Ishango Bone: a 20000 years old african mathematical document !!!

Ancient people used tools (instruments) for different mathematical and scientific purposes like counting, measuring and registering facts. This study is to investigate how ancient people have used tools for mathematical calculations and registrations. I will concentrate mainly on the so called Ishango bone (tool / document) which was used at 22,000 BC (this date is corrected many time by researchers).

The bone was discovered by Belgian archeologist in 1957 in a place called Ishango in a shore of Edward Lake, One of the resources of the river Nile. The bone is 10 cm long dark brown object with a tally notches made on it and tabulated in three rows (columns). A second Ishango bone was also discovered by the same person. This discovery is revealed in a conference held in Brussels specifically for this occasion at 28 February this year.

A discussion about Ishango bone is still going on. One group of researchers thinks that the bone has shown that ancient African people in that area at that ancient time had some knowledge of mathematics . Other researchers have argued that the bone is just a historical document. It could be some sort of calendar according to the second group of researchers .

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See : A Sy and T Tinker “Bury Pacioli in Africa: A Bookkeeper’s Reification of Accountancy” page 115

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