The Sumerian World (Routledge Worlds)

Regardless of their origin, the basic Sumerian cardinal numbers are well known.

One asˇor dilior disˇ

Tw o min

Three esˇ 5

Four limmu

Five ia 2

Six asˇ 3

Seven imin

Eight ussu

Nine ilimmu

Te n u^2

A notation for zero had not yet been invented by the third millennium BC.
The real intricacies of the Sumerian counting system originate from a basic
difference between modern thought and ancient Near Eastern thought. Whereas we
think of counting as made up of two parts, a number and a thing being counted the
number being abstract and the thing concrete (e.g. 3 bushels, 3 men, 3 acres), the
Sumerian conception of counting seems to reveal an integral link between the thing
being counted and the number. In other words, there was no abstract number three
divorced of any object or context. Numbers were dependent on that which was
counted. Learning all these different systems of counting and measuring is a major
challenge for the student learning to read Sumerian administrative texts.
To write a “number” in Sumerian was therefore a complicated thing. In fact, the
earliest corpus of writing known, the archaic tablets from Uruk, list sixty separate
number-signs.^3

METROLOGY

Metrology, or how to measure things, is therefore inextricably linked to counting in
Sumerian. To give just a few examples, if a Sumerian counted sheep or birds, the
individual wedges for ones were similar to a Roman i – vertical strokes (Figure 15. 2 ).
Figure 15. 3 shows that the sixty wedge is bigger and deeper than the one wedge, but
otherwise very similar—also a vertical stroke. Here what is being counted is birds.
Often, administrative concerns being financial, what was being counted was grain,
or workers, or weights of silver. There were different ways to count each of these.^4
This chapter is not the place for an in-depth review of Sumerian metrological
systems. Nevertheless, looking at one example, the system for measuring grain, may
give the reader a clearer idea of the complexities involved. The system for counting and

–– Calendars and counting ––

Figure 15.2ITT 3. 5003. 2 sheep...; 1 lamb... Figure 15.3ITT 3. 4968. 60 birds

(musˇen tur-tur)