Carrying bricks and bundling reed in theory and practice
type: Item
instance of: scholarly article
title: Carrying bricks and bundling reed in theory and practice
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-98361-1_2
author: Wolfgang Heimpel
publication date: 2024-10-16T00:00:00Z
review text: This chapter of a book [\textit{K. Chemla} (ed.) et al., Cultures of computation and quantification in the ancient world. Numbers, measurements, and operations in documents from Mesopotamia, China and South Asia. Cham: Springer (2022; Zbl 1515.01004)] discusses two facets of the administration of labor from the time period of ca. 2100 BC to 1600 BC. Sources are on the one hand administrative records from the kingdom of Ur in the 21st century BC, on the other hand, mathematical texts written between ca. 1800 to 1600 BC. The two corpora concern the production and transport of bricks, and the harvesting, bundeling and carrying of reeds, branches of trees, grasses etc. Both activities were an important part of economic management. Labor performed in brick transport was managed by means of norms how much a worker can carry, and over what distances. In addition, different sizes (and weights) of bricks were in use. Knowing all these parameters enabled administrators to calculate the size of a work force needed for a specific task. Similarly, reed and other plant parts were transported and stored. These could not so easily be measured. Therefore, different kinds of ``bundles'' were applied in their measurement; not all are completely understood. The author edits various tablets as examples of the calculations, mostly from administrative contexts but also excerpts from mathematical texts which concern the economic activities just described. The mathematical texts simplify the tasks to be performed on reed bundles by using round numbers. They calculate the volume of a truncated cone (by a false formula) which is called a reed bundle. In an administrative text, a median diameter and the height of a reed bundle is mentioned; the author assumes that the volume was found by converting the truncated cone into a cylinder. To translate these texts the author recalculates the procedures with smaller measures so as to be able to avoid too many fractions. For brick management, mathemat…
reviewed by: Hermann Hunger
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 01A05
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 01A17
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 01A25
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 01A32
zbMATH DE Number: 7927214
zbMATH Keywords: measurements
zbMATH Keywords: mesopotamian mathematics
zbMATH Keywords: eonomic administration
MaRDI profile type: Publication
cites work: Q4947974
cites work: A remarkable collection of Babylonian mathematical texts. Manuscripts in the Schøyen Collection: Cuneiform Texts I
cites work: Q5833980
cites work: La mesure des volumes d'après une tablette inédite du British Museum.
description: scientific article; zbMATH DE number 7927214