Script

Origin of the Base-10 Counting System

by Justin Vance

The exact origin of the base-10 system is unknown, though the current numeral system was used sometime before 400 CE and not before 300 CE in Hindu texts from India, written in Hindu script rather than today's Latin script for digits 0-9. However, base-10 counting systems date almost as far back as human history. About 3000 BCE, Egyptian records show use of a base-10 system. The main difference was that until the development of the Hindu-Arabic system, there was no representation for 0, so a new symbol was used every time a new decimal place was reached. Much like the Roman numerals, the Egyptian records used tick marks for 1s and a different symbol for 10s. So, though today's numeral system is much different than the first base-10 system, the creation of the base-10 system, using 10 fingers, isn't hard to guess at.

The following audio is a reading of the legend of base 10, as written by C.M. Hall in 2006:

"A long, long time ago, before we had a written numerical system, there lived a king. The king ruled a land that was rich and fertile and produced an abundance of rice. The people of the land were required to pay taxes to the king in the form of sacks of rice. Once a month, on the first day of that month, the people would arrive very early to the castle with many sacks of rice. They would stand in line to deliver the sacks into a large pile. The king, being selfish, wanted an accurate count of the number of rice sacks he collected, this way he could always know how much he owned. The priests thought and thought for days but could not come up with an answer. Finally, as they were walking past a village they stumbled upon the answer. A young boy was counting pebbles. After he had used all of his fingers, he would make a mark in the dirt and start all over again. This gave the priest an idea for the king. They rushed back to tell the king their news. On the day that the rice was to be counted, three priests stood by the king. As the farmers started to bring their rice, the first priest began counting on his fingers. When he ran out of fingers, the second priest would hold up one finger. This symbolized the number of times that the first priest had run out of fingers. On a good day, the second priest would run out of fingers and the third would have to begin counting. He could hold up a finger every time the second priest could count no further. And on and on it went for the day. At the end of the day, they would capture finger counts in the form of special symbols, one for each priest and a different symbol for the number of raised fingers. Legend has it that this was the start of the base 10 system."