The Romans also used a dot (.) to represent the fraction 1/12 and an S to represent ½. The Romans would place a line above a letter to multiple its value by 1000. The Romans used seven letters from the Latin alphabet to represent 1, 5, 10, 50, 100, 500, and 1000. The Romans The Romans had a base 10 number system but not a truly positional system such as the Babylonian, Maya, and Hindu-Arabic Systems. In this manner, the Maya base 20 system was very similar to the Babylonian base 60 number system. Above that row would be the value of 20 squared. The same nineteen symbols would be placed in the row directly above the unit to act as a multiple of 20. The Maya had nineteen different symbols made from the shell, dot, and bar and placed these symbols in the unit row on the bottom. The Maya had a shell shape to represent zero, a dot to represent the numeric value of one, and a bar that represented five. This was my first exposure to a base 20 number system. While the Babylonians wrote their numbers horizontally from right to left, the Maya wrote their numbers vertically from the bottom upward. The Maya The Maya had a positional number system just like the Babylonians. I believe that it would benefit my students to learn about these number systems in addition to their architectural, religious, and political achievements. Needless to say, I was very interested in learning about the Babylonian, Maya, Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Chinese, Hebrew, and Hindu-Arabic number systems. Why this Topic?: As a social studies teacher, I am responsible for teaching about ancient civilizations. Comparing and Contrasting Ancient Number Systems Question: How are ancient number systems and symbols of different civilizations similar and different?
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