Numerals as letters: ludic language in chronographic writing

IN The Shape of Script: How and Why Writing Systems Change , Stephen Houston, ed., pp. 229-254. Santa Fe: School of American Research Press . , 2012

Numbering by the books: the transition from Roman to Arabic numerals in the early English printing tradition , 2009

It is our assumption that the goal of primitive written symbols was to create suprasubjective representations. And we feel that it has continued to be the case all over the course of History. In an increasingly globalised world, this goal seems even more evident, and we could highlight that symbolic representations tend to be supraregional, supranational, supracultural and supraideological. The Arabic, the Chinese or the Suzhou numerals are nowadays restricted to specific uses and regions. Instead the Hindu-Arabic numerals, widespread by modern computers, are commonly used everywhere. Millions of people know the meaning of symbols such as 2, 3, 4, 5, =, ≠ , ≥ ,√, ∞. Almost everybody is able to recognize the usual iconic signs that mean ‗disabled person' or ‗smoking is forbidden'. And in spite of their importance in nowadays society a project devoted to the study of the origins, the spread and the evolution of those symbols is still lacking. The aim of our paper is to point out the theoretical and methodological assumptions upon which a history of cross-cultural written symbols should be undertaken.

The subject of the First Edition of The Alphabet and the Ancient Calendar Signs regards the origins of the earliest Western alphabets and their relationship to the Chinese lunar calendar and horary signs. Dr. Moran focused his attention on the striking correspondences between the word meanings attributed to the letters of the Hebrew alphabet to their one-to-one relationship to certain Chinese lunar mansions. Dr. Moran’s hypothesis was that attributes of the Western alphabet was somehow derived from the Chinese lunar calendar. His thesis was that the meanings of each of the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet had a one-to-one correspondence to the meanings of twenty-two Chinese lunar mansions, while omitting six lunar mansions in his correspondence. The Chinese lunar mansions were actually constellations in a band in the sky that the Moon traversed, which is the same band that the Sun travels, but is called the zodiac in the solar context. Moran compared the meanings and etymology of these two sets and found many similarities that he documented in his book.

Suhayl International Journal For the History of the Exact and Natural Sciences in Islamic Civilisation, 2003

Arabic, Rilm" Coptic, or merely Greek Alphanumerical Notation? The Case oC a Mozarabic lO'h Century Andalusl Manuscript Rosa Comes l. Introduction The aim of this paper is to analyse the natatian ibat appears alongside the Reman numerals in tbe Latin manuscript MDU•604 of the Capitular Libnuy in Urgell (Northem Catalonia. Spain)l, which was copied in 938. Unlil now, this notation (see Table II and Fig. 1) has beeo considered to be tbe oldest testimony of Hindu•Arabic cipbers in the lbenan Peninsula 1. However, an examination of lhe entire manuscript, featuring al least two I The See afthe Diocese of Urgcll is allesled alleasl since the 6• e:entury. 2 Pujol i Tubau [1917: 12.14) scems not to recognize the somewhal dislorted Greek lettm in the rnanuscript as ciphers, judging by his tIanscription of folio 19v. Mund6 [1994: 140 & 1998: 514-515] inlerprets the Grcek alpbanumerical figures written nexllo the Roman numbers (see table II) as unrelatcd Arabic ciphers and, hence, considcrs them to be the oldest testimony of Hindu•Arabic figures in the lberian Peninsula. This opinion is sharcd, among othcrs, by Alturo i Perucho (2003: 124). Nevertheless, the Greek alphanumerical ciphers agree in al1 cases (except for 3 errors in a total ofmore than ISO correspondences) with Roman figures. Confusion between Hindu•Arabic and Greek (or romí) figures is not uncommon. JusI as a sample, Menendez Pidal [19S9: fig 3) did not recognize as Greek notation the ciphm in manuscript El Escorial R.lLl8. which are extremely similar to the ones in the Urgell manuscript. Also, Kunitzseh [2003: S, n.14), quotiDg a personal letter from W. Diem. mentions a papyrus in which the date, considered at ODe time 10 be written in Hindu numerals. secms rather lO be formed by (cwsive) Greek numerallettm. SulYiyl) (2002-o3) 158 R. Comes complete series of alphanumerical signs, one ofthem covering a complete cange oC ciphers fram 1 to 101, proves that the figures helaog to ao alpbanumerical system, which could be the oldesl surviving evidence in tbe Iberian Peninsula oC rúm?, Coptic, oc merely Greek alphanumerical notarion, bul is definitely not Hindu-Arabic. Through a comparative analysis of a11 these figures and oC the illuminated ¡oitiais in the rnanuscript, as well as oC their respective historieal, geographical and chronological contexts, 1 will try to delennine tbe natuee of tbe notation used in this manuscript. 1.1. Greek alphanumerical nota/ion and iis deriva/es Perhaps it would be llseful to start with a general overview oC these alpbanumerical notations, As early as the 3 rd century Be the alphanumerical notation was in full use in Greece, This system of notation-in which the letters of tbe alphabet are assigned a numerical value-was adapted from tbe Phoenician Northem Semi tic alphabet, which had been introduced in Greece probably sorne time between the IOIh and the 8 th century Be. For the alphanumerical notation tbe Greeks used the following series cornposed by 27 signs and distributed as follows:

S. Fontana et alii (eds), Margins and Forgotten Places. Proceedings of the interdisciplinary Ph. D. conference (Verona, 17-19 May 2021), 2023

This paper focuses on analyzing the numerical notational system used in the administrative texts of Ebla (Palace G). The ancient city of Ebla is located in Syria, southwest of Aleppo, at the site of modern Tell Mardikh. During the 3rd millennium BC, Ebla rose as an important center: starting as a small settlement, in the Early Bronze Age (EBA), the city flourished, imposing its hegemony over much of northern and eastern Syria. Ebla was then destroyed at the end of the 24th century BC. Afterward, it was reoccupied during the first half of the 2nd millennium 1. The administrative texts analyzed in this paper were found in Palace G, a structure belonging to the EBA phase, in which Ebla had distinguished itself as a cultural, linguistic, and geographical crossroads, provided with an important administration system. Several rooms belonging to the palatial archives have been discovered 2. Specifically, this paper will focus on the texts found in the so-called Great Archive L. 2769 and the Small Archive L. 2712 3. The Great Archive contained texts of various kinds, while the Small Archive contained texts mainly related to allotments of agricultural products 4. Ebla texts were written in cuneiform 1 The Italian Expedition by Sapienza University of Rome has carried out systematic excavations at Tell Mardikh (Ebla) between 1964 and 2010, see Matthiae-Marchetti (2013: 25). 2 The Ebla archives consisted of about three thousand cuneiform tablets, mostly administrative. Moreover, they contained letters, chancery texts, reports of ritual activities, and a significant corpus of lexical and literary texts. Most of the administrative documents recorded textiles, precious metals, and wool deliveries. However, to these must be added a significant number of texts dealing with deliveries of livestock and allotments of agricultural products (cereals, oil, wine, beer). See Matthiae-Marchetti (2013: 27). 3 The Great Archive (central archive C), found during the 1975 campaign, was placed in a room (L. 2769) measuring 5.10 × 3.55 m, built under the eastern portico of the Audience Hall. The Small Archive (archive B) was found during the 1975 campaign in a room (L. 2712) built in the northeast corner of the Audience Hall, about 15 meters from the podium made of mudbricks for the royal throne. See Archi (2015: 79). 4 Moreover, the texts in the large archive cover a wider timeframe than those in the small archive, which are datable to the period immediately preceding the destruction of Palace G.

2021

This paper constitutes study of Sumerian inscription found on obelisk of "Blau Monuments" of 5,000 years age. As a part of research undertaken on the Sumerians and ancient Chinese, the study indicates that those Sumerian proto cuneiform characters are archaic Chinese. Now inscription on the obelisk is fully deciphered, translated, interpreted, and presented in detail in their native Chinese and highlighted in English as well. The study is based on Sumerian and ancient Chinese texts, genealogy of Oracle Bone Scripts (1,200BC) and genealogy of cuneiform as well. Title of the Sumerian obelisk is revealed as "Spring Mansion". Its content appears to be a royal document of its two highest ranking officers, the Queen and a senior administrator. "Spring Mansion", the royal ministry of Ritual and Worship, is one of six administrative ministries of royal courts in ancient China. * ooooo 434， 112 5n1a 5 亩 small dots: 5 burs. Or large dots: 300 burs

Aestimatio: Critical Reviews in the History of Science

Abstract This article examines the question of whether the recording of numbers and calendar dates, usually provided as examples of the earliest writing in Mesoamerica, should be considered writing. The objective of this article is not to deny that this constitutes writing (which in the opinion of the author it does), but to point out that the investigators who agree on this position individually accept distinct definitions of what writing is, that is, as much those who define writing in the “classic” way, as a system that is based on and reflects language, as those who are in favor of a broader definition (often employing the term “semasiography”). Whether numerical and calendric signs are themselves linked to a specific language will therefore be analyzed. Without wishing to list all the criteria that in the author’s opinion should be decisive in categorizing a system as “writing”, some of the factors involved with the recording of numbers and dates are identified and explored. Resumen En el presente artículo se analiza la cuestión si el registro de números y fechas calendáricas, usualmente proporcionadas como ejemplos de escritura más antigua de Mesoamérica, puede ser considerado escritura. El objetivo del artículo no es negar de que se trate de escritura (lo cual es innegable, según la autora), sino observar que con tal constatación están de acuerdo investigadores que de por sí aceptan distintas definiciones de lo que es escritura, es decir, tanto los que la definen de forma “clásica”, como un sistema que se basa y refleja la lengua, como los que están a favor de una definición más amplia que la anterior (con frecuencia recurriendo al término de “semasiografía”). Se analizará, por lo tanto, si los signos de números y los signos calendáricos de por sí están adscritos a un idioma concreto. Sin pretender de indicar todos los criterios que en opinión de la autora deberían ser decisivos para categorizar un sistema como “escritura”, se proporcionarán y analizarán algunos de ellos, presentes en registros de números y registros calendáricos.