Tsinghua bamboo slips decimal multiplication table
Tabla de multiplicar decimal de las tablillas Tsinghua
- Date
- c. 305 BCE · confidence high
- Place
- Jiangling, State of Chu, Hubei, China
- Credited to
- Scribes of the State of Chu
- Field
- Knowledge & symbols
What it is
Twenty-one bamboo strips which, arranged in a grid, allow the multiplication of any pair of numbers up to 99.5 × 99.5. It is the oldest known decimal multiplication table.
The strips, radiocarbon-dated, come from a looted tomb and were donated to Tsinghua University in 2008; their exact provenance is unknown.
What it led to
- administrative calculation of taxes and areas
- proof of the maturity of decimal arithmetic in the Warring States period