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The single tally stick was an elongated piece of bone, ivory, wood, or stone which is marked with a system of notches (see: Tally marks). The single tally stick serves predominantly mnemonic purposes. Related to the single tally concept are messenger sticks (used by, e.g., Inuit tribes), the knotted cords, khipus or quipus, as used by the Inca.
The oldest tally sticks date to between 35,000 and 25,000 years ago, in the form of notched bones found in the context of the European Aurignacian to Gravettian and in Africa's Late Stone Age. The so-called Wolf bone is a prehistoric artifact discovered in 1937 in Czechoslovakia during excavations at Dolní Věstonice, Moravia, led by Karl Absolon.
Possible tally marks made by carving notches in wood, bone, and stone appear in the archaeological record at least forty thousand years ago. [9] [10] These tally marks may have been used for counting time, such as numbers of days or lunar cycles, or for keeping records of quantities, such as numbers of animals or other valuable commodities.
The Ishango bone on exhibition at the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences. The Ishango bone, discovered at the "Fisherman Settlement" of Ishango in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is a bone tool and possible mathematical device that dates to the Upper Paleolithic era. [1]
The "measuring rod" or tally stick is common in the iconography of Greek Goddess Nemesis. [32] The Graeco-Egyptian God Serapis is also depicted in images and on coins with a measuring rod in hand and a vessel on his head. [33] [34] The most elaborate depiction is found on the Ur-Nammu-stela, where the winding of the cords has been detailed by ...
The earliest forms of arithmetic are sometimes traced back to counting and tally marks used to keep track of quantities. Some historians suggest that the Lebombo bone (dated about 43,000 years ago) and the Ishango bone (dated about 22,000 to 30,000 years ago) are the oldest arithmetic artifacts but this interpretation is disputed. [156]
Napier's bones is a manually operated calculating device created by John Napier of Merchiston, Scotland for the calculation of products and quotients of numbers. The method was based on lattice multiplication , and also called rabdology , a word invented by Napier.
He invented a well-known mathematical artefact, the ingenious numbering rods more quaintly known as "Napier's bones", [9] that offered mechanical means for facilitating computation. In addition, Napier recognized the potential of the recent developments in mathematics, particularly those of prosthaphaeresis , decimal fractions, and symbolic ...