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From: iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Ivan A Derzhanski)
Subject: Re: Eleven & Twelve
Message-ID: <D458n7.D5t@cogsci.ed.ac.uk>
Organization: Centre for Cognitive Science, Edinburgh, UK
References: <3he9q1$rul@seminole.gate.net> <3hj9ca$mfc@igor.rutgers.edu> <D43Jut.9Gw@cogsci.ed.ac.uk>
Date: Fri, 17 Feb 1995 12:13:53 GMT
Lines: 55

In article <D43Jut.9Gw@cogsci.ed.ac.uk> iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Ivan A Derzhanski) writes:
>In article <3hj9ca$mfc@igor.rutgers.edu> mrrosa@eden.rutgers.edu (Mark Rosa) writes:
>>From what I've read the Babylonians used base 60
>
>You're thinking of the Sumerians, not the Babylonians.
[...]
>>and their writing was used by a later culture (Akkadians? I forget)
>
>Yes.  More precisely, it was the Akkadian-speaking Babylonians.
>
>>who adapted it to the decimal system.
>
>I don't think they modified it in any way.  They accepted it as it was,
>although in Akkadian, as in all Semitic languages, numerals are base 10.

I checked a couple of sources, and found out that the Akkadians did
come up with a decimal system, although they never gave up the Sumerian
sexagesimal one.  Apparently base 10 was used for secular and base 60
for scientific purposes.

As I understand it, the two systems worked pretty much like this:

#
#	60.cuneiform
#
0	""
1	"|"[#-1]
10	"<"[#-10]
60	/, %

#
#	10.cuneiform
#
0	""
1	"|"[#-1]
10	"<"[#-10]
100	/, "|-", %
1000	/, "<|-", %

I say `pretty much' for two reasons: (1) my two sources contradict one
another with respect of a few cases (eg one of them says that "|" meant
`60' in the decimal system too, whereas the other insists that it was
written as 6 "<"s there); (2) the representation has been linearised
for technical reasons (eg the 7 wedges with which `7' is written
should be arranged in three rows with 3 above, 3 in the middle
and 1 below).

The programs are to be run through `number'.  Perhaps Dik Winter
will remind us where it lives?

-- 
`I'm sendin a flood tae pit an end tae it aw.  But dinny worry yersel, Noah.'
Ivan A Derzhanski (iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk)    (J Stuart, _Auld Testament Tales_)
* Centre for Cognitive Science,  2 Buccleuch Place,   Edinburgh EH8 9LW,  UK
* Cowan House E113, Pollock Halls, 18 Holyrood Pk Rd, Edinburgh EH16 5BD, UK
