Before Pythagoras: The Culture of Old Babylonian Mathematics

An illuminating exhibition of thirteen ancient Babylonian tablets, along with supplemental documentary material. Before Pythagoras: The Culture of Old Babylonian Mathematics reveals the highly sophisticated mathematical practice and education that flourished in Babylonia–present-day Iraq–more tha... Read more

An illuminating exhibition of thirteen ancient Babylonian tablets, along with supplemental documentary material. Before Pythagoras: The Culture of Old Babylonian Mathematics reveals the highly sophisticated mathematical practice and education that flourished in Babylonia–present-day Iraq–more than 1,000 years before the time of the Greek sages Thales and Pythagoras, with whom mathematics is traditionally said to have begun.

The tablets in the exhibition, at once beautiful and enlightening, date from the Old Babylonian Period (ca. 1900–1700 BCE). They have been assembled from three important collections: the Columbia Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University; the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology; and the Yale Babylonian Collection, Yale University.