Oct 4 Comparing Ancient Egyptian and Ancient Babylonian Number Systems

The most notable difference between the two numeration systems is that the ancient Babylonians, as we have first studied, used a system in base 60, sexagesimals. 60 had many interesting properties and was helpful in concepts like time/representing fractions. The ancient Egyptians used the base 10 system which is what many are familiar with today. The symbols the Egyptians used to denote numbers are also more complex in looks as they are more pictorial. For the Roman numerals, it also uses a base 10 system. 1 is I, 2 is II, 3 is III. However there is a special symbol for 5, V. 4 is IV since it is one before 5, and 6 is VI since it is one after 5. 7 is VII, 8 is VIII for the same reason. But 10 is X, and 9 is IX, one before 10. Roman numerals have special symbols not only for powers of 10 but also for the powers of 10 times 5, i.e. 5 is V, 50 is L, 500 is D. Roman numerals are also more efficient in writing and carving onto blocks. In elementary, my social studies class went on a field trip. We learned that when European traders came to Canada, they etched Roman numerals on the trees since it was easy to carve lines instead of the curvyness of the Arabic numerals. A nice affordance for the Egyptian system is that it uses base 10 which we are familiar with. The Babylonian system uses base 60 which is helpful in representing fractions and time. A constraint for both systems is that it is slow since you have to write down literally 9 symbols to represent 9. The Egyptian system’s symbols are also complex which take more time to write out. Those pictorial symbols do have associations for the numbers they are representing though. It correlates with the quantity of/ level of importance associated with the symbol drawing.