ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Counting Discrete Entities in Administrative and Legal Documents from the Old Babylonian Diyala

• In Event: Mathematics and Practical Knowledge

English Abstract

While the mathematical tradition of Old Babylonian school texts is well documented, it represents only one facet of the broader landscape of cuneiform mathematics. Administrative and legal documents reveal a rich variety of practices involving counting, measuring, and calculating. These include lists of workers, tax records, provisioning accounts, inventories of objects, receipts, disbursement notes, inheritance divisions, and timekeeping records.

This presentation focuses on the mathematics of counting discrete entities—primarily people, animals, and days—in the Old Babylonian Diyala region. In some texts, the counting of discrete entities is combined with the measurement of continuous goods such as grain or fodder. In others, it is paired with the counting of additional discrete elements—for example, the enumeration of bricks alongside the tracking of days. Taken together, these practices reveal a sophisticated awareness of how numerical tools could be mobilized to support administrative work.

Altogether, counting in administrative and legal contexts emerges as a distinct mathematical culture. Although it intersected with the school-based tradition, it differed in purpose, structure, and content, revealing the diversity of mathematical practices in Old Babylonian society.

Author

• Carlos Gonçalves, University of São Paulo