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December 17, 2020 | History
An edition of Mathematics in ancient Iraq (2008)

Mathematics in ancient Iraq

a social history

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This edition was published in by Princeton University Press in Princeton, N.J.

Written in English

— 441 pages

Mixes archaeological and social (including textual and linguistic) detail to trace the development and use of mathematics in ancient Iraq over the last three centuries BCE.

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Subjects
History, Mathematics, Ancient Mathematics, Mathematics, history, Education, iraq

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Previews available in: English

Edition Availability
Cover of: Mathematics in ancient Iraq
Mathematics in ancient Iraq: a social history
2008, Princeton University Press
in English
Libraries near you: WorldCat

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Mathematics in ancient Iraq

a social history

First published in 2008

Subjects
History, Mathematics, Ancient Mathematics, Mathematics, history, Education, iraq
Places
Iraq

First Sentence

"Iraq - Sumer - Babylonia - Mesopotamia: under any or all of these names almost every general textbook on the history of mathematics assigns the origins of 'pure' mathematics to the distant past of the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers."

Work Description

Mixes archaeological and social (including textual and linguistic) detail to trace the development and use of mathematics in ancient Iraq over the last three centuries BCE.

Edit

Mathematics in ancient Iraq

a social history

This edition was published in by Princeton University Press in Princeton, N.J.

First Sentence

"Iraq - Sumer - Babylonia - Mesopotamia: under any or all of these names almost every general textbook on the history of mathematics assigns the origins of 'pure' mathematics to the distant past of the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers."

Edition Description

Mixes archaeological and social (including textual and linguistic) detail to trace the development and use of mathematics in ancient Iraq over the last three centuries BCE.

Table of Contents

List of Figures xi
List of Tables xvii
Preface xxi
Acknowledgements xxv
1 Scope, Methods, Sources 1
1.1 The Subject: Ancient Ireq and Its Mathematics 1
1.2 The Artefacts: Assyriological and Mathematical Analysis 8
1.3 The Contexts: Textuality, Materiality, and Social History 17
2 Before the Mid-Third Millennium 27
2.1 Background and Evidence 28
2.2 Quantitavie Management and Emerging Statehood 33
2.3 Enumeration and Abstraction 40
2.4 Symmetry, Geometry, and Visual Culture 45
2.5 Conclusions 51
3 The Later Third Millennium 54
3.1 Background and Evidence 55
3.2 Maps, Plans, and Itineraries: Visual and Textual Representations of Spatial Relationships 60
3.3 Accounting for Time and Labour: Approximation, Standardisation, Prediction 67
3.4 The Development of the Sexagesimal Place Value System (SPVS) 75
3.5 Conclusions 83
4 The Early Second Millennium 85
4.1 Background and Evidence 86
4.2 Metrology, Multiplication, Memorisation: Elementary Mathematics Education 97
4.3 Words and Pictures, Reciprocals and Squares 106
4.4 Measurement, Justice, and the Ideology of Kingship 115
4.5 Conclusions 123
5 Assyria 125
5.1 Background and Evidence 126
5.2 Palatial and Mercantile Numeracy in Early Assyria 129
5.3 Counting Heads, Marking Time: Quantifications in Royal Inscriptions and Records 136
5.4 Aru: Number Manipulation in Neo-Assyrian Scholarship 143
5.5 Conclusions 149
6 The Later Second Millennium 151
6.1 Background and Evidence 151
6.2 Tabular Accounting in Southern Babylonia 157
6.3 Land Surveyors and Their Records in Northern Babylonia 166
6.4 Quantification as Literary Device in the Epic of Gilgames 177
6.5 Conclusions 181
7 The Early First Millenium 183
7.1 Background and Evidence 184
7.2 Libraries and Schools: The Formalisation of the First-Millennium Scribal Curriculum 192
7.3 Home Economics: Numeracy in a Mid-First-Millennium Urban Household 198
7.4 Measuring Houses, Maintaining Professionalism 206
7.5 Conclusions 212
8 The Later First Millenium 214
8.1 Background and Evidence 215
8.2 Babylon: Mathematics in the Service of Astronomy? 220
8.3 Achaemenid Uruk: The Sangu-Ninurta and Ekur-zakir Families 227
8.4 Selucid Uruk: The Hunzu and Sin-leqi-unninni Families 240
8.5 Conclusions 260
9 Epilogue 263
9.1 The Big Picture: Three Millennia of Mathematics in Ancient Iraq 263
9.2 Ancient Mathematics in the Modern World 268
9.3 Inside Ancient Mathematics: Translation, Representation, Interpretation 274
9.4 The Worlds of Ancient Mathematics: History, Society, Community 284
9.5 Conclusions 288
Appendix A: Metrological Systems 291
Appendix B: Pulished Mathematicsl Tablets 299
Notes 342
Bibliography 373
Index of Tablets 409
Subject Index 425

Edition Notes

Includes bibliographical references (p. [373]-407) and indexes.

Classifications

Dewey Decimal Class
510.935
Library of Congress
QA22 .R629 2008, QA22.R629 2008

The Physical Object

Pagination
xxvii, 441 p. :
Number of pages
441

ID Numbers

Open Library
OL23145375M
Internet Archive
mathematicsancie00robs_842
ISBN 10
069109182X
ISBN 13
9780691091822
LC Control Number
2007041758
Library Thing
6815194
Goodreads
6281923

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History

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December 17, 2020 Edited by Clean Up Bot import existing book
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April 27, 2009 Created by ImportBot Imported from Library of Congress MARC record.