Counting with fingers up to 9999. The digital numeration, from ancient times to the Renaissance (Q2929571)

This book is a comprehensive survey of ``digital numeration'', which is the representation of numbers from \(1\) to \(9999\) by flexing in a certain manner the fingers of one or of both hands. It is first described in an extant written source in 725 in \textit{De temporum ratione} by the Venerable Bede. It also shows up in a work with uncertain authorship ascribed to Bede, \textit{De loquela per gestum digitorum et temporum ratione}. Bede describes a well-established practice of unknown origin, but of remarkable uniformity. While it cannot be established whether it was in use in ancient Egypt, it was certainly used in ancient Greece, where we find allusions in the works of Aristophanes, Plutarch, Herodotus. Much more numerous are the allusions in Latin, in the works of Ovid, Seneca, Pliny the Elder, Quintilian, Juvenal, Saint Jerome, Julius Firmicus Maternus, Augustin, Macrobius, Martianus Capella. Both during the Middle Ages and later, it is mentioned in Europe, by Fibonacci, Nicholas Rhabdas, and Luca Pacioli, sometimes with a finger symbolism that differs slightly from that of Bede. In the Arab world, a certain al-Maswili, and others, quoted by \textit{C. Pellat} [Textes arabes relatifs à la dactylonomie. Paris: Maisonneuve et Larose (1977)], mentions the same manner of representing numbers as Bede. The question regarding a common origin is raised.NEWLINENEWLINEThe text also surveys the little that is known about the way one could compute with one's fingers, as well as the representations on stone, on mosaics, or in paintings of people whose hands make gestures corresponding to numbers. These start with a merchant in Ostia, making the eight sign, contain various Roman tombs, and end with paintings of Jesus or Saints making the signs of two or six.