Romana Computatio is Perhaps the Earliest Extant Treatise on Finger Reckoning

688 CE
System of finger reckoning
Image Source: penelope.uchicago.edu

Reproduction from penelope.uchicago.edu of J. Hilton Turner, "Roman Elementary Mathematics: The Operations," The Classical Journal, 47 (1951) 63-74 and 106-108.

A manuscript entitled Romana computatio, dated 688, appears to be the earliest extant document on ancient Roman techniques of finger reckoning. It was probably used as a source by the Venerable Bede for his De tempore ratione liber (725).

Sherman, Writing on Hands. Memory and Knowledge in Early Modern Europe (2000) 28.

Timeline Themes

Mathematics / Logic
Survival of Information / Philology
Data Processing / Computing