From the Akkadian period we have a wealth of records recorded in cuneiform—that is, as imprints of a wedge-shaped tool on clay tablets that were subsequently baked.
In Akkadian arithmetic the digits from one to nine were recorded using the corresponding numbers of vertical impressions of the stylus, while multiples of 10 up to 50 involved repetitions of a horizontal wedge shape. A different vertical stroke was used to denote the number 60, and higher numbers were expressed as combinations of 60, 10, and units. Thus the number 144 would be written with the symbol for 60 repeated twice, the symbol for 10, repeated twice and a cluster of four vertical strokes.
By clustering symbols, the Babylonians went on to invent what may have been the first positional notation. While the symbol for 60 repeated three times close together stood for three times 60, or 180, the three identical symbols written with a space after the first of them would be interpreted as the square of 60 added to twice 60, or 3,720. To reduce the possibility of misreading, a special symbol for the required space, consisting of two short oblique wedge impressions, was introduced in about 300 B.C.
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