Talk:History of ancient numeral systems

Archaic and cuneiform

If any of you know where I can find gif files for Sumerian archaic number signs and cuneiform number signs, I will add them to this page. Greensburger 14:12, 5 September 2006

Merging

I created History of writing numbers but I made the title too broad and it overlaps the subject matter of Numeral system. So it was tagged as a merge candidate. I conceded that. It should have had a more restricted title such as History of writing ancient numbers so I created a new page that is about how writing ancient and pre-historic numbers began. It is not about numbers in general; it is not about mathematics; it is not about numerals. It is about how archaic writing began. There is a lot more I expect to add to History of writing ancient numbers once I create .jpg files for the archaic numbers signs. Greensburger 18:49, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

It has been suggested that History of writing ancient numbers be merged into History of writing numbers.

That is backwards. I created History of writing ancient numbers from History of writing numbers because "History of writing numbers" was too broad a title and overlapped the subject matter of "History of numerals" and "Numeral system". Please leave "History of writing ancient numbers" alone. I will redirect the other page later. Greensburger 19:05, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

I hope I got it right this time. I accidently erased History of writing ancient numbers and then reverted it. I reduced history of writing numbers to a stub (to be redirected later) because the proposed merger was effectedly done a few days ago. Sorry for the confusion. Greensburger 20:25, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Notched sticks and Roman numerals in which V and X are related to human hands

CRGreathouse contends there is a "scholarly consensus, that V and X are unrelated to hands."

I suppose that scholarly consensus also claims that 3 notches ||| and 4 notches |||| are unrelated to 3 fingers and 4 fingers on human hands. And how does that imaginary scholarly consensus explain why V and not ||||| usually represents 5 in Roman numerals? Oh that must be unrelated to the fact that 5 notches \|||| for thumb and fingers can be simplified to 2 notches \/ according to your imaginary scholarly consensus.

On page 192 of Ifrah's 633 page book "The Universal History of Numbers" (published by Wiley) is an illustration showing two human hands next to notched wood sticks. Each hand has 4 fingers close together and the thumb is separated from the 4 fingers resulting in a V-shaped space. Ifrah writes "To distinguish the fifth notch from the first four [the notch cutter] sets this one very oblique to the other four, and thereby obtains a representation all the more intuitive in that it reflects the angle that the thumb makes with the other four fingers." This reliable source Georges Ifrah is an expert on ancient number systems and trumps your imaginary "scholarly consensus". Greensburger (talk) 21:12, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

It's pretty simple: | represents a notch, || two notches, and so forth. The fifth notch was done at an angle, either ||||/ or with the last crossing the first few; in either case it makes a V together with one of the upright notches.

The "hand" story (don't worry, I once believed this too!) has never been supported by evidence while the notch one is strongly supported. I didn't realize Ifrah was the one spreading the disinformation on hands; now I suppose I'm going to have to gather sources to show that he's in a tiny misinformed minority. Sigh.

CRGreathouse (t | c) 00:29, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

I agree with you that the slanted fifth notch / in ||||/ together with one of the upright notches | makes a V as you said. But it is also true that ||||/ represented 4 fingers plus a thumb. How can you believe |||| means 4 fingers, but fail to see that ||||/ means 4 fingers plus a thumb, including the V gap between the thumb and 4 fingers? Accusing Ifrah of spreading "disinformation" (untrue information that is designed to deceive) is libelous. Greensburger (talk) 06:50, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

I never said that |||| represented four fingers. Further, there is no evidence supporting that claim. It's an oft-repeated urban legend. CRGreathouse (t | c) 18:37, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

In Wikipedia, we do not aspire to write the truth. We aspire to report what reliable sources say is the truth. Please read WP:VER. Moreover, if an expert on a subject presents a plausible theory, plausible enough to become an urban legend, it can be presented in Wikipedia, even though there can never be conclusive proof beyond doubt, because pre-historic people could not record their thoughts in writing that we can read. Such writing had not yet been invented. Greensburger (talk) 06:57, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

I'll get you citations, don't worry. There are actually plenty, but I'll need a few more hours than I've been able to devote to track them down at my uni library. CRGreathouse (t | c) 15:04, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

OK, I man aged to dig up a few. I've read one that specifically mentioned how curious it was that Ifrah's book mentions the old theory, which hasn't been in favor since the first half of the 20th century. Unfortunately I don't have a reference for it handy. CRGreathouse (t | c) 22:37, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

"... these theories have been disproved" sounds too strong, considering that it is difficult to prove a negative. I suggest "... but no strong evidence has been found that supports these theories." Examples of strong evidence would be clay tablets on which scribe(s) sometimes used hand pictographs in a context that clearly meant V or X. Or a copyist gloss stating that his received text included such hand pictographs which he transliterated as V or X. Greensburger (talk) 03:19, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Chrisomalis is actually pretty blunt about it -- not "no strong evidence has been found" but that no evidence was ever found to support it and strong, conclusive evidence is known that shows its ancestry. (Roman numerals didn't come from thin air, of course.) CRGreathouse (t | c) 05:12, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

If you are alluding to Roman numerals coming from notches in a stick, I agree. But that is not the issue. Whether or not notches came from hand pictographs is the issue. The pictograph hypothesis provides clues that have no strong evidence, but are still plausible. That was good enough for Ifrah and he explains why it is plausible. Not conclusive, but worth mentioning an an unproven hypothesis. Greensburger (talk) 06:23, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Please, read Keyeser's article (and Chrisomalis' book, if you can find it)! Keyeser spends some time debunking the pictographic theory, calling it "invalidated" by the evidence. In fact he even goes so far as to write

We may ask if there is any numeral system which is known to be pictographic, and if so why do the advocates of this theory not cite it?

(He gives several citations at this point; the closest he finds is the Sumerian system.)

CRGreathouse (t | c) 15:08, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Merging

It has been proposed to merge this "History of writing ancient numbers" article with the Numerical digit article. Greensburger (talk) 19:32, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

oppose The "Numerical digit" article has a section "History of ancient numbers" which is a brief summary about ancient numbers and refers to the main article "History of writing ancient numbers". Main articles should not be merged with summary articles. For example, "Automobile" should not be merged with "Transportation" section "Automobiles", and "Internal combustion engine" should not be merged with "Automobile" section "Engines". Greensburger (talk) 19:32, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

The Numerical digit article History section now begins with modern numbers of the Hindu–Arabic numeral system in the 7th century AD. There is now no overlap of the two articles and therefore the proposed merger is no longer relevant. Greensburger (talk) 13:43, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose: An article on this subject is needed, even if there was overlap (which apparently there is no longer). CRGreathouse (t | c) 15:13, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Corrected information regarding origin of writing tokens.

The original source listed, does not suggest that the oldest tokens were from Syria. Please review the prior source, regarding the age/origin of tokens. To date, the oldest tokens were found in cities at the foothills of the Zagros mountains. Tepe Asiab and Ganj-i-Dareh Tepe — Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.196.88.228 (talk) 03:25, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Wow. This HAS to be wrong.

The very first sentence (as of May 13, 2015) states:"The first method of counting was counting on fingers." I don't dispute the assertion made above by Greensburger that:"In Wikipedia, we do not aspire to write the truth. We aspire to report what reliable sources say is the truth." What SHOULD be clear is that there is NO PLAUSIBLE reason that ANY opinion, reasoned or not, of how counting was first developed perhaps 40,000 years ago (or could it have been 400,000?) could be considered substantially more likely than the various alternatives. That is, given the current state of knowledge about our prehistory and psycho-neurology there is NO WAY we can reasonably choose between, say, use of fingers or use of hand signs, or verbal signals (language or prelinguistic utterings) as the "first method". Let me be clear that I have no strong opinion on whether finger counting was or was not first, but the implication that we now know it was (or was not) is false and also misleading. It shouldn't be stated as fact not because you can't find some "expert" who wrote such a statement, but because it doesn't pass the 'smell' test for scholarly, evidence based facts. (I am not only not an expert in this subject, I am not even well-informed about it, but never-the-less...Let me give a counter-argument: Counting was used originally to communicate (not to think).{note this is just supposed to be a plausible alternative, no claim of truth is made here}. The first communication used to convey magnitude was a verbalization accompanied by a rapid head shake (three grunts and three nods = 3). This later evolved into hand signs and even later finger movements eventually led to finger counting. I claim there is NO PLAUSIBLE way (given our current state of knowledge) that this can be factually proven or dis-proven, nor is there any good reason to prefer finger counting to it. I believe I could come up with several other plausible "first methods", but like this one, it would be either original research (a no-no here) or require more time than I'm willing to expend to dig into the literature. My point is that there just can't be any real "expert determination" when it comes to very early "first methods". We just don't understand when it occurred and what the capabilities were of our ancestors (not necessarily yet human) who first used it to communicate (or possibly (although imho less likely) to think (mentally analyze.)) The sentence needs to be changed, and possibly a more recent (Ifrah wrote that in 1985) source referred to - hopefully one who is less opinionated. I spent 30 minutes looking into Ifrah's work and credentials. If there is any doubt that he should NOT be used as a "reliable" source, please refer to http://www.ams.org/notices/200201/rev-dauben.pdf (and the second part of that book review, not cited here). In that analysis he is characterized as "show[ing] little restraint", relied "on the wrong experts," (he describes himself as an 'intellectual tourist', rather than a scholar or expert) or "was indifferent to their responses, or was not prepared to settle for their inconclusive results and the tentative nature of their research." It goes on to lambast his work, citing another scholar "Lévy explains that he and his colleagues felt an obligation to “rectify [Ifrah’s] deceptive, confused, even muddle-headed views." It should be clear to anybody that Ifrah should not be used as an expert (in anything other than self-promotion). 173.189.79.42 (talk) 20:39, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

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What did numbers look like when it was first written by humans?

It was originally tally marks back 40,000 years ago when cavemen wanted to write numbers and made tally marks for representing the numbers like 1 is 1 tally mark and 2 is 2 tally marks and so on. 2601:241:8600:A0F0:3928:D8C8:6D2B:3716 (talk) 16:02, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

"numerical tablet"

@Hazegrae: "Numerical tablet(s)" is a term that occurs fairly frequently in discussions of this topic, and, accordingly, I think it's important that the term be used at least once in this article (presently, it's not used at all). If you can think of a better place to incorporate it, I won't object, but I strongly disagree with omitting it entirely. – Scyrme (talk) 18:11, 26 September 2022 (UTC)

"adding page numbers"

Not seeing how to enter the page numbers into the References section. When I add them to the Bibliography, they don't appear to transfer. However, the three items noted "page needed" are as follows: Reference 6, Dehaene 2011, is p. 176; Reference 18, Nissen et al. 1993, is pp. 25-29; Reference 33, Chrisomalis 2010, is pp. 247-249 Hazegrae (talk) 00:46, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

@Hazegrae: Thanks! I've added them now. You add page numbers directly to the inline {{sfnp}} templates rather than the citation they link to. The inline templates follow the format:

sfnp | [author last name] | [year] | p=[page] (or pp= for multiple pages)

You can include up to four authors, listed by surname, before the year, each separated by a vertical line. If you add four names, the template automatically displays "[first author] et al." so further names aren't needed, although they should be included in the citation in the bibliography which the inline templates link to. – Scyrme (talk) 14:59, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

Aha, I see it now. Didn't think to check higher in the document. Thanks for adding the info. Hazegrae (talk) 15:53, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

Roman symbol for 100

there is no convincing explanation as to how the Roman symbol for 100, C, was derived from its asterisk-shaped Etruscan antecedent.

In the absence of textual evidence, for many years people made do with a dangerous thing called commonsense. In other words, it evidently wasn't derived from the Etruscan model, but (dare I suggest) the Latin word CENTVM, which starts with a C; much as the Roman numeral for 1000 has been convincingly derived from MILLE. I also cannot believe that, in the long history of monographs about ancient writing, no-one has published an article discussing this very derivation. What, no-one? Really?? Nuttyskin (talk) 13:15, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

You might find interesting the extended discussion of this issue in Stephen Chrisomalis' 2020 book Reckonings: Numerals, cognition, and history. As he says on pp. 158-159, "Sometimes ... a numeral phrase is written using signs that provide some clue to the phonetic value of the relevant number word, but without using full representation in words. ... Immediately your mind might turn to the Roman numerals, where C is the first letter of centum (100) and M is the first letter of mille (1,000). However, this was actually a later development. Note that the other Roman numerals don’t have any phonetic associations, even though they are letters—why would L be 50 or X be 10? As mentioned in chapter 3 (and simplifying a very complex story), the Roman numerals began as a completely different sign system from the Roman alphabet, one that was not associated with letters at all; over time, the signs became associated with letters which integrated them with literate practices but also obscured their origin (Keyser 1988). By coincidence, the old Roman Ɔ for 100 could be mirrored across the vertical axis to become C, and the Roman ↀ for 1,000 could be separated at the bottom to resemble an M. Actually, ↀ was the main form of 1,000 in antiquity, and even throughout the medieval and early modern period it was extremely common."Hazegrae (talk) 14:10, 4 August 2024 (UTC)