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Time: 8 hours
Level: Intermediate
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 Introduction Resource- This unit looks at Babylonian mathematics. You will learn how a series of discoveries have enabled historians to decipher stone tablets and study the various techniques the Babylonians used for problem-solving...
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- 1 Babylonian mathematics Resource
- In Mesopotamia, the scribes of Babylon and the other big cities were impressing on clay tablets economic and administrative records, literary, religious and scientific works, word-lists, and mathematical...
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| | 2 A Babylonian mathematical problem
- 2 A Babylonian mathematical problem Resource
- Before seeing how our knowledge has been acquired, let us get into the spirit of things by ascertaining what a problem looks like once the modern cuneiform scholar has translated a tablet. The following...
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| | 3 The historical study of cuneiform
- 3 The historical study of cuneiform Resource
- Now, how did historical study reach the stage where Neugebauer and Sachs could pick up a tablet in a library and translate it so as to provide a fair degree of understanding? As with Egyptian hieroglyphs,...
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| | 4 A remarkable numeration system
- 4 A remarkable numeration system Resource
- The Babylonian numeral system was described in Section 3 as ‘remarkable’. It is worth spelling out the reasons for this judgement. Although what we notice first is that it was a place-value system (see...
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- 5.1 Uncertain origins Resource
- The tablet is called Plimpton 322, and is described by Neugebauer (The Exact Sciences in Antiquity (Dover, 1969) p. 40) as ‘one of the most remarkable documents of Old-Babylonian mathematics’. The name...
- 5.2 What is the significance of the numbers? Resource
- In seeking the significance of these numbers, there is more information on the tablet that we have not yet taken into account, namely the text of the column headings themselves. The heading of column A...
- 5.3 Errors in Plimpton 322 Resource
- The presence of errors on the tablet is of further benefit to the historian, in that trying to discover how they could have arisen provides strong clues about how the computations were done. So, for instance,...
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| | 6 The social context of Babylonian mathematical activity
- 6 The social context of Babylonian mathematical activity Resource
- The extant mathematical tablets from the Old Babylonian period fall broadly into two categories, table texts and problem texts. You have seen examples of both of these. The weighing-the-stone problem with...
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| | 7 Babylonian mathematical style
- 7 Babylonian mathematical style Resource
- Not only should you have learnt through this exercise more about the Babylonian mathematical style, but also, on another level, you should have gained more experience in the endeavour of trying to understand...
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- 8 Conclusion Resource
- In conclusion, what is Babylonian mathematics about? Although it is not easy to answer this question precisely, because of the difficulties of interpretation such as you saw with Plimpton 322, the overwhelming...
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- Further reading Resource
- Doblhofer, Ernst, Voices in Stone (Paladin, 1973; orig. edn. 1957). Not especially mathematical, but a good account of the decipherment of hieroglyphs and cuneiform texts if you want to follow that up....
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| | References and Acknowledgements | |
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