Attic Greek Numerals

These ionic or alphabetical numerals were simply a cipher system in which nine greek letters were assigned to the numbers 1 9 nine more to the numbers 10 90 and nine more to 100 900.

Attic greek numerals.

Who described the system in his writings. The ionian greek system of enumeration was a little more sophisticated than the egyptian though it was non positional. The earliest alphabet related system of numerals used with the greek letters was a set of the acrophonic attic numerals operating much like roman numerals which derived from this scheme with the following formula. The attic numerals are a symbolic number notation used by the ancient greeks they were also known as herodianic numerals because they were first described in a 2nd century manuscript by herodian.

According to the classification of archaic greek alphabets which was introduced by adolf kirchhoff the old attic system belongs to the eastern or blue type as it uses the letters ψ and χ with their classical values ps and kʰ unlike western or red alphabets which used χ for. Five ten hundred thousand and ten thousand. Or as acrophonic numerals from acrophony because the basic symbols derive from the first letters of the ancient greek words that the symbols represented. Second is the milesian alexandrian ionic or alphabetic numerals.

In greek the h sound is found at the start of words and was dropped altogether in some dialects. The greeks had two number systems. A simple and useful attic greek numerals converter with the attic numerals list to find the attic of the numerals. Thousands were often indicated by placing a bar at the left of the corresponding numeral.

First is the acrophonic or herodian or attic numerals. This is the system we discuss. Attic numbers were largely used for cardinal numbers for counting not for ordering and were not used to. Like the attic and egyptian systems it was also decimal.

Attic refers to the greek territory of attica while herodianic refers to aelius herodianus a grammarian of the 2 nd century a d. Attic numbers were later replaced by the ionian numbers even in attica. The attic or herodianic system of numerals was the first numeral system used in ancient greece. This system which arose around 500 b c.

This numerals were used by the ancient greeks. By the alexandrian age the greek attic system of enumeration was being replaced by the ionian or alphabetic numerals. Attic greek like other dialects was originally written in a local variant of the greek alphabet. The arithmetic operation in attic numbers seems to be difficult but the division is calculated as we calculate today.

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