Counting Boards and the Salamis Tablet
Counting Boards and the Salamis Tablet
The use of the abacus was pre-dated by the use of counting boards. A counting board had grooves along which one could slide beads or stones. The beads or stones did not have holes in them but only grooves along which they moved on the counting board. "The oldest surviving counting board is the Salamis tablet (originally thought to be a gaming board), used by the Babylonians circa 300 B.C., discovered in 1846 on the island of Salamis."2 "The oldest surviving counting board is the Salamis tablet (originally thought to be a gaming board), used by the Babylonians circa 300 B.C., discovered in 1846 on the island of Salamis. "2 Ancient Counting Boards is a Web site that further chronicles the history and use of counting boards, the Salamis tablet(about 300 B.C.) and the improvements of the early counting tablets, how they evolved into the first Roman abacus.
Around 1000 AD the Aztec peoples invented a device similar to an abacus which used corn kernels threaded through wooden frames. This was known as a Nepohualtzitzin.3 An Aztec abacus would have seven "beads" by thirteen columns5. This abacus dated to around 900 A.D.6.
In an article attributed to Mr. Du Feibao1 the abacus was invented in China having already been "mentioned in a book of the Eastern Han Dynasty, namely Supplementary Notes of the Art of Figures written by Xu Yue about the year 190 A.D." It was during the Song Dynasty (960-1127) that Zhang Zeduan at Qingming Festival painted his famous long scroll, Riverside Scences, picturing an abacus lying beside an account book.1 The abacus was known to the Chinese as suan-pan. 3
Mr. Du Feibao states in his article that the abacus was introduced into Japan during the Ming Dynasty(1368-1644).
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