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The Ancient Romans developed the Roman hand abacus, a portable, but less capable, base-10 version of earlier abacuses like those that were used by the Greeks and Babylonians. [ 1 ] Origin
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").
This Greek abacus was used in Achaemenid Persia, the Etruscan civilization, Ancient Rome, and the Western Christian world until the French Revolution. The Salamis Tablet, found on the Greek island Salamis in 1846 AD, dates to 300 BC, making it the oldest counting board discovered so far. It is a slab of white marble 149 cm (59 in) in length, 75 ...
These capitals, in one of the most-visited sacred sites of Greece, influenced later Hellenistic and Roman designs for the Corinthian order. The concave sides of the abacus meet at a sharp keel edge, easily damaged, which in later and post-Renaissance practice has generally been replaced by a canted corner.
Ancient Roman decorative mosaic panels and floor mosaics were also produced during the 2nd century BC, particularly at sites such as Pompeii. Marble or limestone were cut into small cubes and arranged into representational designs and geometric patterns. Later, tesserae were made from colored glass, or clear glass backed with metal foils.
In the Etruscan system, the symbol 1 was a single vertical mark, the symbol 10 was two perpendicularly crossed tally marks, and the symbol 100 was three crossed tally marks (similar in form to a modern asterisk *); while 5 (an inverted V shape) and 50 (an inverted V split by a single vertical mark) were perhaps derived from the lower halves of ...
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An early photograph of the Salamis Tablet, 1899. The original is marble and is held by the National Museum of Epigraphy, in Athens. The Salamis Tablet is a marble counting board (an early counting device) dating from around 300 BC, that was discovered on the island of Salamis in 1846.