Attic Greek Numerals

Attic numerals were used by the ancient greeks possibly from the 7th century bc they were also known as herodianic numerals because they were first described in a 2nd century manuscript by herodian they are also known as acrophonic numerals because the symbols derive from the first letters of the words that the symbols represent.

Attic greek numerals.

Attic greek like other dialects was originally written in a local variant of the greek alphabet. Attica is a region of greece whose main city is athens. Second is the milesian alexandrian ionic or alphabetic numerals. The greeks had two number systems.

The arithmetic operation in attic numbers seems to be difficult but the division is calculated as we calculate today. A simple and useful attic greek numerals converter with the attic numerals list to find the attic of the numerals. This is the system we discuss. Or so used only six symbols.

Attic refers to the greek territory of attica while herodianic refers to aelius herodianus a grammarian of the 2 nd century a d. Attic numbers were later replaced by the ionian numbers even in attica. This numerals were used by the ancient greeks. The earliest alphabet related system of numerals used with the greek letters was a set of the acrophonic attic numerals operating much like roman numerals which derived from this scheme with the following formula.

In greek the h sound is found at the start of words and was dropped altogether in some dialects. Five ten hundred thousand and ten thousand. According to the classification of archaic greek alphabets which was introduced by adolf kirchhoff the old attic system belongs to the eastern or blue type as it uses the letters ψ and χ with their classical values ps and kʰ unlike western or red alphabets which used χ for. The attic or herodianic system of numerals was the first numeral system used in ancient greece.

Who described the system in his writings. This system which arose around 500 b c. Or as acrophonic numerals from acrophony because the basic symbols derive from the first letters of the ancient greek words that the symbols represented. Attic numbers were largely used for cardinal numbers for counting not for ordering and were not used to.

The attic numerals are a symbolic number notation used by the ancient greeks they were also known as herodianic numerals because they were first described in a 2nd century manuscript by herodian. Thousands were often indicated by placing a bar at the left of the corresponding numeral. ι 1 π 5 δ 10 πδ 50 η 100 πη 500 χ 1000 πχ 5000 μ 10000 and πμ 50000. The ionian greek system of enumeration was a little more sophisticated than the egyptian though it was non positional.

These ionic or alphabetical numerals were simply a cipher system in which nine greek letters were assigned to the numbers 1 9 nine more to the numbers 10 90 and nine more to 100 900. By the alexandrian age the greek attic system of enumeration was being replaced by the ionian or alphabetic numerals.