1,1

The other two columns on the rod are: 11, 13, 17, 19 and 11, 21, 19, 9. See "Deciphering the Bone" at the first Brussels Museum for Natural Sciences link.

This appears to be the oldest known mathematical object.

"The bone owes its name to the site where it was discovered. Ishango is in the Congo, 15 km from of the Equator, on the bank of the Edward lake. This large African lake, one of the sources of the Nile, is 77 km long and 42 km wide. The area is close to the Virunga National Park and the Congo-Uganda border." - Brussels Museum for Natural Sciences

G. G. Joseph, The Crest of the Peacock: Non-European Roots of Mathematics, Penguin Books, London, 1992.

D. Olivastro, Ancient Puzzles, Chap. 1 "The First Etches" pp. 7-30 Bantam Books NY 1993.

V. Pletser and D. Huylebrouck, The Ishango artifact: the missing base 12 link, Proc. Katachi Univ. Symmetry Congress (KUS2), Paper C11, Tsukuba Univ., Japan, 18 Nov. 1999; Forma 14-4, 339-346.

Claudia Zaslavsky, Africa Counts, Lawrence Hill Books, New York, 1973.

D. Huylebrouck, "L'Afrique, berceau des mathematiques", in Mathematiques exotiques pp. 46-50, Dossier No. 47, Pour La Science 2005 Paris.

M. Grousson, "Depuis quand compte-t-on ?" in 'Science & Vie', pp. 58-61, No. 1080 2007 Mondadori/Excelsior Publications Paris.

Brussels Museum for Natural Sciences, The Ishango Bone Exhibition.

Brussels Museum for Natural Sciences, The Ishango Bone.

Free University of Brussels, Ishango site

D. Huylebrouck, About the Ishango Artifact.

C. K. Caldwell, The Prime Glossary, Ishango bone

Wikipedia, Ishango bone

Sequence in context: A136612 A004546 A154890 this_sequence A083682 A021278 A143940

Adjacent sequences: A099997 A099998 A099999 this_sequence A100001 A100002 A100003

fini,full,nonn,nice

Dirk Huylebrouck (Huylebrouck(AT)gmail.com), Nov 07 2004