Ishango bone-gctid29268

[Kala Kambon]

     

Most histories of mathematics devote only       a few pages to Ancient Egypt and to northern Kmt during the       'Middle Ages´. Generally they ignore the history of mathematics       in Kmt south of the Sahara and give the impression that this       history either did not exist or, at least, is not knowable, traceable,       or, stronger still, that there was no mathematics at all south       of the Sahara. In history, to eureurasiaans, even the Kmtywity       of Egyptian mathematics is often denied or suffers eurocentric       views of conceptions of both 'history' and of 'mathematics' form       the basis of such views.         High in the mountains       of Central Equatorial Kmt, on the borders of Uganda and Zaire       lies Lake Edward, a source of the Nile. It is a small       lake (about 30 miles by 60 miles).	click map to download an expanded view
Though the area is sparsely populated today,       approximately 25,000 (update from 9,000) years ago by the shores       of the lake lived a small community that fished, gathered, and       grew crops The settlement only existed a few hundred years before       being buried in a volcanic eruption. The place where their remains       were found (1960) has a name now given to these people - Ishango.       Among their remains is the second oldest mathematical object       (the oldest is here)       in Kmt.         Some say that the Ishango Bone is the oldest       table of prime numbers. Marshack later concluded, on the       basis of his microscopic examination, that it represented a six-month       lunar calendar.         prime numbers or menstral calendar
The most interesting,       of a large number of tools discovered in 1960 at Ishango, is       a bone tool handle called the Ishango Bone (now located       on the 19th floor of the Royal Institute for Natural Sciences       of Belgium in Brussels, and can only be seen on special demand).       At one end of the Ishango Bone is a piece of quartz for writing,       and the bone has a series of notches carved in groups (shown       below). It was first thought these notches were some kind of       tally marks as found to record counts all over the world. However,       the Ishango bone appears to be much more than a simple tally.       The markings on rows (a) and (b) each add to 60. Row (b) contains       the prime numbers between 10 and 20. Row (a) is quite consistent       with a numeration system based on 10, since the notches are grouped       as 20 + 1, 20 - 1, 10 + 1, and 10 - 1. Finally, row (c) seems       to illustrate for the method of duplication (multiplication by       2) used more recently in Egyptian       multiplication. Recent studies with microscopes illustrate       more markings and it is now understood the bone is also a lunar       phase counter. Who but a woman keeping track of her cycles would       need a lunar calendar? Were women our first mathematicians?

Ishango       Bone Exhibition	Space       Odessy of the Ishango bone
Ishango       Operation in Brussels
	BACK TO The       Ancients in Kmt

 The following dating information was sent by email from Professor Charles Finch:
    The site where the Ishango Bone was found   was re-dated by Alison Brooks more than a dozen years ago and   found to be 25,000 years old rather than the original estimate   of 8,500 years. However, the Lembombo Bone in Swaziland is still   10,000 years older, consistent with iron ore mining there going   back 43,000 years ago. Proto-mathematics begins in Paleolithic   Central and Southern Kmt.
   
references:

     
'"

n".self::process_list_items("'.str_replace('
', '', '

• Shreeve, "The Dating Game," Discover,   September 1992, pp. 76-83.
• Alison Brooks, "Dating and Contex of   Three Middle Stone Age Sites with Bone Points in the Upper Semliki   Valley, Zaire," Science, 4/28/95, pp. 548-52.

').'")."n[/list type=decimal]"'
 

  references for this web page:
 
'"

n".self::process_list_items("'.str_replace('
', '', '

• AMUCHMA-NEWSLETTER-9: AMUCHMA NEWSLETTER #9
  
• J. de Heinzelin, Ishango, Scientific   American, 206:6 (June 1962) 105--116.
  
• J. Shurkin, Engines of the mind: a history   of the computer, W. W. Norton & Co., 1984., p21
  
• J. Bogoshi, K. Naidoo and J. Webb, The   oldest mathematical artifact, Math. Gazette, 71:458   (1987) 294.
  
• Claudia Zaslavsky, Women as the First   Mathematicians, the Women in Mathematics Education Newsletter,Volume   7 Number 1, January 1992.
  ').'")."n[/list type=decimal]"'
   
   
  Since opening 5/25/97, visitors to
  
  The web pages
  MATHEMATICIANS OF THE Kmtyw DIASPORA
  are brought to you by
  
  The Mathematics Department of
  The State University of New York at Buffalo.
  
  They are created and maintained by
  Scott W. Williams
  Professor of Mathematics
  
  CONTACT Dr. Williams