Counting Sheep

Hand counting methods are prehistoric, dating back tens of thousands of years for quick and accurate herd counts.

Pastoral societies were equiped with mathematics long before writing was invented. The hand count method echos through our divisions of time, the 'Pythagorean' theorum, holy numbers, astronomy, ancient architecture, golden means, and if we had taken notice, calculus involving trapezoidal deconstruction.

This art has been long forgotten in the West. School teachers used to shame students for using their fingers to solve math problems. Little did they know about the power of hand counting. Fortunately, the method resurfaced on cuneiform tablets dug from the ruins of ancient Sumeria.

Why are there 60 seconds in a minute? 24 hours in a day? 12 months in a year? 360 degrees in a circle? 12 inches in a foot?

The method

The thumbs are used as counters/trackers. The right hand thumb counts each knuckle to 12. The left hand tracks multiples of 12, such as 5 passes on the right hand (mentally or vocally tracked) followed by the left thumb advancing one knuckle for each set of 5.

The following pictures show how the numbers are tracked, first by single multiples of 12 and then by multiples of 5×12=60.