Numbers Around the World

Presently, the earliest known archaeological evidences of any form of writing or

counting are scratch marks on a bone from 150,000 years ago. But the first really solid
evidence of counting, in the form of the number one, is from a mere twenty-thousand
years ago. An ishango bone was found in the Congo with two identical markings of
sixty scratches each and equally numbered groups on the back. These markings are a
certain indication of counting and they mark a defining moment in western civilization.

Zoologists tell us that mammals other than humans are only able to count up to three
or four, while our early ancestors were able to count further. They believed that the
necessity for numbers became more apparent when humans started to build their own
houses, as opposed to living in caves.

Anthropologists tell us that in Suma, in about 4,000 BCE, Sumerians used tokens to
represent numbers, an improvement over notches in a stick or bone. A very important
development from using tokens to represent numbers was that in addition to adding
tokens you can also take away, giving birth to arithmetic, and an event of major
significance. The Sumerian’s tokens made possible the arithmetic required for them to
assess wealth, calculate profit and loss and even more importantly, to collect taxes, as
well as keep permanent records. The standard belief is that in this way numbers
became the world’s first writings and thus accounting was born.

More primitive societies, such as the Wiligree of Central Australia, never used
numbers, nor felt the need for them. We may ask, why then did the Sumerians on the
other side of the world feel the need for simple mathematics? The answer of course,
was because they lived in cities which required organizing. For example, grain needed
to be stored and determining how much each citizen received required arithmetic.

Egyptians loved all big things, such as big buildings, big statues and big armies. They
developed numbers of drudgery for everyday labor and large numbers for aristocrats,
such as a thousand, ten thousand and even a million. The Egyptians transformation of
using “one” from counting things to measuring things was of great significance.

Their enthusiasm for building required accurate measurements so they defined their
own version of “one.” A cubit was defined as the length of a man’s arm from elbow to
finger tips plus the width of his palm. Using this standardized measure of “one” the
Egyptians completed vast construction projects, such as their great pyramids, with
astonishing accuracy.

Two and a half thousand years ago, in 520 BCE, Pythagoras founded his school of
math in Greece. Pythagoras was intrigued by whole numbers, noticing that pleasing
harmonies are combinations of whole numbers. Convinced that the number one was
the basis of the universe, he tried to make all three sides of a triangle an exact number
of units, a feat which he was not able to accomplish. He was thus defeated by his own
favorite geometrical shape, one for which he would be forever famous.

His Pythagorean theorem has been credited to him, even though ancient Indian texts,
the Sulva Sutras (800 BCE) and the Shatapatha Brahmana (8th to 6th centuries BCE)
prove that this theorem was known in India some two thousand years before his birth.
Later in the third century BCE, Archimedes, the renowned Greek scientist, who loved
to play games with numbers, entered the realm of the unimaginable, trying to
calculate such things as how many grains of sand would fill the entire universe. Some
of these intellectual exercises proved to be useful, such as turning a sphere into a
cylinder. His formula was later used to take a globe and turn it into a flat map.

Romans invading Greece were interested in power, not abstract mathematics. They
killed Archimedes in 212 BCE and thereby impeded the development of mathematics.
Their system of Roman numerals was too complicated for calculating, so actual
counting had to be done on a counting board, an early form of the abacus.

Although the usage of the Roman numeral system spread all over Europe and
remained the dominant numeral system for more than five hundred years, not a single
Roman mathematician is celebrated today. The Romans were more interested in using
numbers to record their conquests and count dead bodies.