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The numerals employed by cuneiform scribes to express numbers may be traced directly back to the sexagesimal numerals of the earliest protocuneiform tablets at the end of the fourth millennium B.C.E. As exemplified by the typical Old Babylonian period (circa 1894 - circa 1595 B.C.E.) numerals below, in the sexagesimal cuneiform system every number from 1 to 599 can be written with the correct relative placement of combinations of just two types of wedges, the vertical wedge for digits and the corner wedge ("Winkelhaken") for tens. Additional signs were used for 600 and 3600.
1 10 40 90 2 11 50 100 3 12 60 110 4 13 61 120 5 20 62 121 6 21 70 130 7 22 71 131 8 23 72 180 9 30 80 600 3600
In nonmathematical texts special numerals represent 100 and 1000:
100 1000 200 3000 300 3333
In both mathematical and nonmathematical texts from the Seleucid and Parthian periods during the last three centuries B.C.E., a sign formerly used as a word separator occasionally came to represent "zero":
0
This section contains 143 words (approx. 1 page at 300 words per page) |
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