History of Abacus

With the complex adding systems that we have today, it can be hard to grasp that peoples were
using small stones or other objects as numerical devices from time immemorial. The word calculate
itself comes from the Latin calculus, which means small stone. These methods of calculations introduced
some elementary kind of abstraction, but people gradually realized that this method did not go far
enough to satisfy their increasing needs. To count up to 1000, for example, they would have had to
gather a thousand pebbles, which was enormous work.

That is why, once the principle of the numerical base had been grasped, the usual pebbles were
replaced with stones of various sizes to which different orders of units were assigned. For example, if a
decimal system was used, the number 1 could be represented by a small stone, 10 by a larger one, 100
by a still larger one, and so on. It was a matter of time someone to think of to arrange some pebbles
over a big flat base stone, wire or something else.

It is unknown when exactly were developed first devices to facilitate calculation, such as the
counting board, or abacus. The counting board was invented when someone grasped the idea of placing
pebbles or other objects in columns marked on a flat surface, and assigning an order of units to the
objects in each column. Later, loose objects in columns were replaced with beads that could slide along
parallel rods.

There is an unproved information, that similar to abacus device was used in Babylonia as early
as 2400 BC. The word abacus itself is a Latin word, which comes from Greek άβακασ (board or table).
The Greek word probably comes from the Semitic abk, which means sand, dust or to wipe the dust,
which can suggest to us, that Greeks accepted the idea of abacus from the Phoenicians (which is the
case with the Greek alphabet, inspired by the Phoenician alphabet). Actually the Romans applied the
word abacus (and also the word calculi, which comes from calculus (stone, pebble) to various objects, all
with the common characteristic of having a flat surface: tables used in different kinds of games,
sideboards and the calculating device still known as the abacus. The Greeks used besides the above-
mentioned type of abacus, also so called dust abacus—a box, full of sand (or dust), divided into columns,
over which can be arranged pebbles or other small objects.

The Salamis abacusThe first written information about the abacus, survived to the present, is
from the Greek historian Herodotus (480-425 B.C.), who mentioned also, that the ancient Egyptians
used abacus. The oldest abacus, survived to the present day, is so called Salamis abacus (see the nearby
figure). It was named after the greek island of Salamis, in the vicinity of which it was found in 1846 and
was described later by the Greek archaeologist Alexander Rizo-Rangabe.

The Salamis abacus (kept now in Epigraphical Museum of Athens) is dated around 300 B.C. and
is a large slab of white marble (broken in half now), 149 cm long and 75 cm wide, with five parallel lines
engraved into it and, below them, eleven parallel lines divided in half by a perpendicular line. The third,
sixth, and ninth of these eleven lines are marked by crosses at their points of intersection with the
perpendicular line. Three nearly identical series of Greek characters, which are numerical signs for
noting sums of money in the greek monetary system (the basic unit is drachma, but there are also 2
smaller units—obols and khalkoses, and 2 bigger, which actually were never minted—minas and
talents), are engraved on three sides of the slab.

The four columns on the top, were used for fractions of the drachma, the first one
corresponding to khalkoses (1/48 of a drachma), the second to quarter-obols (1/24 of a drachma), the
third to half-obols (1/12 of a drachma), and the fourth to obols (1/6 of a drachma). The next five
columns were associated with multiples of the drachma: the first on the right corresponded to units, the
second to tens, the third to hundreds, and so on. The last five columns (in the bottom part) were
respectively associated with talents, tens of talents, hundreds, and so on. Since a talent was equivalent
to 6000 drachmas, counters representing 6000 drachmas were replaced with one counter in the talents
column. By means of these different divisions, the reckoner could perform addition, subtraction, and
multiplication.