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The Greek abacus was a table of wood or marble, pre-set with small counters in wood or metal for mathematical calculations. [20] This Greek abacus was used in Achaemenid Persia, the Etruscan civilization , Ancient Rome, and the Western Christian world until the French Revolution .
In classical architecture, the shape of the abacus and its edge profile varies in the different classical orders. In the Greek Doric order, the abacus is a plain square slab without mouldings, supported on an echinus. [2] In the Roman and Renaissance Doric orders, it is crowned by a moulding (known as "crown moulding").
Objects, such as stones, were added for counting and then columns for place-valued arithmetic. The demarcation between an abax and an abacus seems to be poorly defined in history; [3] moreover, modern definitions of the word abacus universally describe it as a frame with rods and beads [4] and, in general, do not include the definition of "sand ...
The Greek forms of the Doric order come without an individual base. They instead are placed directly on the stylobate. Later forms, however, came with the conventional base consisting of a plinth and a torus. The Roman versions of the Doric order have smaller proportions. As a result, they appear lighter than the Greek orders.
Tesserae of a mosaic of doves drinking at a golden basin, 1st century AD, National Archaeological Museum, Naples, Italy A tessera (plural: tesserae, diminutive tessella) is an individual tile, usually formed in the shape of a square, used in creating a mosaic.
Entablatures at Caesarea Maritima Entablature at the Temple of Venus Genetrix, Rome. An entablature (/ ɛ n ˈ t æ b l ə tʃ ər /; nativization of Italian intavolatura, from in "in" and tavola "table") [1] is the superstructure of moldings and bands which lies horizontally above columns, resting on their capitals.
Five groups of markings appear on the tablet. The three sets of Greek symbols arranged along the left, right and bottom edges of the tablet are numbers from the acrophonic system. In the center of the tablet – a set of five parallel lines equally divided by a vertical line, capped with a semicircle at the intersection of the bottom-most ...
In their original Greek version, Doric columns stood directly on the flat pavement (the stylobate) of a temple without a base. With a height only four to eight times their diameter, the columns were the most squat of all the classical orders; their vertical shafts were fluted with 20 parallel concave grooves, each rising to a sharp edge called an arris.