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

First Ishango bone

The bone is a 10 centimeter long and colored as dark brown object. It has a small sharp piece of quartz fixed at its end. It was supposed that this piece was used for writing. The bone is like a three-row table, each row have a set of tally marks. The marks (notches) are grouped together in the following way:


In the first row the notches forms the numbers 11, 21, 19, and 9. This will be read from right to left.

In the second row the notches forms the numbers 3, 6, 4, 8, 10, 5, 5, and 7. And in the last row we see the numbers 11, 13, 17 and 19

Making notches in bones is not a coincidence. Similar notches have been discovered in the bone of Lebombo (circa 35,000 BC). This is an older bone and is considered as the first known mathematical artifact. It consists of 29 notches which cut into it.

The Lebombo bone considered as a calendar because sticks calendars still used by Bushmen in Namibia (South Africa). Also in other parts of Africa, for example Sudan and Egypt, bone tools are discovered.

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