The counting board is precursor of the abacus, and the earliest known form of a counting device (excluding fingers and other very simple methods). Counting boards were made of stone or wood, and the counting was done on the board with beads, or pebbles etc. Not many boards survive because of the perishable materials used in their construction. The oldest known counting board, Salamis Tablet (c. 300 BC) was discovered on the Greek island of Salamis in 1899. It is thought to have been used by the Babylonians in about 300 BC and is more of a gaming board than a calculating device. It is marble, about 150 x 75 x 4.5 cm, and is in the Greek National museum in Athens. It has carved Greek letters and parallel grooves. The German mathematicican Adam Ries described the use of counting broads in Rechenbuch auf Linien und Ziphren in allerlei Handthierung / geschäfften und Kaufmanschafft.
Famous quotes containing the words counting and/or board:
“Love is sinister,
is mean to us in separation;
makes our thin bodies thinner.
This fellow Death
lacks mercy
and is good at counting our days.
And Master,
you, too, are subject
to the plague of jealousy
so think:
how could womenfolk,
soft as sprouts,
live like this?”
—Amaru (c. seventh century A.D.)
“She hears me strike the board and say
That she is under ban
Of all good men and women,
Being mentioned with a man
That has the worst of all bad names.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)