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Ishango Bone

Ishango bone

The Ishango bone is an archaeological artifact bearing groups of notches arranged in three columns. It was discovered in the Congo and is roughly 20,000 to 25,000 years old. The middle column contains groups of 3, 6, 4, 8, 10, 5, 5, 7 marks (OEIS A100000). The arrangement has been interpreted as a counting device, but the presence of notches alone does not establish their mathematical purpose (Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences 2018b). The artifact is preserved at the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences in Brussels (Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences 2018a).

See also

Lebombo Bone

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References

africanMathematics. "An Introduction to the Unit." https://web.archive.org/web/20080321015845/http://everyschool.org/u/logan/culturalmath/afmathematicians.htm.Free University of Brussels. "www.ishango.be." https://web.archive.org/web/20080505042418/http://www.ishango.be/.Huylebrouck, D. "About the Ishango Artifact." https://web.archive.org/web/20040813152402/http://etopia.sintlucas.be:80/~dhuylebrouck/Ishango_web/Ishango_web.htm.Joseph, G. G. The Crest of the Peacock: Non-European Roots of Mathematics. London, England: Penguin, 1992.Pletser, V. and Huylebrouck, D. "The Ishango Artifact: The Missing Base 12 Link." Proc. Katachi Univ. Symmetry Congress (KUS2), Paper C11, Forma 14-4, Tsukuba Univ., Japan, pp. 339-346, 18 Nov. 1999.Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences. "Archaeological Objects." 2018a. https://ishango.naturalsciences.be/en/en-ishango-13.html.Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences. "Bones with Notches." 2018b. https://ishango.naturalsciences.be/en/en-ishango-19.html.Sloane, N. J. A. Sequence A100000 in "The On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences."Zaslavsky, C. Africa Counts. New York: Lawrence Hill Books, 1973.

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Ishango Bone

Cite this as:

Weisstein, Eric W. "Ishango Bone." From MathWorld--A Wolfram Resource. https://mathworld.wolfram.com/IshangoBone.html

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