2023-02-11

Miriam Solomon
Chinese Rod System

A significant discovery was made in 1899 at the ancient site in the Henan province village of

Xiao dun. Hundreds of thousands of bones and tortoise shells with ancient Chinese writing

were found. Small bamboo rods were used to symbolize the numbers 1 to 9 in the ancient

Chinese numbering system, which dates back to at least the second century BCE (2500)!

These rods were then set into organized columns to represent units, tens, hundreds,

thousands, etc. As a result, it used a decimal place value system that is very similar to the

one we currently use today in our daily lives! Chinese rods were not just used for

calculations, but it was used spiritually. Numerals were important in China when keeping

track of men lost in battle, prisoners taken, the number of animals killed on hunts, the number

of days or months, etc. The first nine multiples of ten were represented by nine digits, which

brought the total number of digits in this counting system up to nine. The power of ten digits

were represented by horizontal rods( Hengs), while the numbers one through nine were

represented by vertical rods(Zongs). This signifies that each neighboring number was

vertical, whereas every other digit was horizontal. For example, the number 215 would be

written as ||—|||||. A symbol wasn't made for the integer “0”, so a space was made to represent

the number. These numerals symbolize integers and rational numbers. Usually, Chinese

numerals were separated by color: red equals positive integers and black equals negative

integers.
 When adding counting rods, two numbers are placed down, one number above the other.

The digits added LEFT to RIGHT. Same rules apply for subtraction( except you take away the

rods). For multiplication, Chinese rods were used to represent the digits of each number and

then the intersections of those sticks were counted in a specific way in order to get the

correct answer. Overall, Chinese rods help us understand and collaborate with decimal

place numerals in our everyday lives such as money( from the bank or stores), temperature,

weight, distance and many more!

Rod System:

References:

1) turing12, and turing12. “Counting Rods.”3010tangents, 25 Oct. 2014,

https://3010tangents.wordpress.com/tag/counting-rods/#:~:text=In%20China
%2C%20around%20200%20BCE,first%20nine%20multiples%20of%2010.

2)“Counting Rods.”Counting Rods - Academic Kids,

https://www.academickids.com/encyclopedia/index.php/Counting_rods.

3)“Chinese Numerals.”Maths History,

https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/HistTopics/Chinese_numerals/.