The Early Roots of Babylonian Mathematics. II. Metrological Relations in a Group of Semi-Pictographic Tablets of the Jemdet Nasr Type, Probably from Uruk-Warka

摘要

The present work is a sequel to the introductory paper ERBM I: A method for partial decipherment, through mathematical and metrological analysis, of proto-Sumerian and proto-Elamite semi-pictographic inscriptions. In that preliminary presentation of the results, only a very limited number of proto-Sumerian and proto-Elamite texts from varying sources were used, in order to support and illuminate the arguments. In the present paper, therefore, a first attempt will be made to make a systematic investigation, by means of the new mathematical-metrological method, of a whole group of texts with a common origin, and therefore, hopefully, with so many internal similarities that one can begin to discern a pattern in the organization and the contents of the texts.