History of ancient numeral systems

Number systems have progressed from the use of fingers and tally marks, perhaps more than 40,000 years ago, to the use of sets of glyphs able to represent any conceivable number efficiently. The earliest known unambiguous notations for numbers emerged in Mesopotamia about 5000 or 6000 years ago.

This article is not about the history of numbers, but rather about the history of numerals, i.e. symbols for representing numbers. See also History of the Hindu–Arabic numeral system.

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