Etruscan numerals

Etruscan numerals are the words and phrases for numbers of the Etruscan language, and the numerical digits used to write them.

Digits

The Etruscan numerical system included the following digits with known values:

{|class="wikitable" style="text-align:right"

!Digit

| 15x15px

!Unicode

| 𐌠

| 𐌡

| 𐌢

| 𐌣

| 15x15px

!Value

| style="width:2em;" | 1

| style="width:2em;" | 5

| style="width:2em;" | 10

| style="width:2em;" | 50

| style="width:2em;" | 100

(With the proper Unicode font installed, the first two rows should look the same.)

Examples are known of larger numbers, but it is unknown which digit represents which numeral. Most numbers were written with "additive notation", namely by writing digits that added to the desired number, from higher to lower value. Thus the number '87', for example, would be written 50 + 10 + 10 + 10 + 5 + 1 + 1 = "𐌣𐌢𐌢𐌢𐌡𐌠𐌠".)

The same pattern was used for 27, 28, 29, 37, 38, 39, etc. In contrast, the Etruscans generally wrote "𐌠𐌠𐌠𐌠" for 4 (alone and in 14, 24, 34, etc.), "𐌢𐌢𐌢𐌢" for 40, and "𐌡𐌠𐌠", "𐌡𐌠𐌠𐌠", "𐌡𐌠𐌠𐌠𐌠" for 7, 8, and 9 alone. (In that they were unlike the Romans, who would write 4 as "IV", 9 as "IX", 40 as "XL".)

Tally marks

Another hypothesis, which seems to be more accepted today, is that the Etrusco-Roman numerals actually derive from notches on tally sticks, which continued to be used by Italian and Dalmatian shepherds into the 19th century.

However, that assignment was challenged in 2011 by a thorough analysis of 91 Etruscan gambling dice, from many different ages and locations, with numbers marked by dots ("pips"); and a lone pair of dice (the "Tuscanian dice" or "dice of Toscanella") with the numbers written out as words.

Mathematically, there are 30 ways to place the numbers 1–6 on the faces of a die; or 15 if one counts together numberings that are mirror images of each other. These 15 possibilities are identified by the pairs of numbers that occur on opposite faces:

: (1–2, 3–4, 5–6), (1–2, 3–5, 4–6), (1–2, 3–6, 4–5),

: (1–3, 2–4, 5–6), (1–3, 2–5, 4–6), (1–3, 2–6, 4–5),

: (1–4, 2–3, 5–6), (1–4, 2–5, 3–6), (1–4, 2–6, 3–5),

: (1–5, 2–3, 4–6), (1–5, 2–4, 3–6), (1–5, 2–6, 3–4),

: (1–6, 2–3, 4–5), (1–6, 2–4, 3–5), (1–6, 2–5, 3–4)

For unknown reasons, Roman dice generally used the last pattern, (1–6, 2–5, 3–4), in which every pair of opposite faces adds to 7; a tradition that continued in Europe to the present day, and has become the standard all over the world. However, among the 91 Etruscan dice from many different locations, those from 500 BCE or earlier used only the first pattern, (1–2, 3–4, 5–6), in which the opposite faces differ by 1. Those from 350 BCE and later, on the other hand, used the Roman (1–6, 2–5, 3–4) pattern. Between 500 and 350 BCE, the latter gradually replaced the former at all Etruscan sites covered.

Indo-European hypothesis

There is a debate that has been carried out about a possible Indo-European origin of the Etruscan number words.

L. Bonfante (1990) claimed that what the numerals "show, beyond any shadow of a doubt, is the non-Indo-European nature of the Etruscan language".

Conversely, other scholars, including F. Adrados, A. Carnoy, M. Durante, V. Georgiev, A. Morandi and M. Pittau, have posited a "perfect fit" between the ten Etruscan numerals and words in various Indo-European languages (not always numerical or with any apparent connection), such as θu 'one' and Sanskrit tvad 'thou', zal 'two' and German zwei 'two', ci 'three' and Iranian sih 'three' (from proto-Indo-European *tréyes, which is not a match to Etruscan [ki]), huθ 'four' and Latin quattuor 'four', etc.

References

External links

https://web.archive.org/web/20050405165439/http://users.tpg.com.au/etr/etrusk/tex/grammar.html#num
https://www.mysteriousetruscans.com/language.html
Arjan Verweij – Gallery of Ancient Dice – Ivory and Bone Cubic Dice