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Sources and Studies in the History of Mathematics
and Physical Sciences
Jöran Friberg
Farouk N.H. Al-Rawi
New
Mathematical
Cuneiform Texts
Sources and Studies in the History
of Mathematics and Physical Sciences
Series editor
Jed Z. Buchwald
Associate editors
J.L. Berggren
J. Lützen
J. Renn
Advisory Board
C. Fraser
T. Sauer
A. Shapiro
Sources and Studies in the History of Mathematics and Physical Sciences
was inaugurated as two series in 1975 with the publication in Studies of Otto
Neugebauer’s seminal three-volume History of Ancient Mathematical
Astronomy, which remains the central history of the subject. This publication
was followed the next year in Sources by Gerald Toomer’s transcription,
translation (from the Arabic), and commentary of Diocles on Burning
Mirrors. The two series were eventually amalgamated under a single editorial
board led originally by Martin Klein (d. 2009) and Gerald Toomer,
respectively two of the foremost historians of modern and ancient physical
science. The goal of the joint series, as of its two predecessors, is to publish
probing histories and thorough editions of technical developments in
mathematics and physics, broadly construed. Its scope covers all relevant
work from pre-classical antiquity through the last century, ranging from
Babylonian mathematics to the scientiﬁc correspondence of H. A. Lorentz.
Books in this series will interest scholars in the history of mathematics and
physics, mathematicians, physicists, engineers, and anyone who seeks to
understand the historical underpinnings of the modern physical sciences.
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/4142

Jöran Friberg • Farouk N.H. Al-Rawi
New Mathematical
Cuneiform Texts
Jöran Friberg Farouk N.H. Al-Rawi
(emeritus) Chalmers University of Technology SOAS University of London
Hisings Kärra, Sweden London, United Kingdom
ISSN 2196-8810 ISSN 2196-8829 (electronic)

Sources and Studies in the History of Mathematics and Physical Sciences
ISBN 978-3-319-44596-0 ISBN 978-3-319-44597-7 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-44597-7
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016961212
Mathematics Subject Classification (2010): 01A17, 01A05
© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material
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Preface
The name of the book, New Mathematical Cuneiform Texts, is not entirely truthful. Many of the texts
considered are really published here for the first time, but several others were published earlier by various
authors but are treated here again because much of interest remains to be said about them.
Most of the new texts were found and copied for me by professor Farouk N. H. Al-Rawi, who also has
made for this book quite a few new hand copies of previously published texts. Without his help the book
could never have been written. Of the new texts found by Al-Rawi, some are from the British Museum,
namely a Seleucid list of squares of many-place regular sexagesimal numbers in Chapter 1, a
Neo-Babylonian factorization algorithm in Chapter 2, three fragments of Late Old Babylonian
mathematical recombination texts from Sippar in Chapter 8, one of them with interesting problems for
bricks, and a fragment of a catalog of rectangular-linear systems of equations in Chapter 9. Hand copies of
the mentioned texts are published here with the kind permission of the Trustees of the British Museum.
Other texts found by Al-Rawi are from the Iraq Museum in Baghdad, namely, in particular, nine texts from
Old Babylonian Mê-Turran and Shaduppûm in Chapters 5-7, including fragments as well as large clay
tablets, and in addition an interesting set of unusually brief Old Babylonian multiplication tables from
Mê-Turran. Permission to publish texts from the Iraq Musum was kindly given by the Board of Archaelogy
of Iraq. Most importantly, Al-Rawi found two early tables of reciprocals in the Suleimaniyah Museum,
discussed in Chapter 13, one of which is the only known cuneiform table of reciprocals not making use of
sexagesimal place value numbers.
By courtesy of Vitali Bartash a metro-mathematical text from Early Dynastic Umma with commercial
exercises, the earliest of its kind, from the Cuneiform Library at Cornell University, is shown and
discussed in Chapter 12.
Finally, Chapter 14, written in cooperation with Anthony Phillips, is devoted to a discussion of early
examples of labyrinths and mazes. Among those are, in particular, several fragments from the Iraq Museum
in Baghdad and the Yale Babylonian Collection, New Haven, CT, of apparently Neo-Sumerian drawings
from Nippur of an earlier unknown kind of labyrinths in the form of house plans, probably with 180Û
rotational symmetry. These are by far the earliest known instances of labyrinths.
The initial part of the present volume, comprising Chapters 1-4, is devoted to a detailed study, for the
first time ever, of a number of large mathematical and metrological cuneiform table texts from the 1st
millennium BC. As a suitable introduction to the subject, Chapter 1 begins with a convenient survey of
eleven categories of known Late Babylonian (Neo-Babylonian, Achaemenid, and Seleucid) mathematical
tablets or tablet fragments inscribed with many-place regular sexagesimal numbers. Similarly, Chapter 3
begins with an additional survey of eight categories of known Neo-Assyrian, Neo-Babylonian,
Achaemenid, and Seleucid mathematical or metrological exercises, problem texts, lists, and other kinds of
tables.
In Chapter 1, five large many-place sexagesimal tables of reciprocals are discussed, the Seleucid Table
B from Babylon, the Achaemenid Table U from Uruk, the Neo-Babylonian Table S from Sippar, the
Seleucid Table V from Uruk, and the Achaemenid table W from Uruk. All the mentioned tables are more or
less well preserved, with the exception of Table B, which can be reconstructed from a large number of small
fragments. It is shown that Tables B, U, and S probably had a common ancestor, the hypothetical
v
vi Preface
Neo-Babylonian Table R, which had originally been constructed by use of the clever Old Babylonian
doubling and halving algorithm. The younger Table V was constructed by use of a similar algorithm. Table
W, on the other hand, is of another kind, and its construction was based on a triplicating and trisecting
algorithm.
A new fragment of a list of squares of many-place regular sexagesimal numbers is published in Chapter
1. It is similar to the fragments which were used for the reconstruction of the pairs of reciprocals in Table
B.
In Chapter 2 is published a new Neo-Babylonian tablet where the reciprocal of the many-place regular
sexagesimal number 1 01 02 06 33 45 is computed by use of another clever Old Babylonian algorithm, the
last place factorization algorithm, and its inverse. The number was taken from the second line of Table R.
It is also shown in Chapter 2 how an understanding of the last place factorization algorithm allows the
reconstruction of certain tables of many-place regular numbers of which only quite small fragments have
been preserved.
Four metrological recombination texts from Achaemenid Uruk are discussed for the first time in
Chapter 3. (A “recombination text” is a text of mixed content, with its various paragraphs copied from
several older texts.) A common, Late Babylonian feature of these texts is that the great majority of the
metrological sub-tables are written as if they were to be read from right to left. Another common feature is
the following: In Old Babylonian metrological table texts sub-tables for different kinds of measures were
always arranged in the order C (capacity), M (weight, metals), A (area), L (length). In Late Babylonian
metrological tables, on the other hand, sub-tables are always arranged in the reverse order L, (A), M, C. In
spite of these conspicuous differences, there are many indications that a prominent purpose of these
metrological texts was to teach the fundamentals of Old Babylonian metrology to Late Babylonian students.
The first of the mentioned four texts is written on the obverse of a clay tablet which has Table W of
many-place pairs of reciprocals on its reverse. It begins with a series of structure tables of a previously
unknown kind for traditional (i. e. Old Babylonian) length measures with 1 rod = 12 cubits. It continues with
a conversion table from area measures (Old Babylonian) to Kassite seed measures, and with a structure table
for area measures. Then there is, somewhat out of place, a delightful account of the linear growth of a child
in its mother’s womb. The text ends with three parallel lists of length measures (L), weight measures (M),
and capacity measures (C), with a curious mix of Old and Late Babylonian metrology.
The second text begins with a non-metrological list of Gods’ names and numbers and ends with two
similarly non-metrological shadow length tables. In between, there are various conversion tables for length
measures, area measures, and weight measures, and a range table of a previously unknown kind for the
conversion of squares of length measures into area measures.
The third text is really only a sliver of a large clay tablet, with a structure table for traditional length
measures on the obverse, making use of decimal numbers, and a metrological table for traditional (Old
Babylonian) capacity measures, making use of sexagesimal numbers, on the reverse.
The fourth text is a large fragment with curious metrological conversion tables from decimal multiples of
the grain (Old Babylonian) to sexagesimal fractions of the shekel, and from decimal multiples of one cubit to
sexagesimal multiples of one 100-cubit. There is also a non-traditional table of reciprocals, where decimal
reciprocals, written with number words, are expressed as sexagesimal fractions.
Chapter 4 is about an Achaemenid metrological text originally published by Hilprecht more than a
century ago. As in the case of the four texts in Chapter 3, the lines of the metrological tables are intended to
be read from right to left, and the sub-tables are arranged in the order L, M, C. However, there are four
different sub-tables for length measures. In the first two sub-tables (Ln and Lc), traditional length measures
Preface vii
(Old Babylonian, with 1 cubit = 30 fingers) are equated with sexagesimal rod multiples and with
sexagesimal cubit multiples. In the third and fourth sub-tables, common length measures (Late Babylonian,
with 1 cubit = 24 fingers) are equated with sexagesimal multiples of one cubit or of one 100-cubit.
In the sub-table for weight measures, fractions or multiples of the shekel and decimal multiples of the
grain are equated with sexagesimal multiples (of the shekel). In the last sub-table, Late Babylonian capacity
measures (with 1 bán = 6 sìla and 1 sìla = 10 ninda) are equated with sexagesimal multiples (of the bariga).
A second part of the book, comprising Chapters 5-7 and also Chapter 10 is devoted to Old Babylonian
mathematical texts from Mê-Turran (Tell Haddad) and Shaduppûm (Tell Harmal) in the Eshnunna region in
the early 2nd millennium BC, some new and some previously published in the journal Sumer.
In Chapter 5 are considered five texts from Old Babylonian Mê-Turran and Shaduppûm, all of them
concerned with metric algebra problems for rectangles of a given form (sides in the proportion 1 : 2/3).
The first of those texts is a previously unpublished nearly intact large recombination text. It is shown that
it is possible to rearrange the 19 exercises of that text into a systematically arranged theme text.
The second text is a previously unpublished hand tablet with a single exercise, and unusually interesting
mathematical terminology.
The three remaining texts in this chapter were previously published by Bruins or Baqir, but with
inadequate mathematical commentaries in both cases. One is a large fragment of recombination text, the
other two are single problem texts. The text originally published by Baqir has also recently and
independently been discussed in a book by Carlos Gonçalves.
In Chapter 6 are considered three additional previously unpublished texts from Old Babylonian
Mê-Turran. One of them is a fragment of a large text with three preserved mixed problems, each problem
with its own illustrating diagram, and a table of constants. Interestingly, the Akkadian term nalbanum ‘brick
mold’ appears here as a previously unknown but appropriate term for ‘rectangle’. In its Sumerian form
ge$
ù.$ub, this term for ‘rectangle’ appears also in a text from Sippar discussed in Chapter 8.
A second text from Mê-Turran is a well preserved large recombination text with metric algebra problems
for squares and general quadrilaterals. The areas of the quadrilaterals are computed by use of the usual
Sumerian/Old Babylonian inexact computation rule.
A third text from Mê-Turran is a relatively well preserved recombination text with metric algebra
problems for circles and semicircles.
The text discussed in Chapter 7 is a large fragment of a recombination text from Old Babylonian
Shaduppûm. This text was first published by Bruins, in an inadequate transliteration without hand copies or
photos, and with in most cases unsatisfactory mathematical interpretations. The text contains eight more or
less well preserved problems about partners or brothers and their unequal shares, all leading to systems of
linear equations. There is also an unrelated exercise with an explicit computation of a combined market rate,
so far the only one of its kind known.
Texts belonging to Goetze’s Group 6 of Old Babylonian mathematical texts without known provenance
are discussed in Chapters 8 and 9. They are probably from Sippar in northern Mesopotamia, and there are
indications that they were written after the abandonment of the cities in southern Mesopotamia, such as Ur,
Larsa, and Uruk. Consequently, they can be assumed to be Late Old Babylonian.
The six Old Babylonian texts discussed in Chapter 8 are shown by their repertoire of mathematical
sumerograms to belong to Group 6. The first of these texts, previously unpublished, is a fragment of a
mathematical recombination text with six preserved problems concerning bricks, three for extra thick
rectangular bricks of length 3 sixtieths rods, and three for ordinary rectangular bricks of length 1/2 cubit.
Particularly interesting is a problem for moist and dry bricks, closely related to an earlier published Late
Babylonian(?) table of constants.
viii Preface
The two next texts, also previously unpublished, are small fragments of two-column clay tablets with
homogeneous quadratic problems for two or three squares.
The fourth text in Chapter 8 is a fragment of an interesting theme text, originally published by
Neugebauer in MKT I. It gives an explicit account of a combined factorization and doubling and halving
algorithm, like the one in the well known table text CBS 1215 discussed in Section 2.2.
The fifth text is large recombination text, a join of three separately published fragments. An edition of
this text has been published previously by Robson, unfortunately with unsatisfactory mathematical
interpretations. Its general theme is seed measures and volumes of various kinds of whole and truncated
pyramids and cones. All the computation rules applied in this text are correct. The only known parallel text is
a single problem text from Late Old Babylonian Susa which is concerned with what may be called a ridge
pyramid, a pyramid with a rectangular base and with uniformly sloping sides. A second related text is an
interesting isolated exercise in another mathematical recombination text from Old Babylonian Sippar,
published and partially explained by Neugebauer in MKT I, concerned with the volumes of two circular
defense works, a ditch and a dike.
This part of the chapter ends with a discussion of how the Old Babylonian correct computation rules for
the volumes of pyramids and cones may have been derived, with a brief discussion of similar computation
rules in ancient Chinese, Greek, and Indian mathematical treatises.
The sixth text from Sippar treated in Chapter 8 is a join of two separately published fragments. An
edition of this text, too, has been published previously by Robson, unfortunately again with unsatisfactory or
insufficient interpretations. It is a mathematical recombination text, dealing with walls built of two kinds of
extra thick rectangular or square bricks, with a square pyramid built of an unusual kind of ordinary
rectangular bricks, and with the lengths of the diagonals of certain rectangles.
Chapter 9 begins with a survey of all known Old Babylonian mathematical texts without provenance but
clearly belonging to Group 6, and therefore from Sippar. In addition to the five such texts discussed in
Chapter 8, five more are discussed in Chapter 9. Four of them are simple catalogs of metric algebra
problems, without solution procedures and answers. Two of them are previously unpublished.
Chapter 10 is devoted to a study of Goetze’s well known “mathematical compendium”, two clay tablets
from Shaduppûm. In spite of being quite badly preserved these two texts are very interesting, containing a
mix of catalogs of mathematical problems, a unique catalog of mathematical problem types, and a table of
constants.
In the chapter is also discussed in some detail a pair of large catalogs of metric algebra problems, from
Late Old Babylonian Susa.
Chapter 11 is devoted to three unusually interesting small recombination texts, together making up
Goetze’s Group 2b of Old Babylonian mathematical texts without known provenance. Two of them are
numbered, one is not. One of the texts is exclusively concerned with commercial problems, with market rates
(inverse unit prices) as the central concept. No solution procedures are given, but the the needed
mathematical tool box includes the computation of combined market rates, as well as the solution of systems
of linear equations or rectangular-linear systems of equations.
The second text contains an assortment of problems about bricks, mud, and reeds. A problem about
carrying mud and molding bricks is particularly interesting. According to the interpretation of this problem
proposed here, bricks reinforced with straw were made of five parts mud and one part straw and were
therefore made extra thick, six fingers instead of the usual five fingers.
Also the third text considered in Chapter 11 contains a wide variety of problems. It begins with a
systematic catalog of problems for cylindrical containers, with their capacities expressed in a special cylinder
sìla. Then there are problems for a stair-case built of square bricks, a curious problem about how much silver
is needed for making a thin rectangular silver foil of given dimensions, systems of linear equations for the
ewes and lambs in two sheep folds, and a combined work norm problem for tearing out and carrying bricks.
Preface ix
Another Old Babylonian tablet with mixed mathematical problems, among them a problem for two sheep
folds, was published by Neugebauer in MKT I. Exceptionally, in that text all the solution procedures for the
various problems are chaotically organized. It is proposed here that that is because the solution procedures
were jotted down by a student inattentively listening to the teacher’s demonstration of how the stated
problems should be solved. This proposed explanation is important, since it may explain how, in a number of
known cases in mathematical cuneiform texts, a solution procedure not making much sense nevertheless
produces the correct answer to a stated problem.
The text discussed in Chapter 12 is a mathematical recombination text from Early Dynastic III or Early
Sargonic Umma, just recently published by Vitali Bartash. It is the oldest such text known. The theme of the
text is multiplication or division by fractions like 1 2/3 5 (shekels) or 1 2/3. Before the invention of
sexagesimal place value numbers such operations were much more difficult than multiplication or division
by the corresponding sexagesimal place value numbers 1 45 (non-regular) or 1 40 (regular).
The object considered in Chapter 13 is a previously unpublished atypical table of reciprocals, apparently
dating to the Neo-Sumerian Ur III period, before the invention of sexagesimal place value numbers. One of
the reciprocal pairs listed in this table is igi 10 2/3 gál.bi 5 1/2 7 1/2, meaning that the reciprocal of 10 2/3 is
5 1/2 + 7 1/2 (sixtieths). (The corresponding reciprocal pair in sexagesimal place value numbers would be
(10;40, 5;37 30), if a semi-colon is used to separate integers from fractions.) More precisely, all numbers
appearing in this atypical table are of the type ‘integer and basic fraction + integer and basic fraction times 1
shekel (= 1/60)’. The product of a number and its reciprocal in the table is always equal to 60.
The list of reciprocal pairs in this table is fundamentally different from the list of reciprocal pairs in the
standard Old Babylonian tables of reciprocals and their Ur III predecessors making use of sexagesimal place
value numbers. The pair (10 40, 5 37 30), for instance, is never present in standard tables of reciprocals.
An interesting new observation is that the list of head numbers in Old Babylonian multiplication tables
may have been based not on the numbers in a standard table of reciprocals of the Old Babylonian type, but
on an atypical table of reciprocals of the same type as the one mentioned above.
It is possible to show that the majority of the reciprocal pairs in this new atypical table of reciprocals
were constructed by use of a systematic procedure involving doubling and halving, tripling and trisection,
etc. Since this procedure did not produce enough pairs n, rec. n with n close to 60, a different method
involving a kind of “regular twin numbers” was used to produce a few such pairs.
The only other known sexagesimal table of reciprocals not making use of sexagesimal place value
numbers is Peter Hulin’s curious table of reciprocals from Late Assyrian Sultantepe with Sumerian number
words.
In Chapter 13 is also published a new table of reciprocals of the usual kind, probably Neo-Sumerian, and
a comparative survey is made of all known Neo-Sumerian or Early Old Babylonian tables of reciprocals. The
chapter ends with a discussion of the historical importance of the table of reciprocals without sexagesimal
place value numbers as a missing link between metro-mathematical cuneiform texts from the 3rd millennium
BC and mathematical cuneiform texts from the early second millennium BC.
Chapter 14, the last chapter of the book, was written in cooperation with Anthony Phillips. It begins
with a renewed discussion of two Old Babylonian drawings of labyrinths of a completely new type, one
rectangular, the other square, published by the present author in MSCCT 1 in 2007. A new observation is that
the rectangular labyrinth has a nearly perfect 180o rotational symmetry, and that the square labyrinth would
have had it if it had been only slightly different. This is important, because a large fragment of a
Neo-Sumerian clay tablet with a drawing of another kind of labyrinth allows a complete reconstruction of the
x Preface
original drawing of a labyrinth if it is assumed that that labyrinth, too, had a perfect 180Û rotational
symmetry. The (reconstructed) Neo-Sumerian labyrinth has great similarities with earlier published
Neo-Sumerian house plans.
Interestingly, the Old Babylonian labyrinths have a central square filled by a spiral pattern, while the
Neo-Sumerian labyrinth has an open central square. In that respect it is similar to a number of known Roman
mosaic floors with labyrinth patterns; these almost always have an open central court, with or without an
explicit reference to the myth of the Minotaur in the palace at Knossos. It is also reminiscent of a number of
known loom weights from a weaving house in Francavilla, Calabria, c. 800 BC, which are all adorned with
patterns that can be shown to be the paths around labyrinths with a central open court, possibly referring to
Ariadne’s thread in the myth of the Minotaur.
Jöran Friberg, October 2016

Contents
Preface v
1. Late Babylonian Tables of Many-Place Regular Sexagesimal Numbers, from Babylon, Sippar, and Uruk 1
1.1 Late Babylonian Texts Concerned with Many-Place Regular Sexagesimal Numbers 1
1.2 Table B (Babylon). Fragments of a Seleucid Many-Place Table of Reciprocals, with n from 1 to 2 3
1.2.1 BM 35568. A List of Squares of Many-Place Regular Sexagesimal Numbers 3
1.2.2 Attested Many-Place Regular Numbers n in the Fragments and in Tables U and S 6
1.2.3 Table R: A Reconstructed Common Ancestor to Tables B, U, and S 9
1.2.4 The Numerical Algorithms Used for the Construction of Table R 18
1.2.5 The Double 6-Place Hexagon and the 12-Place Flower in the Index Grid 22
1.2.6 An Error in a Table of Squares Related to the Enlarged Table B* 24
1.3 Table U = W 23283+22905 (Uruk .) An Achaemenid Many-Place Table of Reciprocals, with n from 1 to 4 26
1.3.1 Mathematical and Metrological Tablets from a House in Achaemenid Uruk 26
1.3.2 A Curious Incipit, and a Colophon 27
1.3.3 A Curious Use of the Technical Term íb.si in Table U 28
1.3.4 Numerical Errors in Table U 28
1.3.5 A Curious Extra Line in Table U 30
1.3.6 Table U. New Photos and Conform Transliterations 34
1.4 Table S = Sippar 2175/12. A N eo-Babylonian Many-Place Table of Reciprocals, with n from 1 to 3 38
1.4.1 Numerical Errors and Missing Pairs in Table S 38
1.4.2 Table S. Hand Copies and Conform Transliterations 39
1.5 Table V = AO 6456 (Uruk). A Seleucid Many-Place Table of Reciprocals, with n from 1 to 3 43
1.5.1 An Invocation, a Many-Place Table of Reciprocals, a Description, and a Colophon 43
1.5.2 Numerical Errors and Missing Pairs in Table V 44
1.5.3 Representation in the Index Grid, Inside a 6-place Double Triangle 46
1.5.4 Table V. New Photos 49
1.6 Table W = W 23281, rev. (Uruk). An Atypical Achaemenid Many-Place Table of Reciprocals 50
1.6.1 An Atypical Many-Place Table of Reciprocals 50
1.6.2 The Numerical Algorithms Used for the Construction of Table W 53
1.6.3 A Partly Preserved Colophon 59
2. Direct and Inverse Factorization Algorithms for Many-Place Regular Sexagesimal Numbers 61
2.1 BM 46550. A N eo-Babylonian Tablet with Direct and Inverse Factorization Algorithms 62
2.1.1 Description of the Tablet and New Photos 62
2.1.2 A Spectacular Old Babylonian Example of a Many-Place Pair of Reciprocals 63
2.1.3 An Application of a Last Place Factorization Algorithm 64
2.1.4 An Application of an Inverse Last Place Factorization Algorithm 65
2.1.5 Last Place Traces in a Triaxial Index Grid 66
2.1.6 A Faulty Application of the Last Place Factorization Algorithm 67
2.1.7 On the Choice of the Initial Number n = 1 01 02 06 33 45 69
2.1.8 Errors in BM 46550 73
2.2 CBS 1215 and the Old Babylonian Trailing Part Factorization Algorithm 74
xi
xii Contents
2.3 Reconstructions of Factorization Algorithms on Three Seleucid Tablet Fragments 76

2.3.1 BM 34517. A Descending Table of Powers of 9 76
2.3.2 BM 34958. A Last Place Factorization Algorithm for a Large Number of Class I 78
2.3.3 BM 34907. A Direct and an Inverse Last Place Factorization Algorithm 81
2.4 Old Babylonian Ascending and Descending Tables of Powers 84
2.4.1 IM 630174. An Ascending Table of Powers from Old Babylonian Bikasi 84
3. Metrological Table Texts from Achaemenid Uruk 87
Mathematical and/or Metrological Cuneiform Texts from the 1st Millennium BC 87
3.1 W 23281, obv. A Metrological Recombination Text from Achaemenid Uruk 89
3.1.1 § 1. A Series of Structure Tables for Traditional Length Measure 92
3.1.2 § 2. A Conversion Table from Area Measure to Kassite Seed Measure 97
3.1.3 § 3. A Structure Table for Area Measure 97
3.1.4 § 4. A Badly Preserved Range Table for Lengths and Square Areas 100
3.1.5 § 5. The Linear Growth of a Child in its Mother’s Womb 100
3.1.6 § 6. A Catalog of Equations from the 1st Millennium BC 101
3.1.7 § 7. Parallel Metrological Lists for Length, Silver, and Grain Numbers 102
3.2 W 23273. Another Metrological Recombination Text from Achaemenid Uruk 106
3.2.1 § 1. Gods’ Names and Gods’ Numbers 109
3.2.2 § 2. A Conversion Table from Length Numbers to Sexagesimal nindan Multiples 110
3.2.3 § 3. A Reverse Conversion Table from Sexagesimal nindan Multiples to Length Numbers 111
3.2.4 § 4. A Conversion Table from Length Numbers to Sexagesimal Cubit Multiples 112
3.2.5 § 5. A Reverse Conversion Table from Sexagesimal Cubit Multiples to Length Numbers 113
3.2.6 § 6. A Range Table from (Squares of) Length Measures to Area Measures 113
3.2.7 § 7. A Conversion Table from Area Numbers to Sexagesimal sar Multiples 115
3.2.8 § 8. A Revers Conversion Table from Sexagesimal Mina Multiples to Weight Numbers and Grain Multiples 118
3.2.9 § 9. A Catch Line Referring to Tables for Capacity Measures 119
3.2.10 § 10. A Shadow Length Table: Months’ Names and Cubit Multiples 119
3.2.11 § 11. A Reverse Shadow Length Table 120
3.2.12 § 12. A Colophon 122
3.2.13 W 23273. Photos of the Tablet 123
3.3 W 22309. A Small Fragment of a Metrological Recombination Text from Achaemenid Uruk 125
3.3.1 W 22309, obv. A Structure Table for Traditional Length Measures 125
3.3.2 W 22309, rev. A Metrological Table for Traditional Capacity Measures 126
3.4 W 22260. A Large Fragment of a Metrological/Mathematical Recombination Text from Achaemenid Uruk 128
3.4.1 § 1. A Conversion Table from Decimal Grain Multiples to Sexagesimal Mina Fractions 129
3.4.2 § 2. A Decimal-Sexagesimal Table of Reciprocals 129
3.4.3 § 3. [A Conversion Table from Decimal Cubit Multiples to Sexagesimal nindan Multiples] 130
3.4.4 § 4. A Conversion Table from Decimal Cubit Multiples to Sexagesimal 100-Cubit Multiples 130
4. CBS 8539. A Mixed Metrological Table Text from Achaemenid Nippur 133
4.1 CBS 8539. Metrological Tables for Systems L (4 variants), M, and C 133
4.1.1 § 1. A Conversion Table from Traditional Length Measures to Sexagesimal nindan Multiples 136
4.1.2 § 2. A Conversion Table from Traditional Length Numbers to Sexagesimal Cubit Fractions 137
4.1.3 § 3. A Conversion Table from Common Length Numbers to Sexagesimal Cubit Fractions 138
4.1.4 § 4. A Conversion Table from Variant Length Numbers to Sexagesimal 100-Cubit Multiples 143
4.1.5 § 5. A Conversion Table from Weight Names and Grain Multiples to Sexagesimal Mina Fractions 144
4.1.6 § 6. A Conversion Table from Capacity Numbers to Sexagesimal bariga Multiples 145
4.2 CBS 11032 and 11019. Two Metrological Tables for Shekel Fractions from Nippur 146
Contents xiii
5. Five Texts from Old Babylonian Mê-Turan (Tell Haddad) Ishchali and Shaduppûm (Tell Harmal)
with Rectangular-Linear Problems for Figures of a Given Form 149
5.1 IM 121613. A Recombination Text from Mê-Turran with Metric Algebra Pro blems for Rectangles 149
5.1.1 # 1. A Form and Magnitude Problem for a Rectangle 150
5.1.2 # 2. A Rectangle of a Given Form with a Given Sum of the Field and the Length 152
5.1.3 # 3. A Rectangle of a Given Form with a Given Sum of the Field and Twice the Front 155
5.1.4 # 4. A Rectangle of a Given Form and a Given Sum of Two Rectangular Fields 156
5.1.5 # 5. A Rectangle of a Given Form with a Given Sum of the Field, the Length, and the Front 157
5.1.6 # 6. A Rectangle of a Given Form with a Given Sum of Many Terms 159
5.1.7 # 7. A Rectangle of a Given Form with a Given Sum of the Field and the Squares on Length and the Front 160
5.1.8 # 8. A Rectangle of a Given Form with a Given Product of the Field and the Length 161
5.1.9 # 9. A Rectangle of a Given Form with a Given Sum of the Field and Half the Length 162
5.1.10 # 10. A Rectangle of a Given Form with a Given Square of the Sum of the Length and the Front 163
5.1.11 # 11. A Rectangle of a Given Form with a Given Excess of the Length over the Field 164
5.1.12 # 12. A Rectangle of a Given Form with a Given Excess of the Front over the Field 166
5.1.13 # 13. A Rectangle of a Given Form with a Given Excess of the Length over the Field 168
5.1.14 # 14. A Rectangle of a Given Form with a Given Excess of the Field over Half the Front 168
5.1.15 # 15. A Rectangle of a Given Form with a Given Field of a Certain Kind 171
5.1.16 # 16. Another Rectangle of a Given Form with a Given Field of a Certain Kind 172
5.1.17 # 17. A Rectangle of a Given Form with a Given Excess of a Certain Kind 173
5.1.18 # 18. A Rectangle of a Given Form with a Given Excess of the Length and the Front over the Field 175
5.1.19 # 19. A Rectangle of a Given Form with a Given Shortened and Broadened Field 176
5.1.20 Subscripts 178
5.1.21 The Vocabulary of IM 121316 178
5.1.22 A Proposed Reconstruction of the Original Theme Text 179
5.1.23 Solution Procedures in Terms of a Square Band (a Ring of Rectangles) 183
5.1.24 IM 121613. Hand Copies of the Tablet 187
5.2 IM 43993. A Small Text from Shaduppûm(?) with an Interesting Metric Algebra Pro blem for a Rectangle 189
5.2.1 A Rectangle of a Given Form with a Given Sum of the Area and the Two Sides 189
5.2.3 IM 43993. A Hand Copy of the Tablet 193
5.3 IM 31247. A Recombination Text from Ishchali with Metric Algebra Pro blems for Rectangles 195
5.3.1 # 1´. The Last Few Lines of a Badly Preserved Exercise 195
5.3.2 # 2´. A Rectangle of a Given Form with a Given Square of the Length and the Front 195
5.3.3 # 3´. A Few Lines of a Badly Preserved Exercise 196
5.3.4 # 4´. A Rectangle of a Given Form with a Given Area Plus 10 Lengths Minus 10 Fronts 197
5.3.5 # 5´. The Last Few Lines of Another Badly Preserved Exercise 199
5.3.6 # 6´. A Rectangle of a Given Form with a Given Sum of the Squares on the Length and on the Front 199
5.3.7 ## 7´- 8´. Two Badly Preserved Brief Exercises 200
5.3.8 # 9´. A Rectangle of a Given Form with a Given Sum of the Length and the Front 201
5.3.9 The Subscript 202
5.3.10 Table of Contents 202
5.3.11 The Original Theme Text 202
5.3.13 IM 31247. A Hand Copy and a Conform Transliteration of the Fragment 204
5.4 IM 54559. A Text from Shaduppûm with a Single Metric Algebra Problem 206
5.4.1 An Exercise with a Remarkably Large Number of Errors 206
xiv Contents
5.4.3 IM 54559. A Hand Copy of the Tablet 210

5.5 IM 53963. A Single Pro blem Text from OB Shaduppûm with a Metric Algebra Pro blem for a Right Triangle 211
5.5.1 A Form and Magnitude Problem for a Right Triangle 211
6. Further Mathematical Texts from Old Babylonian Mê-Turan (Tell Haddad) 213
6.1 IM 95771. A Fragment of a Large Mathematical Recombination Text, with Three Partly Preserved Illustrated
Geometric Exercises and a Badly Preserved Table of Constants 213
6.1.1 # 1´. A Few Lines of an Exercise about a City Wall 213
6.1.2 # 2´. A Trapezoidal Water Reservoir Divided into Five Sections 213
6.1.3 # 3´. A Problem for a Divided Symmetric Triangular Water Reservoir 215
6.1.4 # 4´. A Few Lines of an Exercise about a Work Norm for the Spreading of Plaster 217
6.1.5 # 5´. A Figure Composed of a Rectangle and a Symmetric Triangle 219
6.1.6 # 6´. A Broken Table of Constants 221
6.1.8 IM 95771. Hand Copies and Conform Transliterations of the Fragment 223
6.2 IM 121565. A Large Recombination Text with Metric Algebra Pro blems for Square and Quadrilateral Fields 225
6.2.1 §§ 1 a-b. Two Quadratic Problems of the Basic Types B4a and B4b 225
6.2.2 §§ 2 a-b. Two Severely Damaged Quadratic Problems 226
6.2.3 §§ 3 a-b. Two Quadratic Problems for Two Equalsides (Squares) 226
6.2.4 A Summary 228
6.2.5 §§ 4 a-g. Seven Quadratic Problems for Two Concentric Equalsides (Squares) 229
6.2.6 §§ 5 a-g. Seven Problems Solved by Use of the Inexact Quadrilateral Area Rule 234
6.2.7 More About the Quadrilateral Area Rule in Old Babylonian Mathematical Texts 239
6.2.8 The Quadrilateral Area Rule in an Old Akkadian Metro-Mathematical(?) Text 242
6.2.9 The Quadrilateral Area Rule in Some Proto-Cuneiform Texts from Uruk IV 243
6.2.11 IM 121565. Hand Copies and Conform Transliterations of the Tablet 248
6.3 IM 121512. A Large Recombination Text with Metric Algebra Pro blems for Circles and Semicircles 252
6.3.1 §§ 1a-j. Metric Algebra Problems for One or Two Circles 252
6.3.2 Subscript to IM 121512 § 1 256
6.3.3 §§ 2a-i. Metric Algebra Problems for Semicircles 256
6.3.4 MLC 1354. A Badly Conceived Quadratic Problem for the Arc of a Semicircle 261
6.3.6 IM 121512. Hand Copies of the Tablet 264
6.4 Some Atypically Brief Single Multiplication Tables from Old Babylonian Mê-Turran 266
6.5 The Mathematical Texts from Old Babylonian Mê-Turran (Tell Haddad) 267
7. A Recombination Text from Old Babylonian Shaduppûm Concerned with Economic
Transactions 269
7.1 IM 31210. Economic Transactions 269
7.1.1 # 1. Six Partners. A Very Badly Preserved Exercise 269
7.1.2 # 2. Seven Partners. Steadily Decreasing Shares 270
7.1.3 # 3. Three Partners. Steadily Decreasing Shares? 271
7.1.4 # 4. An Explicit Computation of a Combined Market Rate 272
7.1.5 # 5. Lost 276
7.1.6 # 6. Thirteen Brothers(?), Unequal Shares 276
7.1.7 # 7. Ten Partners. Steadily Decreasing Shares 277
7.1.8 # 8. Steadily Decreasing Shares. A Very Badly Preserved Exercise 278
7.1.9 Str. 362 # 1. A Text from Uruk of a Similar Kind, with Steadily Increasing Shares 279
Contents xv
7.1.10 # 9. Four Partners. A System of Linear Equations 280

7.1.11 # 10. Partners. A Very Badly Preserved Exercise 282
7.1.13 IM 31210. Hand Copies and Conform Transliterations 285
8. Six Fragments of Problem Texts of Group 6, from Late Old Babylonian Sippar 289
8.1 BM 80078. A Large Fragment of a Recombination Text with Pro blems for Bricks 289
8.1.1 # 1´. Rectangular Bricks of the Variant Type R3nv(?). A Badly Preserved Problem 290
8.1.2 # 2´. Bricks of the Variant Type R3nv. A Rectangular-Linear System of Equations 290
8.1.3 # 3´. Bricks of the Variant Type R3nv. A Cubic Problem 293
8.1.4 # 4´. Moist and Dry Bricks of Type R1/2c. A Loading Number 294
8.1.5 # 5´. Small Copies of Bricks of Type R1/2c 298
8.1.6 # 6´. Bricks of Type R1/2c. A Badly Preserved Exercise 300
8.1.7 The Vocabulary of BM 80078 300
8.1.8 BM 80078. A Hand Copy of the Fragment 302
8.2 BM 54779. A Small Fragment With Homogeneous Quadratic Pro blems for Squares 304
8.2.1 # 2´. A Homogeneous Quadratic Problem for Three Squares 304
8.2.2 # 3´. A Homogeneous Quadratic Problem for Two Squares 305
8.2.3 # 4´. Another Homogeneous Quadratic Problem for Three Squares 306
8.2.4 The Vocabulary of BM 54779 (and BM 54320) 306
8.2.5 BM 54779. A Hand Copy and a Conform Transliteration of the Fragment 308
8.3 BM 54320. A Small Fragment with a Homogeneous Quadratic Pro blem for Squares 309
8.3.1 A Homogeneous Quadratic Problem for Three Squares 309
8.4 VAT 6505. A Combined Factorization and Doubling and Halving Algorithm 311
8.5 BM 96954 + BM 102366 + SÉ 93. A Large Recombination Text Concerned with Pyramids and Cones 314
8.5.1 § 1. Metric Algebra Problems for Ridge Pyramids 314
8.5.2 § 2. The Volume of a Truncated Ridge Pyramid 321
8.5.3 § 3. The Seed Measure of a Square Pyramid 322
8.5.4 § 4. The Seed Measures of Various Solids 324
8.5.5 § 5. The Quadratic Growth Rate of a Circular Cone 325
8.5.6 § 6. The Volume of a Circular Cone Truncated at Mid-Height 328
8.5.7 § 7. A Circular Cone Truncated Near the Top 329
8.5.8 Sb 13293. A Problem for a Ridge Pyramid 331
8.5.9 BM 96954+. An Outline of the Tablet, a Table of Contents, and Hand Copies 334
8.5.10 The Vocabulary of BM 96954+ 337
8.5.11 The Computation Rules for Volumes of Pyramids in BM 96954+ §§ 1-3 337
8.5.12 The Computation Rules for Volumes of Cones in BM 96954+ §§ 6-7 344
8.5.13 BM 85194 # 4. Circular Defense Works with Trapezoidal Cross Sections 345
8.5.14 Pyramids and Cones in Ancient Chinese, Greek and Indian Mathematical Treatises. 349
8.6 BM 96957+. A Large Recombination Text Concerned with Bricks and Diagonals 354
8.6.1 § 1. Metric Algebra Problems for a Wall Made of Bricks of the Variant Type R1/2cv 354
8.6.2 § 2. Problems for a Square Pyramid Made of Bricks of the Type R3n 356
8.6.3 § 3. Metric Algebra Problems for a Wall Made of Bricks of the Variant Type S2/3cv 357
8.6.4 § 4. Rectangles and Their Diagonals 361
8.6.5 The Colophon 365
8.6.6 BM 96957+. An Outline of the Tablet, a Table of Contents, and Hand Copies 367
8.6.7 The Vocabulary of BM 96957+ 370
xvi Contents
9. More Mathematical Cuneiform Texts of Group 6 from Late Old Babylonian Sippar 371
A Survey of Known Texts from Group 6 and Their Sumerian Terminology 371
9.1 Böhl 1821. A Metric Algebra Pro blem for Two Concentric Circular Towns 373
9.2 YBC 6492. A Catalog Text with Simple Form and Magnitude Pro blems 376
9.3 BM 80088. A Catalog Text with Rectangular-Linear Systems of Equations of Types B1a-b 378
9.4 CBS 165. Another Catalog Text with (Presumably) Rectangular-Linear Systems of Equations of Types B1a-b 380
9.4.1 CBS 165. A Suggested Partial Reconstruction of the Text 380
9.4.2 Other Old Babylonian Texts with Rectangular-Linear Problems of Types B1a-b 381
9.5 BM 80209. A Catalog Text with Metric Algebra Pro blems for Squares and Circles 387
10. Goetze’s Compendium from Old Babylonian Shaduppûm and Two Catalog Texts from Old Babylonian Susa 391
10.1 IM 52916. A Mathematical Recombination Text from Old Babylonian Shaduppûm 391
10.1.1 §§ 2a-b. A Catalog of Quadratic Equations of the Basic Types B4a-b 391
10.1.2 § 3. Various Parts of a Table of Constants 392
10.1.3 § 4. Various Parts of a Unique Catalog of Mathematical Problem Types 393
10.1.4 § 5. A List of Combined Work Norms, Variations of Parameters 399
10.1.5 IM 52916. Hand Copies and Conform Transliterations 400
10.2 IM 52685 + 52304. A Similar Mathematical Recombination Text from Old Babylonian Shaduppûm 403
10.2.1 § 1c. A Catalog of Problems for Several Squares, Variations of Parameters 403
10.2.2 § 1d. A Catalog of Metric Algebra Problems, Variations of Parameters 403
10.2.3 § 1e. A Catalog of Form and Magnitude Problems, Variations of Parameters 404
10.2.4 § 1f. A Catalog of Linear Equations, Variations of Parameters 404
10.2.5 § 1g. Geometric Division into Equal Parts(?) 405
10.2.6 § 1h. A Catalog of Commercial or Financial Problem Types 406
10.2.7 IM 52685+. Hand Copies and Conform Transliterations 407
10.3 TMS V. A Large Catalog Text with Metric Algebra Pro blems for Squares 40 9
10.4 TMS VI. A Closely Related Catalog Text 417
11. Three Old Babylonian Recombination Texts of Mathematical Problems without Solution Procedures,
Making up Group 2b 421
11.1 YBC 4698. An Old Babylonian Numbered Recombination Text with Commercial Pro blems 421
11.1.1 An Old Babylonian Mathematical Text with Unusual Sumerian Terminology 421
11.1.2 § 1. Two Commonly Used Interest Rates 423
11.1.3 § 2. Oil, Wool, Fishes. Combined Market Rate Problems 428
11.1.4 § 3. Iron, Gold, and Fishes. Systems of Linear Equations 437
11.1.5 § 4. Buying, Selling, and Making a Profit. 440
11.1.6 § 5. Buying, Selling, and Making a Profit. The Inverse Problem 441
11.1.7 § 6. Lead, Silver, and Precious Stones. Linear Equations 444
11.1.8 Subscript 445
11.1.9 The Vocabulary of YBC 4698 445
11.2 YBC 4673. An Old Babylonian Numbered Recombination Text with Pro blems about Bricks, Mud, and Reeds 447
11.2.1 § 1. Problems about Bricks of Type R1/2c 448
11.2.2 § 2. Problems about Carrying Mud and Molding Bricks 449
11.2.3 § 3. Problems about Building and Rebuilding a Mud Wall 453
11.2.4 § 4. Problems about Old and New Levees 455
11.2.5 § 5. An Obscure Problem about Three Kinds of Wool 456
11.2.6 § 6. Problems about Reinforcing Reed Works 457
11.2.7 Subscript 458
Contents xvii
11.3 YBC 4669. An Old Babylonian Unnumbered Recombination Text with Mixed Pro blems 460
11.3.1 § 1. Problems for a Decreasing Series of Cylindrical Measuring Vessels 461
11.3.2 § 2. Problems for a Stair-Case of Bricks of type S1/3c 466
11.3.3 § 3. Problems for Bricks of Type R1/2c 468
11.3.4 § 4. A Problem Involving a Work Norm for Digging 468
11.3.5 § 5. A Cubic Equation without Context 469
11.3.6 § 6. Linear Equations for Grain. Products of Basic Fractions 469
11.3.7 § 7. A Problem for a Foil of Silver. The Rule of Three 470
11.3.8 § 8. Systems of Linear Equations for Ewes and Lambs 470
11.3.9 § 9. A System of Linear Equations for Two Baskets 474
11.3.10 § 10. A Combined Work Norm Problem for Bricks 474
11.3.11 § 11. A Principal and Interest Problem 475
11.4 O n the Form and Purpose of Old Babylonian Mathematical Series Texts 477
12. An Early Dynastic/Early Sargonic Metro-Mathematical Recombination Text from Umma with Commercial
Exercises 481
12.1 CU N ES 52-18-035. An Early Dynastic/Early Sargonic Recombination Text 481
13. An Ur III Table of Reciprocals without Place Value Numbers 487
13.1 SM 2685. An Atypical Ur III Table of Reciprocals 487
13.1.1 The Table of Reciprocals 487
13.1.2 A Proposed Explanation of the Construction of the Atypical Table of Reciprocals 490
13.1.3 Four Extra Pairs with n above 50. The Notion of Regular Twins 493
13.2 SU 52/5. A Late Assyrian Table of Reciprocals with Sumerian Number Words 497
13.3 Ist. L 7375. An Ur III Table of Reciprocals 499
13.4 SM 2574. A Table of Reciprocals of Intermediate Type 500
13.5 Some Other Ur III or Early Old Babylonian Tables of Reciprocals 502
13.6 The Historical Importance of SM 2685 as a Missing Link 507
13.7 Counting with Loan and Interest in a Proto-Cuneiform Text 514
13.8 A New Explanation of the Head Numbers in Combined Multiplication Tables 516
14. Fragments of Three Tablets from Ur III Nippur with Drawings of Labyrinths 519
14.1 MS 3194. A N ew Interpretation of the Old Babylonian(?) Rectangular Labyrinth 520
14.2 MS 4515. A N ew Interpretation of the Old Babylonian(?) Square Labyrinth 522
14.3 6N-T 428. A Fragment of an Ur III(?) Tablet from Nippur with a D rawing of a Labyrinth 525
14.4 Fragments of Two Other Ur III(?) D rawings of Labyrinths from Nippur 529
14.5 JSS 7, 184. An Ur III(?) House Plan with Inscribed Length Measures 531
14.6 Other Known Labyrinths or Mazes with a Square or Rectangular Central Court 532
Index of Texts 537
Index of Terms 540
References 545
1. Late Babylonian Tables of Many-Place
Regular Sexagesimal Numbers, from Babylon,
Sippar, and Uruk
1.1 Late Babylonian Texts Concerned with Many-Place Regular Sexagesimal Numbers
For the notion of many-place regular sexagesimal numbers, and for many explicit examples, both Old and Late
Babylonian, the reader is referred to Friberg, MSCT 1 (2007), Sec. 1.4 and App. 9. In particular, it is important
to recall that a sexagesimal number n is called “regular” if another sexagesimal number n´ can be found such
that n times n´ equals some power of 60. (In Babylonian “relative” place value notation, every power of 60 is
written as ‘1’.) The number n´ is called the “reciprocal” of n. In the following, it is conveniently referred to as
rec. n. Note that, since every power of 60 contains no other prime factors than 2, 3, 5, it is true exclusively for
regular sexagesimal numbers in general that they and their reciprocals can contain no other prime factors than
2, 3, 5. That well known but important fact is basically the reason why it is possible to generate systematically
various kinds of tables of many-place regular sexagesimal numbers.
This chapter is devoted to a detailed comparative discussion of five lexicographically ordered many-place
“tables of reciprocals” (more precisely, tables of regular sexagesimal numbers and their reciprocals) from the
2nd half of the 1st millennium BC, namely 1) the Seleucid Table B, reconstructed from many small fragments
of copies of a supposed original many-place table of reciprocals and from related tables of squares and squares
of squares, 2) the enlarged Seleucid Table B*, the existence of which is tentatively inferred here from two
small fragments, one of a table of reciprocals and the other of a related table of squares, 3) the Achaemenid
Table U = W 23283+, 4) the Neo-Babylonian Table S = Sippar 2175/12, and 5) the Seleucid Table V = AO
6456. Tables U and V are firmly dated by well preserved colophons. Of the five mentioned table texts, Tables
B, U, and S appear to have had a common ancestor, a hypothetical Table R.
Tables B and B* are discussed in Sec. 1.2 below, Table U in Sec. 1.3, Table S in Sec. 1.4, and Table V in
Sec. 1.5. Photos of Tables U and V are published here for the first time. Also hand copies of both the obverse
and the reverse of Table S are published here for the first time, including a large piece of the tablet which is
missing in a previously published photo of only the reverse. In addition, the previously unpublished text BM
35568, a Seleucid fragment of a table of squares, is presented with comments in Sec. 1.2.1 below.
Explanations of the errors in the various many-place tables of reciprocals yield important clues to how the
tables were constructed. Thus, it is shown in Sec. 1.2.4 that the numerical algorithms used for the construction
of such tables were based on the keen insight that complete and arbitrarily large many-place tables of
reciprocals can be obtained by first constructing a table of reciprocals for consecutive powers of 3 (see Table
1.5 below, in Sec. 1.5.3), and then systematically generating, with departure from such a table, new pairs of
reciprocals by the well known, originally Old Babylonian, method of “halving and doubling”. Evidently, the
final step of the construction was an extremely laborious sorting and copying, which in the case of Table V, but
not in the case of Tables B, U, and S, was afflicted with numerous errors.
In Sec. 1.2.5 it is shown how the regular sexagesimal numbers appearing in the various many-place tables
of reciprocals may be represented by their indexes in a certain “index grid”. The device is a powerful visual
aid, making it easier to understand the complete construction of the many-place tables of reciprocals.
The detailed study in this chapter of these Late Babylonian many-place tables of reciprocals is historically
important because it clearly illustrates the astonishing temporal continuity and regional unity of Babylonian
mathematics, as well as the amazing ingenuity and perseverance of Babylonian mathematicians.
© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 1
J. Friberg, F.N.H. Al-Rawi, New Mathematical Cuneiform Texts, Sources and Studies in the History
of Mathematics and Physical Sciences, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-44597-7_1
2 1.1 Late Babylonian Texts Concerned with Many-Place Regular Sexagesimal Numbers
Here follows a convenient survey of 11 different categories of known Neo-Babylonian, Achaemenid, and
Seleucid mathematical tablets or tablet fragments exhibiting examples of many-place regular sexagesimal
numbers. It is an updated version of a similar survey in Friberg, CTMMA II (2005). Of the 34 listed texts, 11
will be discussed in Chs. 1-2 below.
I. Ten Seleucid fragments of many-place tables of reciprocals, with n from 1 to 2
A: BM 34577 = Sp. II 49 (Sachs, LBAT (1955) 1635; Vaiman, SBM (1961) F) Babylon
B: BM 34596 = Sp. II 70 + 82-7-4, 128 (Sachs, LBAT 1633; Vaiman, SBM D) Babylon
C: BM 34612 = Sp. II 91 (Sachs, LBAT 1631; Vaiman, SBM B) Babylon
D: BM 34635 = Sp. II 118 (Sachs, LBAT 1634; Vaiman, SBM E) Babylon
E: BM 34762 = Sp. II 255 (Sachs, LBAT 1632; Vaiman, SBM C) Babylon
F: BM 76984+ = 83-1-18, 2356+ (Britton, JCS 43-45 (1991-93) A) Babylon
G: BM 77051 = 83-1-18, 2427 (Britton, JCS 43-45 B) Babylon?
H: BM 78079 = 86-5-12, (Britton, JCS 43-45 C) Babylon
I: MMA 86.11.407+408+409 (Neugebauer and Sachs, MCT (1945) p. 36; Friberg, CTMMA II (2005)) Babylon
J: MMA 86.11.406+410+Liv. 29.11.77.34 (Neugebauer and Sachs, MCT 36; Friberg, CTMMA II) Babylon
II. Eight Seleucid fragments of lists of squares of many-place regular numbers, with n from 1 to 2
A: BM 32178 = 76-11-7, 1905+ (Aaboe, JCS 19 III) Babylon
B: BM 33567= Rm 4, 123 (Aaboe, JCS 19 II) Babylon
C: BM 34578 = Sp. II 50 (Sachs, LBAT 1641; Vaiman, SBM J; Aaboe, JCS 19 VIII) Babylon
D: BM 34714 = Sp. II 203 (Sachs, LBAT 1639; Vaiman, SBM I; Aaboe, JCS 19 VII) Babylon
E: BM 34764 = Sp. II 257 (Sachs, LBAT 1640; Friberg, Sumer 42) Babylon
F: BM 34875 = Sp. II 382 (Sachs, LBAT 1638; Vaiman, SBM H; Aaboe, JCS 19 VI) Babylon
+ BM 45668 = SH. 81-7-6, 63 (Sachs, LBAT 1636; Vaiman, SBM G; Aaboe, JCS 19 V)
G: BM 35568 (Sec. 1.2.1 below) Babylon?
H: BM 99633 = 84-2-11, 1995 (Britton, JCS 43-45 D) Babylon
III. Two Seleucid fragments of lists of squares of squares of many-place regular numbers, with n from 1 to 2
A: BM 32584 = 76-11-17, 2327 (Friberg, MSCT 1 (2007), App. A9.1) Babylon?
B: BM 55557 = 82-7-4, 147+ (Britton, JCS 43-45; Friberg, MSCT 1, App. A9.1) Babylon
IV. A Seleucid fragment of a many-place table of reciprocals, with n from 4 to 8
A: BM 41101 = 81-4-28, 648 (Aaboe, JCS 19 I) Babylon
V. A Seleucid fragment with an explicit computation of sq. sq. 323 = sq. sq. 2 01 04 08 03 00 27
A: BM 34601 = Sp. II 76+759 (Sachs, LBAT 1644; Friberg, MSCT 1, App. A9.2) Babylon
VI. One Neo-Babylonian, two Achaemenid, and three Seleucid examples of factorization algorithms for
regular sexagesimal numbers
A: BM 46550 (Sec. 2.1 below)
B: W 23021 (von Weiher, Uruk 4 (1993)174; Friberg, BaM 30 (1999); Fig. 2.1.6 below) Uruk
C: W 23016 (von Weiher, Uruk 5 (1998) 316; Friberg, MSCT 1, App. 9; Fig. 2.1.8 below) Uruk
D: BM 34517 = Sp. 641 (Sachs, LBAT 1646; Sec. 2.3.1 below) Babylon
E: BM 34907 = Sp. II 421 (Sachs, LBAT 1643; Sec. 2.3.3 below) Babylon
F: BM 34958= Sp. II 479 (Sachs, LBAT 1642; Sec. 2.3.2 below) Babylon
VII. A Seleucid table of reciprocals, resembling the standard OB table of reciprocals, from igi 2 30-ú to igi 1 21 gál.bi
44 26 40, followed by a table of squares of 3-place regular sexagesimal numbers, from sq. 1 02 30 to sq. 45
A: BM 34592 = Sp. II 65+ (Sachs, LBAT 1637; Vaiman SBM A; Aaboe, JCS 19 IV) Babylon
VIII. An Achaemenid many-place table of reciprocals, with n from 1 to 4
U: W 23283+22905 = IM 76852 (von Weiher, Uruk 4 174; Sec. 1.3 below) Uruk
IX. A Neo-Babylonian many-place table of reciprocals, with n from 1 to 3
S: Sippar 2175/12 (Al-Jadir, Archeologia 224; Sec. 1.4 below) Sippar
X. An Achaemenid many-place table of selected reciprocals, with n from 1 to 1 00, and from 1 to 31
W: W 23281 = IM 76283, rev. (von Weiher, Uruk 4 173; Sec. 1.6 below) Uruk
XI. A Seleucid many-place table of reciprocals, with n from 1 to 3
V: AO 6456 (Thureau-Dangin, TCL 6 31; Neugebauer, MKT I 14 ff; Sec. 1.5 below) Uruk
1.2 Table B (Babylon). Fragments of a Seleucid Many-Place Table of Reciprocals, with n

from 1 to 2
1.2.1 BM 35568. A List of Squares of Many-Place Regular Sexagesimal Numbers

BM 35568 is a Seleucid fragment of a list of squares of many-place regular sexagesimal numbers, of precisely
the same kind as seven other known fragments of such texts, previously published by Sachs in 1955, by Aaboe
in 1965, and by Britton in 1991-93. See category II of the list above (Sec. 1.1) of Late Babylonian texts
exhibiting many-place regular sexagesimal numbers.
The fragment is relatively large, and by good luck it happens to include both the beginning and the end of
the table once inscribed on the intact tablet. See Fig. 1.2.1 below. More precisely, the preserved square
numbers on the fragment correspond to 29 lines at the beginning and 5 lines at the end of a table of squares
closely related to the (reconstructed) Table B of many-place regular sexagesimal pairs of reciprocals. (See
Friberg, MSCT 1 (2007), 461-2.) The table of squares sq. n related to Table B of pairs of reciprocals n, rec. n
may conveniently be called Table sq. B.
The longest square number recorded on the fragment BM 35568 is a 17-place sexagesimal number (rev.
line 2´). Since most of the recorded square numbers are much shorter, it is not surprising that in several
instances two consecutive square numbers from Table sq. B are inscribed after each other in one line of the
table on the fragment. Thus, in eight cases two consecutive square numbers are inscribed in one line of the
table, and in two cases three consecutive squares are inscribed in one line of the table. Consecutive square
numbers inscribed in a single line of the table are separated from each other by a special “separation sign”, in
the transliteration below reproduced as a colon (:). In lines 7, 8, 9, this separating sign is written as the sign
GAM (two diagonally placed oblique wedges). In lines 13, 14, 15, 18, the separating sign is instead written as
three diagonally placed oblique wedges. Written like this, the sign is confusingly similar to the Seleucid
simplified sign for 9, used for instance in 59 in the number on line 2 of the table.
A sign for an “internal double zero”, appears in two of the square numbers inscribed on the fragment. The
sign is written as a double Winkelhaken (two oblique wedges, one above the other), and is in the transliteration
below reproduced as «.
Thus, in line 6 on the obverse of the table on the fragment, the number
1 04 29 50 06 57 01 26 24
is written with an internal double zero as
1 04 29 50 « 06 57 01 26 24.
To be more precise, if the special cuneiform signs for the tens 10, 20, 30, etc., are transliterated as 1Û, 2Û, 3Û,
etc., then the number in question can be more truthfully transliterated as
1 4 2Û 9 5Û « 6 5Û 7 1 2Û 6 2Û 4.
Transliterating the number in question in this elaborate way makes it clear that the purpose of the double
Winkelhaken in this particular case was to distinguish 5Û « 6 (50 06) from 5Û 6 (56). In other words, in this
particular case, the sign « stands for an internal double zero of the form 0 0 (“an absent one followed by an
absent ten”). (In general, the readers are asked to understand that, for instance, 06 stands for “an absent ten
followed by 6 ones” in precisely the same way as 50 stands for “5 tens followed by an absent one”.)
The sign for an internal double zero occurs also in line 12 on the obverse, where the number
1 13 23 00 45 14 28 50 18 14 24
is written with an internal double zero as
1 13 23 « 45 14 28 50 18 14 24.
Clearly, in this case the sign « stands for an internal double zero of the form 00 (“an absent ten followed by an
absent one”).
4 1.2 Table B (Babylon). Fragments of a Seleucid Many-Place Table of Reciprocals, with n from 1 to 2
The table of squares on BM 35568 ends with a ruled line, followed by what appears to be a catch-line, the
square of the number 2 01 04 08 03 00 27 with the line number 102a in Table 1.3 below. There are related
catch-lines at the ends of one other fragment of a table of squares and at the end of a fragment of a table of
reciprocals. See the discussion after Table 1.3 in Sec. 1.2.3.
On the edge, at the upper left corner of the reverse of BM 35568, some numbers are scrabbled. With some
leap of the imagination, they may be read as 4 05 45 36, which is the square of 2 02 52 48, the number with the
line number 105 in Table 1.3 below.
There is only one mistake in the list of squares on BM 35568. In line 10 of the list, 22 is incorrectly
replaced by 24.
BM 35568, transliteration
sq. n n line numbers
obv. 1 1 01 30 33 45 1 00 45 1
1 02 05 17 25 04 28 03 59 03 45 1 01 02 06 33 45 2
1 02 54 52 24 57 36 1 01 26 24 3
1 03 03 24 11 33 50 « 03 45 1 01 30 33 45 4
5 1 03 30 23 41 07 29 22 57 46 40 1 01 43 42 13 20 5
1 04 29 50 « 06 57 01 26 24 1 02 12 28 48 6
1 05 06 15 : 1 06 35 29 18 34 24 11 51 06 40 1 02 30 : 1 03 12 35 33 20 7, 8
1 06 44 30 59 45 56 15 : 1 08 16 : 1 09 59 02 24 1 03 16 52 30 : 1 04 : 1 04 48 9, 10, 11
1 10 38 33 09 03 45 : 1 11 44 40 19 33 36 1 05 06 15 : 1 05 36 36 12,13
10 1 12 15 22 56 55 22 17 51 36 17 46 40 1 05 50 37 02 13 20 14
1 12 25 10 42 58 2928 21 33 45 1 05 55 04 41 15 15
1 13 23 « 45 14 28 50 18 14 24 1 06 21 18 43 12 16
1 14 04 26 40 : 1 15 56 15 : 1 17 40 20 16 1 06 40 : 1 07 30 : 1 08 16 17, 18, 19
1 17 50 52 05 23 26 15 : 1 19 37 34 27 50 24 1 08 20 37 30 : 1 09 07 12 20, 21
15 1 20 22 31 51 06 40 : 1 21 37 45 36 55 17 45 36 1 09 26 40 : 1 09 59 02 24 22, 23
1 22 [23 50 51 33 45 : ] 1 24 16 47 24 26 40 1 10 18 45 : 1 11 06 40 24, 25
1 24 [28 12 58 45 57 07] 44 03 45 : 1 26 24 1 11 11 29 03 45 : 1 12 26, 27
[1 28 22 25 43 32 16 : 1 28 34 24] 36 1 12 49 04 : 1 12 54 [28], 29
about 20 lines missing ––
rev.
about 20 lines missing ––
1´
[3 43 15 55 08 38 31 06 40 : 3 46 44 53 22 3]3 36 1 55 44 26 40 : 1 56 38 24 [96], 97
3 48 [21 56 58 25 38 07 3]3 28 02 51 11 36 17 / 46 40 1 57 03 19 10 37 02 13 20 98
3 48 52 54 36 33 45 1 57 11 15 99
3 51 55 41 38 32 25 57 30 14 24 1 57 57 53 16 48 100
5´
3 54 06 38 21 14 04 26 40 1 58 31 06 40 101
–––––––––––––––––––––––––
4 04 17 40 45 13 17 45 52 1[4 4]2 12 09 2 01 04 08 03 00 27 catch-line (102a)
Fig. 1.1.1. BM 35568, hand copy.

1.2.2 Attested Many-Place Regular Numbers n in the Fragments and in Tables U and S
It is an interesting observation that most of the texts belonging to categories I-III in the survey in Sec. 1.1 can
be shown to have a common origin. As will be shown below, this is clearly indicated already by the following
initial part of a comparative table, borrowed from Friberg, CTMMA II (2005):
Table 1.1 (beginning). Attested and unattested many-place regular numbers n in texts belonging to categories I-III.
r s p q + ll. n, rec. n sq. n sq.sq. n
0 0 1 1 0 · · · · · · · · · · · U · · · · ? · · · –
-18 -11 6 6 –– · · · · · · · · · · · – · · · · · · · · –
15 -2 5 6 –– · · · · · · · · · · · – · · · · · · · · –
-2 5 3 4 1? · · · · · · · · · · · U · · · · ? · · · –
-20 -6 6 5 2 · · · · · · · · · · · U · · · · ? · · · B
13 3 4 4 3 · · · · · · · · · · · U · · · · ? · · · B
-4 10 5 8 ++ 4 · · · · · · · · · · · U · · · · E · · · B
-5 -8 6 3 5 · · · · · · · · · · · U · B · · E · · · B
-22 -1 8 4 + –– · · · · · · · · · · · – · – · · – · · · –
11 8 5 4 6 · · · · · · · · · · · U · B · · E · · · B
-7 -3 3 2 7 · · · · · · · · · · · U · B · · ? · · · ·
8 -5 6 4 8 · · · · · · · · I · · U · B · · E · · A B
-9 2 5 3 9 · · · · · · · · I · · U · B · · · · · A B
6 0 2 2 10 · · · · · · · · I · · U · B · · · · · A –
-12 -11 7 5 + –– · · · · · · · · – · · – · – · · · · · – –
4 5 3 3 11 · · · · · · · · I · · U · B · · · · · A B
-14 -6 4 4 12 · · · · · · · · I · · U · · · · · · · A B
19 3 5 6 –– · · · · · · · · – · · – · ? · · · · ? – –
2 10 4 7 + 13 · · · · · · · · I · · U · · · · · · G A B
1 -8 7 3 + 14 · · · · · · · · I · · U · B · · · · G A B
-16 -1 6 3 15 · · · · · · · · I · · U · B · · · · G A B
17 8 6 4 16 · · · · · · · · I · · – · B · · · · G – B
-1 -3 3 1 17 · · · · · · · · I · · U · B · · · · G ? B
-3 2 3 2 18 · · · · · · · · I · · U · B · · · · G ? B
-21 -9 6 6 –– · · · · · · · · – · · – · – · · · · ? – –
12 0 3 4 19 · · · · · · · · I · · U · B · · · · · A B
-5 7 5 6 20 · · · · · · · · I · · U · · · · · · · ? B
-6 -11 8 4 + –– · · · · · · · · – · · – · · · · · · · · –
10 5 4 2 21 · · · · · · · · I · · U · · · · · · · · B
-8 -6 4 3 22 · · · · · · · · I · S U · · · · · F · · –
8 10 5 6 23 · · · ? · · · · I · – ? · · · · · F · · B
-10 -1 4 2 24 · · · D · · · · I · S U · · · · · F · · B
5 -3 4 3 25 · · · D · · · · I · S U · · · · · F · · –
-12 4 6 5 26 · · · D · · · H I · S U · · · · · F · · B
3 2 2 1 27 · · ? D · · · H · · S U · · · · · F · · ?
-15 -9 5 5 –– · · ? ? · · · – · · – – · · · · · – · · –
18 0 4 6 28 · · C D · · · H · · S U · · · · · F · · ?
etc etc. etc. etc.
With respect to sorting, all the regular sexagesimal numbers n appearing, explicitly or implicitly, in texts of
categories I-III in the survey in Sec. 1.1 above can be thought of as numbers starting with 1 and ordered
lexicographically (as in the reconstructed Table R, see below, Table 1.3).
On the other hand, with respect to indexing, the same numbers n can be thought of as mixed powers of
2 and 3 (both positive and negative), as indicated by the list of indices (r, s) in col. i of Table 1.1 above. Recall
that every regular sexagesimal number is a mixed power of 2, 3, and 5. However, for sexagesimal numbers in
Babylonian-2relative
-1
place value notation, any power of 5 can also be understood as a corresponding power of
rec. 12 = 2 · 3 . Therefore, in line 5, for instance, of col. i of Table 1.1, the double index (r, s) = (-20, -6)
represents the following regular sexagesimal number
4 10 -20 -6
n = 1 01 02 06 33 45 = 3 · 5 = (in relative place value notation) 34 · 12-10 = 2 ·3 .
Expressed differently, 1 01 02 06 33 45 = 34 · 510 is the number with the triple index (0, 4, 10) in Gingerich’s
table of 11-place regular sexagesimal numbers and their reciprocals (Gingerich, TAPS 55(8) (1965)).
Similarly, in line 28 of col. i of Table 1.1, the double index (r, s) = (-6, -11) represents the regular
sexagesimal number
16 11 16 -11 -6 -11
n = 1 08 35 13 34 48 53 20 = 2 · 5 = (in relative place value notation) 2 · 12 =2 ·3 .
Hence, this is the number with the triple index (16, 0, 11) in Gingerich’s table. And so on.
In col. ii of Table 1 are noted the numbers p and q of sexagesimal (double-)places in n and rec. n,
respectively. In line 5 of Table 1.1, for instance,
-20 -6 20 6
n=2 · 3 = 1 01 02 06 33 45 (p = 6), and rec. n = 2 · 3 = 58 58 56 38 24 (q = 5), so that (p, q) = (6, 5).
Now, it is easily observed that if (n, rec. n) is a pair of reciprocals recorded in one of the 10 known Seleucid
fragments of many-place tables of reciprocals (category I in the survey above), and if (p, q) is the
corresponding pair of sexagesimal places, then, in the great majority of cases, p and q are both not bigger than
6, while in almost all the remaining cases p + q is not bigger than 12. Expressed more concisely, with a few
exceptions, pairs of reciprocals appearing in the Seleucid fragments belonging to category I above are usually
(at most) “double 6-place”, and otherwise (at most) “total 12-place”.
Plus signs in col. iii of Table 1.1 indicate cases when a pair of reciprocals is total 12-place but not double
6-place. Examples in Table 1.1 are the five cases when p + q = 8 + 4 = 12, 7 + 5 = 12, 4 + 7 = 11, 7 + 3 = 10, or,
again, 8 + 4 = 12.
Double plus signs in col. iii indicate cases when a pair of reciprocals is more than total 12-place. The only
example in Table 1.1 is the case when p + q = 5 + 8 = 13. Note that in that particular case the 5-place number
n = 1 01 30 33 45 does not occupy more space than a normal 4-place number, if 1 01 is written as 1 1.
Therefore, the corresponding pair of reciprocals does not occupy more space than a normal total 12-place pair,
and may be called “essentially” total 12-place.
The inclusion of (essentially) total 12-place pairs can probably be explained as follows: In the case of the
fragments belonging to category I above, the corresponding original many-place table of reciprocals was,
presumably, inscribed on a clay tablet (or in a column of a clay tablet) that was just wide enough to allow lines
of two 6-place numbers side by side (double 6-place pairs). Such a clay tablet (or column) was then also just
wide enough to allow lines of (essentially) total 12-place pairs.
A dash (––) in col. iv of Table 1 indicates a case when an existing total 12-place pair of reciprocals n, rec. n
does not appear in any of the fragments of tables of reciprocals (category I), nor in the tablets U, S (categories
VIII-IX), nor, indirectly, in any of the fragments of tables of squares or squares of squares (categories II-III). In
all other instances, a number in col. iv indicates a line number in a suggested hypothetical reconstruction of a
Neo-Babylonian many-place table of reciprocals which may have been a common ancestor, directly or
indirectly, to most of the fragments of categories I-III (Seleucid) as well as to the whole tablets U
(Achaemenid) and S (Neo-Babylonian). A suitable name for the hypothetically reconstructed Neo-Babylonian
ancestral table is Table R.
In Britton’s paper JCS 43-45 (1991-93), 76-77, a reconstructed Seleucid table of reciprocals that may have
been the common ancestor, directly or indirectly, of all the fragments from Babylon belonging to categories
I-III, except the atypical fragments I D and II F, is called a “double 6-place table of regular numbers”. This
reconstructed Seleucid table of reciprocals will in the following be called Table B. The two atypical fragments
can hesitantly be assumed to be derived from an “enlarged Table B*”, about which not much more is known.
The tentative claim that all the Seleucid fragments and the Neo- and Achaemenid tablets belonging to
categories I or VIII-IX may have a common ancestor in Table R is based on the observation that in almost all
cases when a total 12-place pair is “missing” (that is, for some reason does not appear) in Table U, it is also
missing in Table S and in the fragments belonging to category I, and that if a total 12-place pair is missing in
all the fragments, it is also missing in Tables U and S.
An example is the total 12-place pair with the index (-12, -11), between lines 10 and 11 in Table 1.1, which
is missing in Table U, as well as in fragment I I (a table of reciprocals), and, indirectly in fragments II B (a table
of squares) and III A-B (two tables of squares of squares).
Another example is the (less than) double 6-place pair with the index (-15, -9), between lines 27 and 28 in
Table 1.1, which is missing in fragments I C, I D, I H, II F, and in both Table S and Table U. Note, however, for
instance, that line 16 in the reconstructed table is missing in Table U but not in fragments I I, II B, II G, and III
B. Therefore the table of reciprocals inscribed on tablet U can only be thought of as a somewhat imperfect copy
of the hypothetical Table R. Similarly, the fact that line 23 of the reconstructed original table is missing in
Table S but not in some of the fragments means that also the table of reciprocals on tablet S may be a somewhat
imperfect descendent of Table R.
Another possibility is, maybe, that the Neo-Babylonian and Achaemenid Tables S and U and the Seleucid
Table B were not directly related but were constructed by use of the same arithmetical algorithms, with nearly
identical imposed constraints.
In contrast to this, although the Seleucid many-place table of reciprocals V = AO 6456 seems to have been
constructed by use of the same arithmetical algorithms, the imposed constraints in this case were clearly
different. Therefore, quite a few of the pairs of reciprocals in Table V have no counterparts in Tables R, U, or
S. (See Sec. 1.5 below, and compare Figures 1.2.3 and 1.5.1.)
A few many-place numbers appearing in one of the Seleucid fragments tables of reciprocals and in one of
the Seleucid fragments of tables of squares do not seem to be derived from entries in Table R (see the
reconstruction of that table below). This was first pointed out by Britton, in JCS 43-45 (1991-93), 82-83.
Two of the atypical entries occur in fragment LBAT 1634 (I D), where the two extra lines
59a (-19, -10) 1 30 25 20 50 39 48 47 13 55 12
59b (14, -1) 1 31 01 20 39 33 02 48 45
are inserted between the following lines from Table R (line numbers as in the reconstruction below):
59 (-1, 1) 1 30 40
60 (-3, 6) 1 31 07 30 39 30 22 13 20.
Note that the mentioned extra lines do not occur between lines 59 and 60 in the fragments of tables of
reciprocals I A and I J, and that the corresponding extra lines do not occur in the table of squares fragment II C.
Similarly, the extra lines are not present in Tables U and S.
Other atypical entries of a similar kind can be observed in five extra lines in the two fragments LBAT 1636
and LBAT 1638, both probably parts of the same large tablet with a table of squares (II F). The five extra lines
in these two fragments are inserted between lines 52 and 53, between lines 54 and 55, and between lines 64 and
65, respectively, in the reconstructed Table R. They are
52a (-9, 6) 1 25 25 46 52 30 42 08 23 42 13 20
52b (10, -12) 1 25 44 01 58 31 06 40 41 59 25 26 24 (p + q = 8 + 5 = 13!)
52c (23, -3) 1 26 18 09 11 06 40 41 42 49 22 21 12 39 22 30 (p + q = 7 + 9 = 16!)
54a (21, 2) 1 27 22 52 48 41 11 55 25 46 52 30
64a (8, 14) 1 34 28 42 14 24 38 06 14 12 40 29 37 46 40 (p + q = 6 + 9 = 15!)
These lines are missing in fragments I E, and I J, in fragments II A, II C, and II D, and in Tables U and S.
Note that four of the mentioned extra lines are among only seven lines preserved on the fragment LBAT
1636. The remaining extra line is among only four preserved lines on the fragment LBAT 1638. What this
implies is that there must have been a large amount of such extra lines in the table text (II F) of which LBAT
1636 and 1638 are very small parts. Obviously, that table text, for which a suitable name may be “the table of
squares related to an enlarged Table B*”, must have been constructed by use of imposed constraints that
differed considerably from the restraints imposed on the arithmetical algorithms used to produce Table B and
the related table of squares!
According to a reconstruction first made by Vaiman in SVM (1961), 225, and then confirmed by Britton in
JCS 43-45 (1991-93), 83 and fn. 32, the mentioned large clay tablet, of which now only the two fragments
LBAT 1636 and 1638 (II F) remain, was inscribed on the obverse with three columns of many-place regular
square numbers. The number inscribed in the first line of the third column, still partly preserved, is
2 25 07 07 45 3[8 18 14 24] (= sq. 1 33 18 43 12) (line 63 in Table R).
From this observation it is possible to draw the tentative conclusion that the three columns on the obverse
contained considerably more than 100 entries, and that they comprised squares of many-place numbers n from
1 to 2. If that is so, then the reverse of that tablet can be assumed to have comprised about equally many squares
of many-place numbers n from 2 to 4.
1.2.3 Table R: A Reconstructed Common Ancestor to Tables B, U, and S

In the reconstructed many-place Table R of reciprocals (Table 1.3 below) all those many-place regular
sexagesimal numbers n are arranged together which occur in at least one of the fragments of many-place tables
of reciprocals (category I above), or, indirectly, in one of the fragments of the related lists of squares or squares
of squares (categories II-III), or in the many-place tables of reciprocals on tablets S and U (categories VIII-IX).
The tabulated numbers n are written in sexagesimal relative place value notation, and are ordered
lexicographically. (Alternatively, they can be thought of as sexagesimal numbers in absolute place value
notation, arranged in ascending order, from 1 and 1;00 16 53 53 20 to 3;57 02 13 20 and 4.) The ordering is
indicated by line numbers in col. i.
Lines that are present in Table V (Sec. 1.5) but not in the reconstructed Table R are also included in the
table, indicated not by line numbers but by a v or a V in col. i, where v refers to an at most total 12-place pair of
reciprocals, while V refers to a more than total 12-place pair.
The two extra lines from fragment I D, between lines 59 and 60 in Table R, are included in the table, too,
indicated not by line numbers but by a z in col. i. Similarly, pairs of reciprocals corresponding to the five extra
lines from the atypical table of squares fragment II F are also included, indicated not by line numbers but by an
x in col. i if the pairs are at most total 12-place, and by an X otherwise.
The numbers n attested, directly or indirectly, in at least one of the fragments of categories I-III include
together all the entries provided with line numbers from 0 to 101 in the reconstructed Table R below (Table
1.3), except lines 0 and 42 (which, on the other hand, are present in Table S). This should be clear from the
following survey:
Table 1.2. Attested line numbers from Table B in the fragments
fragment ## preserved lines on obv./rev. missing lines extra lines
IA BM 34577 32-48, 57-66 42

IB BM 34596 ––, 76-101, 102a
IC BM 34612 27-36, –– 59a-b
ID BM 34635 23-36, 58-68 30
IE BM 34762 29-41, 43-57 30, 42
IF BM 76984 33-40, 63-80 42
IG BM 77051 ––, 77-87
IH BM 78079 26-31, 60-73
II MMA 86.11.407+ 8-26, ––
IJ MMA 86.11.410+ 49-73, 83-89, ––
II A BM 32178 33-55, 56-80 42
II B BM 33567 5-11, 14-19
II C BM 34578 52-54, 55-66
II D BM 34714 39-59, 60-79 42, 67, 69
II E BM 34764 [1]-8, °100-101, 102a¿
II F BM 34875 22-28, 32-35, 52a-55, 63-65, –– 52a-c, 54a, 64a
II G BM 99633 14-18, 85-90
II H BM 35568 1-29, 97-101, 102a
III A BM 32584 8-19, 76-88 16, 79, 86
III B BM 55557 2-28, 100-101 0, 1, 7, 10, 22, 25
IV A BM 41101 208-217, –– 209
VA BM 34601 102a
VI A BM 46550 2
VI B W 23021 20-31 21, 25, 28, 30
VI C W 23016 6
Table U W 23283+ 0-47, 58-106, 111-204 16, 23, 79, 86, 99, 118, 67a
125, 149, 150, 178, 181, 188
Actually, the lines preserved in just four of the fragments are sufficient to cover the whole range of lines from
0 to 101, with the mentioned exceptions (lines 0 and 42), as shown by the following diagram:
Fig. 1.2.2. Lines from Table R attested in at least one of the fragments.
As mentioned, the part of the reconstructed Table R below with n from 1 to 2 is identical with Britton’s
“Double 6-place table of regular numbers” in JCS 43-45 (1991-93), 76-77, with the following exceptions: The
four lines that are present in Table U but not, directly or indirectly, in any of the fragments of categories I-III,
are tentatively included in Table R but with question marks after the line numbers 0, 1, 42, and 67a. (The line
given the line number 67a is problematic. It should almost certainly not be included in Table R. More about
that below, in Sec. 1.3.5.)
The part of Table R below with n from 2 to 4 was tentatively constructed here through doubling and
halving of each pair of reciprocals from the part of Table R with n from 1 to 2. That this is a reasonable
procedure will be clear from the discussion in Sec. 1.5 below. Besides, all the pairs obtained in this way
through doubling and halving are present in either Table S or Table U with only a few exceptions, namely that
lines 118 and 125 are missing in both Table S and Table U, that lines 141 and 142 are missing in Table S and
lost in Table U, and that lines 178, 181, 188, and 203a are missing in Table U and outside the range of Table S.
Here is the reason why it seems reasonable to let also the lines 0,1, and 42 be included in Table R. As
mentioned, Britton’s “double 6-place table” (or more correctly “total 12-place table”), Table B, is composed of
all pairs of reciprocals n, rec. n attested, directly or indirectly, in at least one of the fragments of categories I-III
(except the atypical fragments I D and II F). Importantly, the following similarities between Table B and Table
U can be observed:
1. Apparently, about 100 total 12-place pairs with n from 1 to 2 were originally recorded in both Table B and Table U.
2. Of all the existing total 12-place pairs with n from 1 to 2, about 30 are missing simultaneously in both tables.
3. For n from 1 to 2 only five pairs in Table U are missing in Table B; four pairs in Table B are missing in Table U.
4. There are only two more than total 12-place pairs with n from 1 to 2 in Table B, namely
(-4, 10) 1 01 30 33 45 58 31 39 35 18 31 06 40 l. 4
(5, -10) 1 57 03 19 10 37 02 13 20 30 45 16 52 30 l. 98
The first of these pairs is attested, indirectly, in fragment III B, where the square of the square of 1 01 30 33 45 is recorded.
Besides, the pair obtained from this pair by doubling and halving, twice, is recorded in fragment IV A. The second pair is attested
in fragment I B. Both pairs are also attested in Table U, and there are no other more than 12-place pairs with n from 1 to 2 in Table U.
The noted similarities prove unequivocally that Table U and Britton’s reconstructed Table B must have had a
common ancestor. This common ancestor can be assumed to have contained, at least, all the pairs of
reciprocals with n from 1 to 2 recorded in Table R below.
There are equally great similarities between Table B and Table S, obscured only by the fact that the
obverse of Table S is quite poorly preserved. Thus, for instance, the first of the two mentioned more than total
12-place pairs with n from 1 to 2 in Tables B and U is not among the preserved pairs in Table S. Luckily, the
second more than 12-place pair with n from 1 to 2 is present in Table U and well preserved. In addition the total
13-place pair in line 132 of Table R with index (1, -11), the only more than 12-place pair in Table R with n
from 2 to 4, is present in both Table U and Table S. Therefore the conclusion must be that also Table S must
have had a common ancestor with Table U!
Note that even if Table S may be older than Table U and Table B, it is not itself a direct ancestor of either
one of them. This is clear because there are more “missing” pairs in Table S than in Table U and Table B.
(Besides, only one pair that is missing in Table U is present in Table S.) In the following, it will be assumed that
the common ancestor to Tables S, U, and B is the reconstructed Table R in Table 1.3 below.
In Table 1.3, errors in lines of Table U = W 23283+ or Table S = Sippar 2175/12 are indicated in cols. iii -iv
by an underlining of the correct sexagesimal places in the lines in question, and by specifying the incorrect
sexagesimal places in the columns headed Table U and Table S, respectively.
Errors in lines of Table V = AO 6456 are indicated by a double underlining of the correct sexagesimal
places in the lines in question, and by specifying the incorrect sexagesimal places in the column headed Table V.
Lines that are present in Table U but not present, directly or indirectly, in any one of the fragments of
categories I-III are indicated by a u (for total 12-place pairs) or a U (for a more than total 12-place pair), in the
column headed Table U. As mentioned, there are only 4 such lines, namely lines 0, 1, 42, and 67a.
Table 1.3. The reconstructed Table R, with n from 1 to 4 (Tables R1 and R2)
line r s n rec. n Table U Table S Table V
0?, v 0 0 1 1 u lost
v -18 -11 1 00 16 53 53 20 59 43 10 50 52 48 –– ––
v 15 -2 1 00 40 53 20 59 19 34 13 07 30 –– ––
1? -2 5 1 00 45 59 15 33 20 u lost
2 -20 -6 1 01 02 06 33 45 58 58 56 38 24 lost 33 45
3 13 3 1 01 26 24 58 35 37 30 lost
4 -4 10 1 01 30 33 45 58 31 39 35 18 31 06 40 lost
5 -5 -8 1 01 43 42 13 20 58 19 12 lost
6 11 8 1 02 12 28 48 57 52 13 20 lost
7 -7 -3 1 02 30 57 36 lost
8 8 -5 1 03 12 35 33 20 56 57 11 15 lost
9 -9 2 1 03 16 52 30 56 53 20 lost
10 6 0 1 04 56 15 lost
–– 17
v -12 -11 1 04 18 01 28 53 20 55 59 13 55 12 ––
45
11 4 5 1 04 48 55 33 20 lost
12 -14 -6 1 05 06 15 55 17 45 36 lost
v 19 3 54 55 53 54 22 30 –– ––
1 05 32 09 36
13 2 10 1 05 36 36 54 52 10 51 51 06 40 lost
14 1 -8 1 05 50 37 02 13 20 54 40 30 lost
06
15 -16 -1 1 05 55 04 41 15 54 36 48 lost
missing missing
16 17 8 1 06 21 18 43 12 54 15 12 30 lost
54 04
17 -1 -3 1 06 40 54 damaged
––
V 0 15 1 06 25 48 27 54 11 32 12 41 35 28 23 42 13 20 ––
18 -3 2 1 07 30 53 20 damaged
07
19 12 0 1 08 16 52 44 03 45
20 -5 7 1 08 20 37 30 52 40 29 37 46 40
52
21 10 5 1 09 07 12 52 05
22 -8 -6 1 09 26 40 51 50 24
corrupt ––
–– –– –– (1 09 07 13) (52) ––
missing
23 8 10 1 09 59 02 24 51 26 25 11 06 40 missing
15 missing
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“Yes, sir.” He went back to his hut, delighted.
Escape. Escape. Even the illusion of escape for a few hours, it must
be at least that, for if the 469 Trench Mortar Battery were in the same
Division, the same Corps even, he would have heard of them. They
must be at least a day’s journey away, and he would be able to get
away from the blasting and withering boredom for at least that.
Colonel Birchin, a regular, who had been on various Staff
appointments since the very early days, had no conception how
personnel changed and units shifted, and unless he (Dormer) were
very much mistaken, it would be a jolly old hunt. So much the better.
He would have his mind off the War for a bit.
The reply came from Corps that, according to the order of battle, 469
Trench Mortar Battery was not in existence, but try Trench Mortar
School at Bertezeele. It was all one to Dormer. He might simply be
exchanging one cold hut for another, he might travel by rail and lorry
instead of on horse or foot. But at any rate it would be a different hut
that he was cold in and a different mode of conveyance that jolted
him, and that was something, one must not be too particular in war-
time. So he jumped on a lorry that took him into Doullens and at
Doullens he took train and went through Abbeville and the endless
dumps and camps by the sea, up to Étaples, where the dumps and
camps, the enormous reinforcement depôts and mile-long hospitals
stretched beside the line almost into Boulogne, where was a little
pocket, as it were, of French civilian life, going on undisturbed amid
the general swamping of French by English, on that coast, and of
civilian life by military. Here he got a meal and changed and went off
again up the hill, past Marquise, and down a long hill to Calais, in the
dark, and then on, in the flat, where the country smelled different
from the Somme, and where the people spoke differently and the
names of the stations sounded English, and where there were
French and Belgian police on the platforms.
He slept and woke at St. Omer, and slept again and woke to find all
the lights out and a general scurry and scatteration, with the drone of
aeroplanes and the continual pop-popping of anti-aircraft fire. Then
came the shrieking whirr and sharp crash of the first bomb, with its
echo of tinkling glass, barking of dogs, and rumour of frightened
humanity.
Like most people accustomed to the line, Dormer regarded the
bombing of back billets as a spectacle rather than as one of the
serious parts of warfare, and got out to stroll about the platform with
officers going up as reinforcements. They exchanged cigarettes and
news and hardly stopped to laugh at the horrified whisper of the
R.T.O., “Don’t light matches here!” It was soon over, like all bombing.
If you were hit you were hit, but if you weren’t hit in the first minute or
two, you wouldn’t be, because no plane could stay circling up there
for very long, and the bomber was always more frightened than you
were. Then the train moved on, and Dormer could feel on each side
of him again the real camp life of units just behind the line, mule
standings, gun parks, and tents and huts of infantry, and services. It
was midnight before he got out at Bailleul. He had left the camp on
the Arras road in the morning, had made a great loop on the map
and reached a railhead as near the line as he had been twenty-four
hours before. He stumbled up the stony street to the Officers’ Rest
House, drank some cocoa out of a mug and fell asleep, his head on
his valise.
In the morning he got a lift out to Bertezeele, and found the Trench
Mortar School. He reflected that it would really be more correct to
say that he took a lift to the Trench Mortar School, and incidentally
touched the village of Bertezeele. For the fact was that the English
population of the parish exceeded the French native one. Men of all
sorts and conditions from every unit known to the Army List (and a
good many that had never graced the pages of that swollen
periodical) were drawn into this new device for improved killing.
Dormer himself, one of those who, since the elementary home camp
training of 1915, had been in or just behind the trenches, wondered
at the complicated ramifications with which the War was running.
Apparently those curious little brass instruments, the bane of his life
as an infantry platoon commander, which used to come up behind
his line and there, while totally ineffective in the vital matter of
beating the Germans, were just sufficiently annoying to make those
methodical enemies take great pains to rob him of his food and sleep
for many ensuing days, were all done away with.
Stokes, whoever he was, but he was certainly a genius, had effected
a revolution. Owing to him, neat tubes, like enlarged pencil-guards,
with a nail inside the blind end, upon which the cap-end of the
cartridge automatically fell, were being used, as a hosier might say,
in all sizes from youths’ to large men’s. Stokes was branded with
genius, because his invention combined the two essentials—
simplicity with certainty. He had brought the blunderbuss up to date.
What else were these short-range, muzzle-loading, old-iron
scattering devices? Just blunderbusses. History was not merely
repeating itself. As the War went on it was moving backwards. Tin
helmets of the days of Cromwell, bludgeons such as Cœur de Lion
used upon Saladin, and for mere modernity, grenades like the
original British Grenadiers of the song. He had never had any head
for poetry, but he could remember some of the stuff Kavanagh had
sung in the dug-out. Not tow-row-row. That was the chorus. Ah! he
remembered.
“Our leaders march with fusees,
And we with hand-grenades,
We throw them from the glacis
About the enemy’s ears.
With a tow-row-row,” etc.
Well, now we didn’t. If we had grenades we carried them in aprons,
like a market woman, with a skirt full of apples. And if we had a
blunderbuss, like the guard of the coach in the “Pickwick Papers,” we
kept it, and all the ironmongery that belonged to it, on a hand-barrow,
and pushed it in front of us like fish-hawkers on a Saturday night.
What a War! Kavanagh was quite right of course. There was neither
decency nor dignity left in it. Wouldn’t do to admit that though! And
putting on his very best “Good-mornin’-Sah-I-have-been-sent-by-
Divisional-Head-quarters” expression, he asked his way to the
“office” as they were beginning to call the orderly room in most
detachments, and inquired for 469 Battery. Yes. They were to be
seen. Orderly room, as a Corps formation, was distant and slightly
patronizing, but the information was correct. He could see the Officer
commanding the battery. Certainly he could, as soon as morning
practice was over. That would do. He made himself as
inconspicuous as possible until he saw the various parties being
“fallen in” on the range, and heard the uncanny ear-tickling silence
that succeeded the ceaseless pop-pop of practice and then drifted
casually into the wooden-chair-and-table furnished ante-room, where
the month-old English magazines gave one a tremulous home-
sickness, and men who had been mildly occupied all the morning
were drinking all the vermouth or whisky they could, in the fear of
being bored to the point of mutiny in the afternoon.
There was, of course, the usual springtime curiosity as to what the
year might bring forth, for every one always hoped against hope that
the next offensive would really be the last. An orderly wandering
among the tables appeared to be looking for him, and he found
himself summoned before the Officer commanding the School.
Although his appointment was new, Colonel Burgess was of the
oldest type of soldier, the sort who tell the other fellows how to do it.
The particular sort of war in which he found himself suited him
exactly. He had the true Indian view of life, drill, breakfast, less drill,
lunch, siesta, sport, dinner, cards. So he ruled the mess cook with a
rod of iron, took disciplinary action if the stones that lined the path
leading to the door of the ante-room and office were not properly
white, and left the technical side of the business to Sergeant-
instructors who, having recently escaped from the trenches, were
really keen on it.
He received Dormer with that mixture of flattery due to anyone from
Divisional Head-quarters and suspicion naturally aroused as to what
he (Dormer) might be after. He was annoyed that he had not heard
of Dormer’s arrival, and hastened to add:
“Not a very full parade this morning, units come and go, y’know. We
can never be quite sure what we are going to get! What did you think
of our show?”
Dormer realized that the old gentleman was under the impression he
was being spied on:
“I really didn’t notice, sir. I have been sent to see the Officer
commanding 469 Trench Mortar Battery. Matter of discipline arising
out of a claim for compensation.”
“Oh, ah! Yes indeed. Certainly. See him now. Sergeant Innes!”
The efficient Scotch Sergeant to be found in all such places
appeared from the outer office.
“Have we anyone here from 469 T.M.B.?”
The officer required was duly produced, and the Colonel retired to
the Mess, leaving them together. Dormer sized up this fellow with
whom he was thus brought into momentary contact. This became by
necessity almost a fine art, during years of war. Dormer was fairly
proficient. The fellow opposite to him was of the same sort as
himself. Probably in insurance or stockbroking, not quite the
examination look of the Civil Service, not the dead certainty of
banking. He had obviously enlisted, been gradually squeezed up to
the point of a Commission, had had his months in the line and had
taken to Trench Mortars because they offered the feeling of really
doing something, together with slightly improved conditions (hand-
carts could be made to hold more food, drink and blankets than mere
packs) and was getting along as well as he could. He heard what
Dormer wanted and his face cleared.
“Why, that’s last April. I couldn’t tell you anything about that. I was in
Egypt!”
“You don’t know of any officer in your unit who could give some
information about the occurrence?”
“No. There’s only young Sands, beside myself. He couldn’t have
been there.”
“Some N.C.O. then?”
“Heavens, man, where d’you think we’ve been? All the N.C.O.’s are
new since I was with the crowd!”
“But surely there must be some record of men who were with your
unit?”
“Well, of course, the pay rolls go back to Base somewhere. But I
suppose you can pick the name and number up from the conduct
sheet.”
“You see, I don’t know the man’s name. His number was given as
6494.”
“That’s a joke, of course. It’s the number that the cooks sing out,
when we hold the last Sick Parade, before going up the line.”
“Of course it is. You’re right. I ought to have remembered that, but
I’ve been away from my regiment for some time.” Dormer pondered
a moment, relieved. Then the thought of going back to the Q. office
with nothing settled, and the queries of the French Mission and the
whole beastly affair hanging over his head, drove him on again. He
made his air a little heavier, more Divisional, less friendly.
“Well, I’m afraid this won’t do, you know. This matter has got to be
cleared up. It will be very awkward if I have to go back and inform
Head-quarters that you can’t furnish any information. In fact, they will
probably think it’s a case of not wanting to know, and make a regular
Court of Inquiry of it.”
He watched the face of the other, and saw in a moment how well he
had calculated. The fellow was frightened. A mere unit commander,
and a small unit at that! To such a one, of course, Divisional Head-
quarters were something pretty near omniscient, certainly
omnipotent. Dormer watched the fellow shift in the chair without a
qualm. Let some one else be worried too. He himself had had worry
enough. The face before him darkened, smirked deferentially, and
then brightened.
“Oh, there was old Chirnside. He might know.”
“Who was he?”
“Chirnside? He was a sort of a quarter bloke. It was before we were
properly formed, and he used to look after all our stores and orderly
room business. He had been with the battery since its formation. We
were just anybody, got together anyhow, chiefly from the infantry, you
remember?”
Dormer saw the other glance at his shoulder straps and just refrain
from calling him sir, poor wretch. He took down the information and
thanked his friend. Chirnside had apparently gone to some stunt
Corps, to do something about equipment. That was all right. He
wouldn’t be killed.
Having got thus far, Dormer felt that he had done a good deal, and
went to take his leave of Colonel Burgess. But he soon found that he
was not to be allowed to get away like that. He was bidden to stay to
lunch. There was no train from Bailleul until the evening and he was
willing enough. The lunch was good. Food remained one of the
things in which one could take an interest. He did so. After lunch the
Colonel took him for a walk over the golf course. This was the
margin of land around the range, on which no cultivation was
allowed, and from which civilians were rigidly excluded, for safety’s
sake. At least during range practice, which took place every day
more or less, in the morning. After that, of course, they could be
without difficulty excluded for the remainder of the day for a different,
if not for so laudable a purpose.
The Colonel was a fine example of those qualities which have made
an island Empire what it is. Having spent most of his life from sixteen
years old at Sandhurst, then in India or Egypt, and finally at
Eastbourne, he knew better than most men how to impose those
institutions which he and his sort considered the only ones that made
civilization possible, in the most unlikely places and upon the most
disinclined of people. Dormer had seen it being done before, but
marvelled more and more. Just as the Colonel, backed of course by
a sufficient number of his like, and the right sort of faithful underling,
had introduced tennis into India, duck-shooting into Egypt, and
exclusiveness into Eastbourne, against every condition of climate or
geographical position, native religion or custom, so now he had
introduced golf into Flanders, and that in the height of a European
War.
At the topmost point of the golf course, the Colonel stopped, and
began to point out the beauties of the spot to Dormer. They were
standing on one of those low gravelly hills that separate the valley of
the Yser from that of the Lys. Northward, beyond Poperinghe, was a
yet lower and greener ridge that shelved away out of sight toward
Dunkirk. East lay Ypres, in an endless rumour of war. Southward, the
Spanish towers of Bailleul showed where the road wound towards
Lille, by Armentières. Westward, Cassel rose above those hillocks
and plains, among the most fertile in the world. But the Colonel was
most concerned with a big square old farmhouse, that lay amid its
barns and meadows, at a crook in the Bailleul road.
The Colonel’s eyes took on a brighter blue and his moustache puffed
out like fine white smoke.
“I had a lot of trouble with that fellow.” He pointed to the farm.
“Wanted to come and cultivate the range. I had to get an interpreter
to see him. Said he could grow—er—vegetables in between the
shell-holes. At last we had to order afternoon practice to keep him
off. Then he wanted this part of the land. Had to move the guns up
and make some new bunkers. Four rounds makes a bunker, y’know.
Come and have tea?”
It was very nice weather for walking, dry and clear. The Mess had
seemed tolerable at lunch, but Dormer had not been long at tea
before he recollected what he seldom forgot for more than an hour or
so, that it was not tea, one of the fixed occasions of his safe and
comfortable life. It was a meal taken under all the exigencies of a
campaign—chlorinated water, condensed milk, army chair, boots and
puttees on one, and on this particular afternoon a temperature below
zero, in an army hut.
The Colonel, of course, occupied the place of warmth next the stove.
The remainder of the Mess got as near to it as they could. The result
was, that when the Colonel began to question him as to the object of
his visit, and how he had progressed towards attaining it, everybody
necessarily heard the whole of the conversation. He now realized
that he was telling the tale for the fourth time. He had told it to
Kavanagh, then to Colonel Birchin. Now he had told it to the Officer
commanding 469 T.M.B. and finally here he was going over it again.
He resented it as a mere nuisance, but was far from seeing at that
moment the true implication of what he was doing. The matter was
not a State secret. It was an ordinary piece of routine discipline,
slightly swollen by its reactions in the French Mission, and by the
enormous size and length of the War.
If he had refused to say why he was there the Colonel would
certainly have put him down as having been sent by the Division, or
some one even higher, to spy on the activities of the School. He
didn’t want to be labelled as that, so told what he knew glibly
enough. The Colonel waxed very voluble over it, gave good advice
that was no earthly use, and dwelt at length on various aspects of
the case. The French were grasping and difficult and superstitious,
but on the other hand, drivers were a rough lot and must be kept in
check. They were always doing damage. The fellow was quite right
of course to look after his mules. The animals were in a shocking
state, etc., etc., but quite wrong, of course, to damage civilian
property, tradition of the British Army, since Wellington all the other
way, the French naturally expected proper treatment, etc., etc.
Dormer had heard it all before, from Colonel Birchin, Major
Stevenage and others, with exactly the same well-meant
condescension, and the same grotesque ineffectiveness. This old
Colonel, like all his sort, couldn’t solve the difficulty nor shut the
French up, nor appease G.H.Q.
Presently, the old man went off to the orderly room to sign the day’s
correspondence, the Mess thinned and Dormer dozed discreetly, he
had had a poor night and was desperately sleepy. Some one came
to wake him up and offered him a wash, and he was glad to move,
stiff with cold, and only anxious to pass the time until he could get
the midnight train from Bailleul. They were very hospitable, made
much of him at dinner, and he ate and drank all he could get, being
ravenous and hoping to sleep through the discomforts of the long
train journey in the dark. He was getting fairly cheerful by the time
the Colonel left the hut, and only became conscious, in the intervals
of a learned and interesting discussion of the relative theories of
wire-cutting, that a “rag” was in progress at the other end of the
room.
A gunner officer, a young and happy boy who was still in the stage of
thinking the War the greatest fun out, was holding a mock Court of
Inquiry. Gradually, the “rag” got the better of the argument and
Dormer found himself being addressed as “Gentlemen of the jury.” A
target frame was brought in by some one to act as a witness-box,
but the gunner genius who presided, soon had it erected into a sort
of Punch and Judy Proscenium. Then only did it dawn on Dormer
that the play was not Punch and Judy. It was the Mayor of
Hondebecq being derided by the troops, with a Scotch officer in a kilt
impersonating Madeleine Vanderlynden, and receiving with the
greatest equanimity, various suggestions that ranged from the feebly
funny to the strongly obscene. O.C. 469 T.M.B. found a willing
column formed behind him which he had to lead round the table, an
infantryman brought a wastepaper basket to make the Mayor’s top
hat, and in the midst of other improvisations, Dormer discovered the
gunner standing in front of him with a mock salute.
“Do you mind coming out of the Jury and taking your proper part?”
It was cheek, of course, but Dormer was not wearing red tabs, and
beside, what was the use of standing on one’s dignity. He asked:
“What part do I play?”
“You’re Jack Ketch. You come on in the fourth Act, and land Nobby
one on the nob!”
“I see. What are you?”
“Me? I’m the Devil. Watch me devilling,” and with a long map-roller
he caught the players in turn resounding cracks upon their several
heads.
They turned on him with common consent, and in the resulting
struggle, the table broke and subsided with the whole company in an
ignominious mass. The dust rose between the grey canvas-covered
walls and the tin suspension lamp rocked like that of a ship at sea.
Everybody picked themselves up, slightly sobered, and began to
discuss how to get the damage repaired before the Colonel saw it in
the morning.
O.C. 469 T.M.B. stood at Dormer’s elbow:
“We’ve just got time to catch your train.”
“Come on.” Dormer had no intention of being marooned in this place
another day. Outside a cycle and side-car stood panting. Dormer did
wonder as they whizzed down the rutted road how long such a
vehicle had been upon the strength of a Trench Mortar School, but
after all, could you blame fellows? They were existing under War
conditions, what more could one ask?
He woke to the slow jolting of the train as it slowed up in smoky

twilight at Boulogne. He bought some food, and sitting with it in his
hands and his thermos between his knees, he watched the grey
Picard day strengthen over those endless camps and hospitals,
dumps and training grounds.
He was retracing his steps of the day before, but he was a step
farther on. As he looked at the hundreds of thousands of khaki-clad
figures, he realized something of what he had to do. With no name
or number he had to find one of them, who could be proved to have
been at a certain place a year ago. He didn’t want to, but if he didn’t,
would he ever get rid of the business?
The “rag” of the previous evening stuck in his head. How true it was.
The man who did the thing was “Nobby” with the number 6494 that
was beginning to be folk-lore. Of course he was. He was any or
every soldier. Madeleine Vanderlynden was the heroine. O.C. 469
T.M.B. was the hero. The Mayor of Hondebecq was the comic relief,
and he, Dormer, was the villain. He was indeed Jack Ketch, the
spoiler of the fun, the impotent figure-head of detested “Justice,” or
“Law and Order.” And finally, as in all properly conducted Punch and
Judy shows, the Devil came and took the lot. What had Dendrecourt
said: “The Devil had taken the whole generation.” Well, it was all in
the play. And when he realized this, as he slid on from Étaples down
to Abbeville, he began to feel it was not he who was pursuing some
unknown soldier in all that nation-in-arms that had grown from the
British Expeditionary Force, but the Army—no, the War—that was
pursuing him.
When he got out at Doullens, and scrounged a lift from a passing
car, he found himself looking at the driver, at the endless transport
on either side of the road, at the sentry on guard over the parked
heavies in the yard of the jam factory, at the military policeman at the
cross-roads. One or other of all these hundreds of thousands knew
all about the beastly business that was engaging more and more of
his mind. One or other of them could point to the man who was
wanted.
He found himself furtively examining their faces, prepared for covert
ridicule and suspicion, open ignorance or stupidity. He had, by now,
travelled a long way from the first feelings he had about the affair,
when he had thought of the perpetrator of the damage at
Vanderlynden’s as a poor devil to be screened if possible. He
wouldn’t screen him now. This was the effect of the new possibility
that had arisen. He, Dormer, did not intend to be ridiculous.
On reaching the Head-quarters of the Division, he found the War in
full progress. That is to say, every one was standing about, waiting to
do something. Dormer had long discovered that this was war.
Enlisting as he had done at the outbreak of hostilities, with no actual
experience of what such a set of conditions could possibly be like, he
had then assumed that he was in for a brief and bitter period of
physical discomfort and danger, culminating quite possibly in death,
but quite certainly in a decisive victory for the Allies within a few
months. He had graduated in long pedestrian progress of Home
Training, always expecting it to cease one fine morning. It did. He
and others were ordered to France. With incredible slowness and
difficulty they found the battalion to which they were posted. Now for
it, he had thought, and soon found himself involved in a routine,
dirtier and more dangerous, but as unmistakably a routine as that in
which he had been involved at home.
He actually distinguished himself at it, by his thoroughness and care,
and came to be the person to whom jobs were given! Thus had he
eventually, after a twelvemonth, found another false end to the
endless waiting. He was sent to help the Q. office of Divisional Staff.
He had felt himself to be of considerable importance, a person who
really was winning the War. But in a few weeks he was as disabused
as ever. It was only the same thing. Clerking in uniform, with no
definite hours, a few privileges of food and housing, but no nearer
sight of the end of it. The Somme had found him bitterly
disillusioned. And yet even now, after being two days away from the
Head-quarters where his lot was cast, he was dumbfounded afresh
to find everything going on just as he had left it.
They were all waiting now for orders to go into a back area and be
trained. For, as sure as the snowdrop appeared, there sprang up in
the hearts of men a pathetic eternal hopefulness. Perhaps nothing
more than a vernal effusion, yet there it was, and as Dormer
reported to Colonel Birchin, in came the messenger they had all
been expecting, ordering them, not forward into the line, but
backward to Authun, for training. It was some time before he could
get attention, and when he did, it seemed both to him and to the
Colonel that the affair had lessened in importance.
“You’ve asked 3rd Eccleton to give you the posting of this
Chirnside?”
“Yessir!”
“Very well. That’s all you can do for the moment. Now I want you to
see that everything is cleared up in the three Infantry Brigade camps,
and don’t let us have the sort of chits afterwards that we got at
Lumbres, etc.”
So the Vanderlynden affair receded into the background, and
Dormer found before his eyes once more that everlasting mud-
coloured procession, men, men, limbers, cookers, men, lorries,
guns, limbers, men.
He looked at it this time with different eyes. His Division was one-
fiftieth part of the British Army in France. It took over a day to get on
the move, it occupied miles of road, absorbed train-loads of supplies,
and would take two days to go thirty miles. The whole affair was so
huge, that the individual man was reduced and reduced in
importance until he went clean out of sight. This fellow he was
pursuing, or Chirnside, or anyone who could have given any useful
information about the Vanderlynden claim, might be in any one of
those cigarette-smoking, slow-moving columns, on any of those
springless vehicles, or beside any of those mules.
He gazed at the faces of the men as they streamed past him, every
county badge on their caps, every dialect known to England on their
lips, probably the best natured and easiest to manage of any of the
dozen or so national armies engaged in the War. He was realizing
deeply the difficulty of discovering that particular “Nobby” who had
broken the front of the shrine at Vanderlynden’s. It was just the thing
any of them would do. How many times had he noticed their curious
tenderness for uncouth animals, stray dogs or cats, even moles or
hedgehogs, and above all the brazen, malevolent army mule. He
was no fancier of any sort of beast, and the mule as used in France
he had long realized to have two virtues and two only—cheapness
and durability. You couldn’t kill them, but if you did, it was easy to get
more. He had been, for a long while now, a harassed officer, busy
shifting quantities of war material, human, animal, or inanimate, from
one place to another, and had come to regard mules as so much
movable war stores. Added to the fact that he was no fancier, this
had prevented him from feeling any affection for the motive power of
first-line transport. But he was conscious enough that it was not so
with the men—the “other ranks” as they were denominated in all
those innumerable parade states and nominal rolls with which he
spent his days in dealing.
No, what the fellow had done was what most drivers would do. That
queer feeling about animals was the primary cause of the whole
affair. Then, balancing it, was the natural carelessness about such
an object as a shrine—this same brown-clothed nation that defiled
before him, he knew them well. As a churchwarden, he knew that not
ten per cent of them went inside a place of worship more than three
or four times in the whole of their lives. Baptism for some, marriage
for a good proportion, an occasional assistance at the first or last rite
of some relative, finally, the cemetery chapel, that was the extent of
their church-going.
A small number, chiefly from the North or from Ireland, might be
Catholics, but also from the north of Ireland was an equal number of
violent anti-Catholics, and it was to this latter section that he judged
the perpetrator of the outrage to belong. No, they would see nothing,
or at best something to despise, in that little memorial altar, hardly
more than an enlarged tombstone, in the corner of a Flemish
pasture. It was strange if not detestable, it was foreign; they never
saw their own gravestones, seldom those of any relative. He
sympathized with them in that ultra-English sentimentality, that
cannot bear to admit frankly the frail briefness of human life. And so
the thing had happened, any of them might have done it, most of
them would do it, under similar circumstances.
The tail of the last column wound out of B camp, the N.C.O. he took
with him on these occasions was reporting all clear, and might he
hand over to the advance party of the incoming Division. Dormer
gave him exact orders as to what to hand over and obtain a
signature for, and where to find him next, for he did not believe in
allowing an N.C.O. any scope for imagination, if by any possibility
such a faculty might have survived in him.
The weather had broken, and he jogged along in the mud to C camp
and found it already vacated, but no advance party ready to take
over, and resigned himself to the usual wait. He waited and he
waited. Of course, he wasn’t absolutely forced to do so. He might
have left his N.C.O. and party to hand over. He might have cleared
them off and left the incoming Division to shift for itself. That had
been done many a time in his experience. How often, as a platoon
commander, had he marched and marched, glancing over his
shoulder at tired men only too ready to drop out, marched and
marched until at length by map square and horse sense, and general
oh-let’s-get-in-here-and-keep-any-one-else-out, he had found such a
camp, a few tents subsiding in the mud, a desolate hut or two,
abandoned and unswept, places which disgusted him more than any
mere trench or dug-out, because they were places that people had
lived in and left unclean.
He had never experienced such a thing before he came into the
army. His nice middle-class upbringing had never allowed him to
suspect that such places existed. And now that he was Captain
Dormer, attached H.Q. Nth Division, he endeavoured to see that they
did not. So he hung about intending to see the thing done properly.
He got no encouragement. He knew that when he got back to the
Division Colonel Birchin would simply find him something else to do,
and the fact that no complaints followed them, and that the incoming
Division had a better time than they would otherwise have had,
would be swallowed up in the hasty expedience of the War. Still, he
did it, because he liked to feel that the job was being properly done.
To this he had been brought up, and he was not going to change in
war-time.
As he hung about the empty hut, he had plenty of time for reflection.
His feet were cold. When would he get leave? What a nuisance if
these d——d people who were relieving him didn’t turn up until it
was dark. The February day was waning. Ah, here they were. He
roused himself from the despondent quiescence of a moment ago,
into a crisp authoritative person from Divisional Head-quarters.
Never was a camp handed over more promptly. He let his N.C.O.
and men rattle off in the limber they had provided themselves with.
He waited for a car. There was bound to be no difficulty in getting a
lift into Doullens, and if he did not find one immediately there, he
would soon get a railway voucher. As he stood in the gathering dusk
his ruminations went on. If it were not for the War, he would be going
home to tea, real proper tea, no chlorine in the water, milk out of a
cow, not out of a tin, tea-cakes, some small savoury if he fancied it,
his sister with whom he lived believing in the doctrine. “Feed the
beast!” After that, he would have the choice of the Choral Society or
generally some lecture or other. At times there was something on at
the local theatre, at others he had Vestry or Trust meetings to attend.
Such employments made a fitting termination to a day which he had
always felt to be well filled at a good, safe, and continuous job, that
would go on until he reached a certain age, when it culminated in a
pension, a job that was worth doing, that he could do, and that the
public appreciated.
Instead of all this, here he was, standing beside a desolate Picard
highway, hoping that he might find his allotted hut in time to wash in
a canvas bucket, eat at a trestle table and finally, having taken as
much whisky as would wash down the food, and help him to become
superior to his immediate circumstances, to play bridge with those
other people whom he was polite to, because he had to be, but
towards whom he felt no great inclination, and whom he would drop
without a sigh the moment he was demobbed.
Ah! Here was the sort of car. He stepped into the road and held up
his hand. The car stopped with a crunch and a splutter. They were
going as far as Bernaville. That would suit him well. He jammed into
the back seat between two other people, mackintoshed and goggled,
and the car got under way again. Then he made the usual remarks
and answered the usual inquiries, taking care to admit nothing, and
to let his Divisional weight be felt. Finally he got down at a place
where he could get a lorry lift to H.Q.
His servant had laid out some clean clothes in the Armstrong hut.
For that he was thankful.
The Division now proceeded to train for the coming offensive.

“Cultivators” had been warned off a large tract of land, which was
partly devoted to “Schools,” at which were taught various superlative
methods of slaughter, partly to full-dress manœuvres over country
which resembled in physical features the portion of the German line
to be attacked. The natural result was that if any area larger than a
tennis court was left vacant, the “cultivators” rushed back and began
to cultivate it. Hence arose disputes between the peasants and the
troops, and the General commanding the 556 Brigade had his bridle
seized by an infuriated female who wanted to know, in English, why
he couldn’t keep off her beans.
The matter was reported to G. office of Divisional Head-quarters,
who told the A.P.M., who told the French Liaison Officer, who told an
Interpreter, who told the “cultivators” to keep off the ground
altogether, whether it were in use or not. In revenge for which
conduct the “cultivators” fetched the nearest gendarme, and had the
Interpreter arrested as a spy, and tilled the land so that the C.R.A.
Corps couldn’t find the dummy trenches he was supposed to have
been bombarding, because they had all been filled up and planted.
So that he reported the matter to Corps, who sat heavily on
Divisional Head-quarters, G. office, for not keeping the ground clear.
The A.P.M. and French Mission having been tried and failed, Q.
office had the brilliant idea of “lending” Dormer to G., upon the well-
tried army principle that a man does a job, not because he is fit, but
because he is not required elsewhere.
So Dormer patrolled the manœuvre area, mounted on the horses of
senior officers, who were too busy to ride them. He did not object. It
kept him from thinking. He was, by now, well acquainted with
manœuvre areas, from near Dunkirk to below Amiens. It was the
same old tale. First the various schools. The Bombing Instructor
began with a short speech:
“It is now generally admitted that the hand-grenade is the weapon
with which you are going to win this War!”
The following day in the bayonet-fighting pitch, the instructor in that
arm began:
“This is the most historic weapon in the hands of the British Army. It
still remains the decisive factor on the field!”
And the day following, on the range, the Musketry expert informed
the squad:
“Statistics show that the largest proportion of the casualties inflicted
on the enemy are bullet wounds.”
Dormer was not unkind enough to interrupt. He did not blame those
instructors. Having, by desperately hard work, obtained their
positions, they were naturally anxious to keep them. But his new
insight and preoccupation, born of the Vanderlynden affair, made him
study the faces of the listening squads intently. No psychologist, he
could make nothing of them. Blank, utterly bored in the main, here
and there he caught sight of one horrified, or one peculiarly
vindictive. The main impression he received was of the sheer
number of those passive listening faces, compared with the fewness
of the N.C.O.’s and instructors. So long as they were quiescent, all
very well. But if that dormant mass came to life, some day, if that
immense immobility once moved, got under way, where would it
stop?
It was the same with the full-dress manœuvres. Dormer had never
been taken up with the honour and glory of war. He was going
through with this soldiering, which had been rather thrust upon him,
for the plain reason that he wanted to get to the end of it. He
considered that he had contracted to defeat the Germans just as, if
he had been an iron firm, he might have contracted to make girders,
or if he had been the Post Office, he would have contracted to
deliver letters. And now that he watched the final processes of the
job, he became more than ever aware that the goods would not be
up to sample. How could they be? Here were men being taught to
attack, with the principal condition of attack wanting. The principal
condition of an attack was that the other fellow hit you back as hard
as he could. Here there was no one hitting you back. He wondered if
all these silent and extraordinarily docile human beings in the ranks
would see that some day. He looked keenly at their faces. Mask,
mask; mule-like stupidity, too simple to need a mask; mask and
mask again; one with blank horror written on it, one with a devilish
lurking cunning, as if there might be something to be made out of all
this some day; then more masks.
He wondered, but he did not wonder too unhappily. He was
beginning to feel very well. Away from the line, the hours were more
regular, the food somewhat better, the horse exercise did him good.
There was another reason which Dormer, no reader of poetry, failed
altogether to appreciate. Spring had come. Furtive and slow, the
Spring of the shores of the grey North Sea came stealing across
those hard-featured downs and rich valleys. Tree and bush,
blackened and wind-bitten, were suddenly visited with a slender
effusion of green, almost transparent, looking stiff and ill-assorted, as
though Nature were experimenting.
Along all those ways where men marched to slaughter, the magic
footsteps preceded them, as though they had been engaged in some
beneficent work, or some joyful festival. To Dormer the moment was
poignant but for other reasons. It was the moment when the
culminating point of the Football Season marked the impending truce
in that game. He did not play cricket. It was too expensive and too
slow. In summer he sailed a small boat on his native waters. Instead,
he was going to be involved in another offensive.
The Division left the manœuvre area and went up through Arras. Of
course, the weather broke on the very eve of the “show.” That had
become almost a matter of routine, like the shelling, the stupendous
activities of railways and aeroplanes, the everlasting telephoning.
Again Dormer saw going past him endlessly, that stream of men and
mules, mules and men, sandwiched in between every conceivable
vehicle, from tanks to stretchers. When, after what communiqués
described as “continued progress” and “considerable artillery
activity,” it had to be admitted that this offensive, like all other
offensives, had come to a dead stop, Dormer was not astonished.
For one thing, he knew, what no communiqué told, what had stopped
it. The Germans? No, capable and determined as they were. The
thing which stopped it was Mud. Nothing else. The shell-fire had
been so perfect, that the equally perfect and necessarily complicated
preparations for going a few hundred yards farther, could not be
made. The first advance was miles. The next hundreds of yards. The
next a hundred yards.
Then the Bosche got some back. Then everything had to be moved
up to make quite certain of advancing miles again. And it couldn’t be
done. There was no longer sufficient firm ground to bear the tons of
iron that alone could help frail humanity to surmount such efforts.
For another thing, he could not be astonished. For weeks he worked
eighteen hours a day, ate what he could, slept when he couldn’t help
it. Astonishment was no longer in him. But one bit of his mind
remained, untrammelled by the great machine of which he formed an
insignificant part. It was a bit of subconsciousness that was always
listening for something, just as, under long-range, heavy-calibre
bombardment, one listened and listened for the next shell. But the
particular detached bit of Dormer was listening and listening for
something else. Watching and watching, too, all those faces under
tin helmets, and just above gas-mask wallets, all so alike under
those conditions that it seemed as difficult to pick out one man from
another as one mule from another. Listening for one man to say “I

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New Mathematical Cuneiform Texts 1st

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ISSN 2196-8810 ISSN 2196-8829 (electronic)

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2.3 Reconstructions of Factorization Algorithms on Three Seleucid Tablet Fragments 76

5.4.3 IM 54559. A Hand Copy of the Tablet 210

7.1.10 # 9. Four Partners. A System of Linear Equations 280

1.2 Table B (Babylon). Fragments of a Seleucid Many-Place Table of Reciprocals, with n

1.2.1 BM 35568. A List of Squares of Many-Place Regular Sexagesimal Numbers

Fig. 1.1.1. BM 35568, hand copy.

1.2.3 Table R: A Reconstructed Common Ancestor to Tables B, U, and S

fragment ## preserved lines on obv./rev. missing lines extra lines

IA BM 34577 32-48, 57-66 42

line r s n rec. n Table U Table S Table V

He woke to the slow jolting of the train as it slowed up in smoky

The Division now proceeded to train for the coming offensive.

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