In a previous ask you answered, there was a mention of how the number '3600' is translated as 'totality.' I'm so curious! Do we know why this number was chosen by the Sumerians to signify *all* or it is just an arbitrary big number?
Hello! (Here’s the prior ask.) 3600 in Sumerian is anything but an arbitrary number! But to explain why, I have to give a little more information on the Sumerian number system.
In our era, we use a base-ten number system, where the big, round numbers (place values) are ten, a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand, etc. Sumerians used a different system, with alternating base 10 and base 6. So their first round number was 10 (u 𒌋), but the next was 10x6 = 60 (ngesh 𒐕), then 60x10 = 600 (ngeshu 𒐞), then 600x6 = 3600 (shar 𒊹). The system continued on up, with sharu 36,000, shargal 216,000, etc.
Why would they use a number system like this? Well, it has a major advantage over our system, which is that 60 has a lot of factors. You can divide it by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20 and 30 - very useful for dividing something up into any number of groups you want. By comparison, 100 can only be divided by 2, 5, 10, 20, 25 and 50, a paltry set of options!
For most people, it’s rare they’d encounter a number as big as 3600, so it was useful as a term for “big number”, eventually coming to mean “all, totality”. Other ancient languages did similarly, as in ancient Greek, which used μυριάς “ten thousand” to mean “a whole lot, more than anyone needs to count” (and the origin of our word myriad). In English we often use “a million” this way, with “one in a million” meaning “a very tiny chance”.
Thanks for your question!
