Medieval Dactylonomy, Finger Counting

Finger Counting, or Dactylonomy, is the art of counting along one's fingers. Complex systems of dactylonomy were used in the ancient world. This counting was in use in Persia in the first century AD, and may have originated there. It continued in the Islamic world through the Middle Ages. Shown here is a 1494 woodcut from Luca Pacioli's modification of Bede's finger calculus in Summa de arithmetica, geometrica, proportioni et proportionalita. Unlike Bede's original method, Pacioli modified the order of the handshapes for greater symmetry. The handshapes for 1 and 10 on the left hand therefore correspond to the 100s and 1000s on the right

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1494 Counting Digit Luca Math Numeric Numerical Pacioli

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