Book contents
- The Materiality of Numbers
- The Materiality of Numbers
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Acknowledgments
- Foreword
- Preface
- 1 Numbers in a Nutshell
- 2 Converging Perspectives on Numbers
- 3 The Brain in Numbers
- 4 Bodies and Behaviors
- 5 Language in Numbers
- 6 Global and Regional Patterns
- 7 Materiality in Numbers
- 8 Materiality in Cognition
- 9 Making Quantity Tangible and Manipulable
- 10 Tallies and Other Devices That Accumulate
- 11 Interpreting Prehistoric Artifacts
- 12 Devices That Accumulate and Group
- 13 Handwritten Notations
- 14 The Materiality of Numbers
- References
- Index
14 - The Materiality of Numbers
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 May 2023
- The Materiality of Numbers
- The Materiality of Numbers
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Acknowledgments
- Foreword
- Preface
- 1 Numbers in a Nutshell
- 2 Converging Perspectives on Numbers
- 3 The Brain in Numbers
- 4 Bodies and Behaviors
- 5 Language in Numbers
- 6 Global and Regional Patterns
- 7 Materiality in Numbers
- 8 Materiality in Cognition
- 9 Making Quantity Tangible and Manipulable
- 10 Tallies and Other Devices That Accumulate
- 11 Interpreting Prehistoric Artifacts
- 12 Devices That Accumulate and Group
- 13 Handwritten Notations
- 14 The Materiality of Numbers
- References
- Index
Summary
In Book 7 of his famous Historíai, the Greek historian Herodotus wrote about Xerxes I, the king who in 480 BCE was mounting the second Persian invasion of Greece and would shortly fight the famous Battle of Thermopylae. But first, in an exceedingly odd footnote to history, Xerxes apparently needed to count his men, so when he came to a vast coastal plain in Thrace, a region that today overlaps the modern countries of Bulgaria, Turkey, and Greece, he halted his army.
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- Information
- The Materiality of NumbersEmergence and Elaboration from Prehistory to Present, pp. 340 - 353Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023