Herodotus mentioned abacus in his “History” written in the 5th century B.C. Writing about Egypt traditions, he pointed out that while Hellenes wrote and count from left to right, the Egyptians did it from right to left. It was the first written evidence about the abacus. Undoubtedly, Herodotus wrote about it, because in his times there were no other methods to count. Abacus was known not only in Ancient Egypt. Probably it was also known in Babylon. And with the help of Phoenician merchants appeared in Greece.

It had happened long before the Herodotus times. According to Jamblichos (the 3rd century) book “The Life of Pythagorus”, the great geometrician used abacus in the 5th century B.C. He tried to teach his pupils numbers and geometry with the help of abacus. But probably abacus was not used as a counting board by Pythagorus, because numbers didn't possess abstract meaning in his philosophy, and so they had only geometrical interpretation.

The earliest picture of abacus can be seen on the big vase made by Greek masters in the 3rd century B.C. This vase has one figure which seems to be a Persian king's Darius I treasurer keeping track of tribute being brought to him with the help of abacus. A figure of treasurer is not accidental, because abacus was used then just for financial calculations.

Abacus (Greek vase)

The oldest surviving abacus is the Salamis tablet discovered in 1846 near the Greece island of Salamis.

It is a slab of white marble measuring 105cm in length, 75cm in width and 4.5cm thick, on which are 5 groups of markings. In the middle of the right side of the tablet there is a set of 5 parallel lines equally divided by a horizontal line, capped with a semi-circle at the intersection of the left vertical line and the single horizontal line. To the left from these lines is a wide space with a vertical crack dividing it. And to the left from this crack is another group of eleven parallel lines, again divided into two sections by a horizontal line with the semi-circle at the intersection with the right vertical line; the third, sixth and ninth of these lines are marked with a cross where they intersect with the horizontal line.

Salamis tablet

Drachmaes and talents were counted in the columns of the left side. Columns had values: 1, 5, 10, 50, 100, 500, 1000, 5000 drachmaes, and the last two columns had values 1 and 5 talents. Small coins (halks and obols) were counted in the right part. The value of the each next column doubled: 1, 2, 4, 8 halks (8 halks was equal to 1 obol). The “cost” of the columns was marked with carved Greek letters next to them.

There is very interesting fragment from a poem of the Greek writer Polibius (201 B.C.-120 B.C.). He compared court people with pebbles, because their power or weakness depend on the king's hand and wish, as well as a pebble on the counting board either may have any value - from talent to a halk.