Before Pythagoras:
The Culture of Old Babylonian Mathematics
Extended dates: November 12, 2010 - January 23, 2011
School tablet with multiplication table
B6063 (obverse).
Image by University of
Pennsylvania Museum. All rights reserved.
B6063 (reverse).
Image by University of
Pennsylvania Museum. All rights reserved.
University of Pennsylvania Museum B6063
Old Babylonian Period (19th-17th century BCE), Nippur?
University of Pennsylvania Babylonian Expedition, 1893-1896
Over the past century assyriologists have come to recognize four principal types of Old Babylonian school tablets, called Types I, II, III, and IV, which were employed in the scribal training both in the Sumerian language and in mathematics. Type III tablets were evidently demonstrations of a student scribe's acquired skill. They are small, and relatively narrow, hence their Sumerian name imgidda ("long tablet"). The cuneiform script is practiced and elegant. The end of the text on the reverse is often marked by a neat horizontal line, and may be followed by the name of the scribe and the date; this example is signed "long tablet of Gan-Gal."