Mapping the Earliest Paths of Place-value Numbers Across West Asia, Part One From the Late Twelfth to Early Fourteenth Centuries

Abstract

In this first of two articles, a new technique considers Hindu-Arabic numerals on medieval coins to identify the earliest paths for transmitting place-value numbers town by town and year by year. This article reveals a route from Anatolia leading to the western border of China during the late twelfth to early fourteenth centuries CE. A future article will trace a later southern path in the late fourteenth century CE. The paths skirted Phoenicia and the Southern Levant in these three centuries and deprived those areas of the economic prosperity and numerical awareness occurring in the rest of West Asia.