Ancient Numeral Systems!

Hi! Welcome to my blog. Today I’m going to share the ancient numeral systems that I’ve learnt in school!

Attic Greek
Babylonian
Mayan
Roman
Egyptian
Hindu-Arabic

Attic Greek

1 =
5 =
10 =
50 =
100 =
500 =
1,000 =
5,000 =
10,000 =
50,000 =

1 is Ι, like the Roman symbol. 5 is Π, the first letter of the Greek word πέντε (pronounced pénte), meaning 5. 10 is Δ, the first letter of the word δέκα (déka), which - you guessed it - means 10.

Now 50 is kinda cool. It's Δ inside of Π. It's as if it's saying, "This number is 10 × 5 = 50." It is the same for 500, 5,000 and 50,000.

Going on, H is for ἑκατόν (ekatón). 500 is H inside of Π. X is for χίλιοι / χιλιάς (chílioi / chiliás). 5,000 is X inside of Π. M is for μύριον (mýrion). 50,000 is H inside of Π. They have no symbol for zero.

Now, you can do the quiz. Answers are at the bottom. (No peeking!)

1.  = ( )
2. 10,573 = ( )
3.  = ( )

Babylonian

The symbol for 1 is . The symbol for 10 is . The symbols for the numbers are just combining those two symbols. They have no symbol for zero.

Notice the numbers go up to 59. When you reach 60, a new place is added. The Babylonian numeral system is in base 60. (Whew!)

So 60 will be | . I put a | to show the difference between the places. When the Babylonians wrote it, they didn't put a line. So 1 and 60 will look the same! (That's the problem of not having zero. can mean 1, 60, 3,600, 216,000, 12,960,000 and more! Too bad they didn't have lines/zero.)


Now, you can do the quiz. Answers are at the bottom. (No peeking!)


http://gwydir.demon.co.uk/jo/numbers/egypt/num0.gif



Answers:
1. 35,746
2. 
3. 92,121