” It is also interesting to note that the English word
write can be traced to the Anglo-Saxon writan, “to scratch,” or “to notch.”

Notches as Tally Marks

Bone artifacts bearing incised markings seem to indicate that the
people of the Old Stone Age had devised a system of tallying by groups
as early as 30,000 B.C.

• Shinbone from a young wolf, found in

Czechoslovakia in 1937; about 7 inches
long, the bone is engraved with 55 deeply
cut notches, more or less equal in length,
arranged in groups of five.
o Hunting tallies – kills
o Reckoning time
• Bones discovered in French cave sites
in the late 1880s are grouped in
sequences of recurring numbers that
agree with the numbers of days included
in successive phases of the moon.
• Incised bone at Ishango Lake Edward,
probably the handle of a tool used for
engraving, or tattooing, or even writing in
some way.
o seem not to be decorative
o concept of duplication, or
multiplying by 2 Paliolithic wolfbone
o a familiarity with prime numbers used for tallying
o related to a lunar count
• The use of tally marks to record counts was prominent among the
prehistoric peoples of the Near East. Archaeological
excavations have unearthed a large number of small clay objects
that had been hardened by fire. These handmade artefacts occur
 in a variety of geometric shapes, the most common being circular
disks, triangles, and cones.
o primitive reckoning
o counters or tokens
o different commodities
• The Persian King Darius handed the Ionians a knotted cord to
serve as a calendar.

“The King took a leather thong and tying sixty knots in it called
together the Ionian tyrants and spoke thus to them: “Untie every
day one of the knots; if I do not return before the last day to
which the knots will hold out, then leave your station and return
to your several homes.”
- Herodutos

The Peruvian Quipus: Knots as Numbers

In the New World, the number string is best illustrated by the knotted
cords, called quipus, of the
Incas of Peru. The Incas were
renowned for their engineering
skills, constructing stone
temples and public buildings of
a great size. A striking
accomplishment was their
creation of a vast network (as
much as 14,000 miles) of
roads and bridges linking the far-flung parts of the empire. They were
conquered by Spain in 1532 and the Spaniards imposed a way of life on
the people that within about 40 years would destroy the Inca culture.
When the Spanish arrived, they observed that each city in Peru had
an “official of the knots,” who maintained complex accounts by means of
knots and loops in strands of various colors. Performing duties not unlike
those of the city treasurer of today, the quipu keepers recorded all official
transactions concerning the land and subjects of the city and submitted
the strings to the central government in Cuzco. The quipus were
important in the Inca Empire, because apart from these knots no system
of writing was ever developed there. The quipu was made of a thick main
cord or crossbar to which were attached finer cords of different lengths
and colors; ordinarily the cords hung down like the strands of a mop.
Each of the pendent strings represented a certain item to be tallied; one
 might be used to show the number of sheep, for instance, another for
goats, and a third for lambs.

The Mayan Civilization

The Mayan civilization existed for over 2000 years. A distinctive
accomplishment was their development of an elaborate form of
hieroglyphic writing using about 1000 glyphs. After 900 A.D., the Mayan
civilization underwent a sudden decline—The Great Collapse. The cause
of this catastrophic exodus is a continuing mystery, despite speculative
explanations of natural disasters, epidemic diseases, and conquering
warfare. What remained of the traditional culture did not succumb easily
or quickly to the Spanish Conquest, which began shortly after 1500. It
was a struggle of relentless brutality, stretching over nearly a century,
before the last unconquered Mayan kingdom fell in 1597.
The Mayan calendar year was composed of 365 days divided into
18months of 20 days each, with a residual period of 5 days. This led to
the adoption of a counting system based on 20 (a vigesimal system).
Numbers were expressed symbolically in two forms:
o The priestly class employed elaborate glyphs of grotesque
faces of deities to indicate the numbers 1 through 19
o The common people recorded the same numbers with
combinations of bars and dots, where a short horizontal bar
represented 5 and a dot 1.

The Mayan Number Symbols

The symbols representing numbers larger than 19 were arranged

in a vertical column with those in each position, moving upward,
multiplied by successive powers of 20; that is, by 1, 20, 400, 8000,
 160,000, and so on. For an example of a number recorded in this
system, let us write the symbols horizontally rather than vertically, with
the smallest value on the left:

EXAMPLE 1.1
= 62808 = 8 * 1 + 0 * 20 + 17 * 400 + 7 * 8000

Number Recording of the Egyptians and Greeks

The writing of history, as we understand it, is a Greek invention;

and foremost among the early Greek historians was Herodotus.

Herodotus - Greek historian (circa 485–430 B.C.). Known as the

Father of History. He made three principal journeys, perhaps as a
merchant, collecting material
and recording his impressions.
• In the Black Sea, he sailed
all the way up the west coast to
the Greek communities
• In Asia Minor, he traversed
modern Syria and Iraq, and
traveled down
the Euphrates.
• In Egypt, he ascended the Nile River, exploring the pyramids along
the way.

History of Herodotus
• a book larger than any Greek prose work before it
• a guidebook containing useful sociological and anthropological
data
• to tell all he had heard but not necessarily to accept it all as fact
• Herodotus interpreted the state of the world at his time as a result
of change in the past, and felt that the change could be described.

Hieroglyphic Representation of Numbers

` As soon as the unification of Egypt under a single leader, a
powerful and extensive administrative system began to evolve. One of
the years of the Second Dynasty was named Year of the Occurrence of
the Numbering of all Large and Small Cattle of the North and South. As
early as 3500 B.C., the Egyptians had a fully developed number system
that would allow counting to continue indefinitely
 • The macehead of King Narmer, one of the most remarkable
relics of the ancient world. Narmer may have been the legendary
Menes, the first ruler of the united Egyptian nation. Narmer Palette
preserves forever the official record of the king’s accomplishment,
for the inscription boasts of the taking of 120,000 prisoners and a
register of captive animals, 400,000 oxen and 1,422,000 goats.
• The Book of the Dead - a collection of religious and magical texts
whose principle aim was to secure for the deceased a satisfactory
afterlife. In one section, which is believed to date from the First
Dynasty, we read (the Egyptian god Nu is speaking): “I work for
you, o ye spirits, we are in number four millions, six hundred and
one thousand, and two hundred.”

Hieroglyphics
A sacred signs of the Egyptians. A system of writing using picture
script, in which each character represents a concrete object. The number
one is represented by a picture of a staff, and a kind of horseshoe sign
∩ is used as a collective symbol to replace ten separate strokes. The
Egyptian system was a decimal one which used counting by powers of
10. That
Special pictographs were used for each new power of 10 up to
10,000,000: 100 by a curved rope, 1000 by a lotus flower, 10,000 by an
upright bent finger, 100,000 by a tadpole, 1,000,000 by a person holding
up his hands as if in great astonishment, and 10,000,000 by a symbol
sometimes conjectured to be a rising sun.

Other numbers could be expressed by using these symbols

additively (that is, the number represented by a set of symbols is the sum
of the numbers represented by the individual symbols), with each
character repeated up to nine times. Usually, the direction of writing was
from right to left, with the larger units listed first, then the others in order
of importance.
EXAMPLE 1.2

= 1 * 100,000 + 4 * 10,000 + 2 * 1000 + 1 * 100 + 3* 10 + 6 * 1 =

142, 136

Egyptian method of writing numbers was not a “positional system”

Addition and subtraction caused little difficulty in the Egyptian number
system. This is how the Egyptians would have added, say, 345 and 678:

EXAMPLE 1.3
EXAMPLE 1.4

Egyptian Hieratic Numeration

The need for an easily available, inexpensive material to write on
became a concern among the Egyptians. This was solved with the
invention of papyrus. With the introduction of papyrus, further steps in
simplifying writing were almost inevitable. The first steps were made
largely by the Egyptian priests who developed a more rapid, less pictorial
style that was better adapted to pen and ink. In this so-called “hieratic”
(sacred) script, the symbols were written in a cursive, or free-running,
hand so that at first sight their forms bore little resemblance to the old
hieroglyphs. As time passed and writing came into general use, even the
hieratic proved to be too slow and a kind of shorthand known as
“demotic” (popular) script arose. In both of these writing forms, numerical
representation was still additive, based on powers of 10.
 The hieratic system of writing numbers
EXAMPLE 1.4

= = 37

The Greek Alphabetic Numeral System

Around the fifth century B.C., the Greeks of Ionia also developed
a ciphered numeral system, but with a more extensive set of symbols to
be memorized. They ciphered their numbers by means of the 24 letters
of the ordinary Greek alphabet, augmented by three obsolete Phoenician
letters (the digamma for 6, the koppa for 90, and the sampi for 900).

Because the Ionic system was still a system of additive type, all
numbers between 1 and 999 could be represented by at most three
symbols. The principle is shown by
 For larger numbers, an accent mark placed to the left and below
the appropriate unit letter multiplied the corresponding number by 1000:
, 𝛽 = 2000
Tens of thousands were indicated by letter M, from the word
myriad (meaning “ten thousand”).

Multiplication in Greek alphabetic numerals was performed by

beginning with the highest order in each factor and forming a sum of
partial products.

EXAMPLE 1.5
24 x 53

Note that the method of Greek multiplication, corresponds to the modern

computation:

An incidental objection raised against the alphabetic notation is

that the juxtaposition of words and number expressions using the same
symbols led to a form of number mysticism known as “gematria”. The
most famous number was 666, the “number of the Beast,” mentioned in
the Bible in the Book of Revelation.
 • Some say that 666 referred to Nero Caesar, whose name has this
value when written in Hebrew.
• Catholic theologians devised an alphabetic schemes in which 666
stand for Martin Luther.
• Luther replied that 666 forecast the duration of the papal reign.
• Readers of Tolstoy recalled that L’ Emperor can be made
equivalent to 666.

Another number replacement that occurs in early theorlogical writings

concerns the word “amen”, which is "𝛼𝜇𝜂𝜈" . These letters have the
numerical values

𝐴(𝛼) = 1, 𝑀(𝜇) = 40, 𝐸 (𝜂 ) = 8, 𝑁(𝜈) = 50

totaling 99. Thus, in many old editions of the Bible, the number 99
appears at the end of a prayer as a substitute for amen. An interesting
illustration of gematria is also found in the graffiti of Pompeii: “I love her
whose number is 545.”

Number Recording of the Babylonians

“Babylonian” is used to refer to peoples who occupied the alluvial

plain between the twin rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates. The Greeks
called this land “Mesopotamia.” Most of it today is part of the modern
state of Iraq, although both the Tigris and the Euphrates rise in Turkey.

Babylonian Cuneiform Script

The sharp edge of a stylus made a vertical stroke and the base
made a more or less deep impression, so that the combined effect was
a head-and-tail figure resembling a wedge, or nail. Because the Latin
word for “wedge” is cuneus, the resulting style of writing has become
known as “cuneiform.”
Deciphering Cuneiform: Grotefend and Rawlinson
There are at least 400,000 Babylonian clay tablets, generally the size
of a hand. Of these, some 400 tablets are having mathematical content.

Georg Friedrich Grotefend (1775–1853)

While drinking with friends, he wagered that he could decipher a
certain cuneiform inscription from Persepolis provided that they would
supply him with the previously published literature on the subject. By an
inspired guess he found the key to reading Persian cuneiform.
- King
- King of Kings
- Darius
- Xerxes
- Hystapes
Thereafter, he was able to isolate a great many individual characters
and able to read twelve of them correctly. Grotefend thus produced a
translation that, although it contained numerous errors, gave an
adequate idea of the contents.

Henry Creswicke Rawlinson (1810–1895).

He was an Indian Army, became interested in cuneiform inscriptions
when posted to Persia in 1835 as an advisor to the shah’s troops.
Rawlinson’s attention was soon turned to Behistun, where a towering
rock cliff, the “Mountain of the Gods”. There, in 516 B.C., Darius the
Great caused a lasting monument engraved on a specially prepared
surface measuring 150 feet by 100 feet. The inscription is written in
thirteen panels in three languages—Old Persian, Elamite, and Akkadian
(the language of the Babylonians)—all using a cuneiform script. Despite
of great danger, Rawlinson obtained paper squeezes (casts) of 112 lines.
He assigned correct values to a total of 246 characters. He discovered
an important feature of Babylonian writing, the principle of “polyphony”;
that is, the same sign could stand for different consonantal sounds,
depending on the vowel that followed. Due to his remarkable efforts, the
cuneiform enigma was penetrated, and the vast records of
Mesopotamian civilization were now an open book.

Why sexagesimal?
According to Theon of Alexandria, 60 was among all the numbers
the most convenient since it was the smallest among all those that had
the most divisors.
 Others attached a “natural” origin to the sexagesimal system; their
theory was that the early Babylonians reckoned the year at 360 days,
and a higher base of 360 was chosen first, then lowered to 60.
The Babylonian place-value system became the principal
instrument of calculation among astronomers. We see this numerical
notation in full use in Ptolemy’s the Megale Syntaxis (The Great
Collection). The Arabs later passed this on to the West under the curious
name Almagest (The Greatest). The Almagest, until the time of
Copernicus, was the fundamental textbook on astronomy. In one of the
early chapters, Ptolemy announced that he would be carrying out all his
calculations in the sexagesimal system to avoid “the embarrassment of
[Egyptian] fractions.”

Writing in Ancient China

In the middle of the second millennium B.C., the Chinese were
already keeping records of astronomical events on bone fragments. By
1400 B.C., the Chinese had a positional numeration system that used
nine signs. The scarcity of reliable sources of information almost
completely seals from us the history of the ancient Orient. This might be
due to:
• The ancient orient was a “bamboo civilization”, and among the
manifold uses of this plant was making books. Another material
used about that time for writing was silk. The great majority of
these ancient books were easily lost to the ravages of time and
nature.
• Great interdynastic upheavals. Emperor Shih Huang-ti tried to
destroy all books of learning and nearly succeeded.
Before China’s isolation and inhibition, she transmitted to Europe a
veritable abundance of inventions and technological discoveries. Three
greatest discoveries of the Chinese were
• gunpowder,
• the magnetic compass,
• and paper and printing.
The Discovery of Paper
Tshai Lun, the director of imperial workshops in A.D. 105, went to
the emperor and said, “Bamboo tablets are so heavy and silk so
expensive that I sought for a way of mixing together the fragments
of bark, bamboo, and fishnets and I have made a very thin material
that is suitable for writing.” It took more than a thousand years for
 paper to make its way from China to Europe, first appearing in
Egypt about 900 and then in Spain about 1150.

All the while mathematics was overwhelmingly concerned with

practical matters that were important to a bureaucratic government:
• land measurement and surveying,
• taxation,
• the making of canals and dikes, granary dimensions, and so
on.

Office of Mathematics
One of the most important governmental departments in China
was known as the Office of Mathematics, consisted of minor officials
trained in preparing the calendar. Throughout Chinese history the main
importance of mathematics was in making the calendar, for its
promulgation was considered a right of the emperor, corresponding to
the issue of minted coins. In an agricultural economy so dependent on
artificial irrigation, it was necessary to be forewarned of the beginning
and end of the rainy monsoon season, as well as of the melting of the
snows and the consequent rise of the rivers. The person who could give
an accurate calendar to the people could thereby claim great importance.
Because the establishment of the calendar was a jealously guarded
prerogative, it is not surprising that the emperor was likely to view any
independent investigations with alarm. “In China,” wrote the Italian Jesuit
Matteo Ricci (died 1610), “it is forbidden under pain of death to study
mathematics, without the Emperor’s authorization.”

Chinese bamboo or counting-rod numerals:

The fifth century Chinese (brush form) numeral system:
ACTIVITY 1.

1. Express each of the given numbers in Egyptian hieroglyphics. Show the process.

a) 1492 c) 12,321
b) 1999 d) 70,80
e) 123,456 f) 3,040,279

2. Write each of these Egyptian numbers in our system. Show the process.

[Link] the indicated operations and express the answers in hieroglyphics.

Show the process.
4. Perform the indicated operation. Show the [Link]

5. Briefly explain the differences between the early number system of

Egyptians and Babylonians. Cite examples.

6. What impact did the writing materials (papyrus, clay, bamboo, paper) have
on the development of mathematics and our knowledge of it? How did the
different writing materials influence the mathematical notation?

7. Write your birthdate in a form of the fifth century Chinese (brush form)
numeral system. (Follow this format: Month-Date-Year. Example: 08-25-1997)