On the Use of Coptic Numerals in Egypt in the 16 Th Century

ON THE USE OF COPTIC NUMERALS IN EGYPT IN THE 16 TH CENTURY Mutsuo KAWATOKO* I. Introduction According to the researches, it is assumed that the culture of the early Islamic period in Egypt was very similar to the contemporary Coptic (Qibti)/ Byzantine (Rumi) culture. This is most evident in their language, especially in writing. It was mainly Greek and Coptic which adopted the letters deriving from Greek and Demotic. Thus, it was normal in those days for the official documents to be written in Greek, and, the others written in Coptic.(1) Gold, silver and copper coins were also minted imitating Byzantine Solidus (gold coin) and Follis (copper coin) and Sassanian Drahm (silver coin), and they were sometimes decorated with the representation of the religious legends, such as "Allahu", engraved in a blank space. In spite of such situation, around A. H. 79 (698), Caliph 'Abd al-Malik b. Marwan implemented the coinage reformation to promote Arabisation of coins, and in A. H. 87 (706), 'Abd Allahi b. 'Abd al-Malik, the governor- general of Egypt, pursued Arabisation of official documentation under a decree by Caliph Walid b. 'Abd al-Malik.(2) As a result, the Arabic letters came into the immediate use for the coin inscriptions and gradually for the official documents. However, when the figures were involved, the Greek or the Coptic numerals were used together with the Arabic letters.(3) The Abjad Arabic numerals were also created by assigning the numerical values to the Arabic alphabetic (abjad) letters just like the Greek numerals, but they did not spread very much.(4) It was in the latter half of the 8th century that the Indian numerals, generally regarded as the forerunners of the Arabic numerals, were introduced to the Islamic world. About 770, the Sanskrit-Devanagari figures, derived from the Gvalior figures, were introduced to Baghdad. Muhammad b. Musa al-Khwarizmi (ca. 780-846) recognized the advantage of such numerals and * Chief Researcher, The Middle Eastern Culture Center in Japan 58 ORIENT ON THE USE OF COPTIC NUMERALS IN EGYPT IN THE 16 TH CENTURY tried to spread their use among the scientists, but the dominance of abjad continued.(5) Later, the Arabic numerals were created from the Indian prototypes and then, they were divided into the East and the West Arabic numerals.(6) Although the former did not come into the popular use, the latter, which came to be known as Ghubar or the dust numerals, became very popular in Maghrib and Spain. By 850, the West Arabic numerals were introduced to Christian Europe via Islamic Spain and became the direct ancestor of our current Arabic numerals.(7) II. Examples for Use of Numerals During the early Islamic period, the Greek and the Coptic numerals were often found in the documents of papyrus and parchments. Especially, the Coptic numerals are more commonly found, as the Coptic documents are the overwhelming majority among all the remaining written documents during the early Islamic period. Although the use of the Greek numerals was allowed under the decree, ,mentioned before, which enforced the use of the Arabic letters in official documents, it appears that the Greek numerals were soon replaced by the Coptic numerals. This can be implicitly observed in that the Coptic numerals, not the Greek numerals, were written on the glass weights from the 'Abbasid period. On these weights, the Coptic numerals were chosen to indicate weights(8) instead of the Arabic letters. Even in the 10th century, there are many examples in which the years and other numeric information were given with the Coptic numerals in the Arabic documents. Upon the ostracon excavated from Edofu, dated A. H. 289 (A. D. 902), the quantity of jars known as qadus and the year were indicated by the Coptic numerals, and in the case of the ostracon dated A. H. 320 (A. D. 932), the year was also given with the Coptic numerals.(9) By contrast, the Arabic and the abjad numerals were not too generally used. When the needs arose to indicate numbers, such as the year, in Arabic, then the Arabic letters were used. According to the Geniza Documents, the Hebrew or the Coptic numerals were used to indicate numbers in the 11th century.(10) And the use of the Coptic numerals in commercial transactions continued for a long time despite the fact that they were not practical for calculation. This may well be due to the highly active role played by the Copts in the commercial activities, Vol. XXVIII 1992 59 as been pointed out by Goitein.(11) In Ibn Bassam's book on al-Hisba, "Nihayat al-Rutba" written before A. H. 844 (A. D. 1440), it is stated that "the scale on a beam balance must be indicated in Arabic (numerals) on one side and in Coptic (numerals) on the other side."(12) In addition, the Arabic document Fragment 4, excavated at the Akoris site and assumed to be of the Mamluk period, proves the continuation of the use of the Coptic numerals.(13) There are various opinions about the use of Coptic as a spoken language. However, as a written language it seems to have died around the 11th century.(14) Nevertheless, the use of the Coptic numerals for indicating years, pages and chapters of the manuscripts and the cryptograms, etc. continued for a long time.(15) Although I have not yet examined all the Arabic documnts, it seems that the Coptic numerals were not used in the documents after A. H. 900 (ca. A. D. 1500). However, in a lecture given by G. Maspero, the Director- general of Dar al-Athar, it was pointed out that the Coptic language had been read, spoken and written in Upper Egypt up until the early period of the Ottoman rule in the beginning of the 16th century, and that some documents (kitabat) from this period still exist.(16) Although I have not had the opportunity to read such documents, they indeed appear to be written with the Coptic letters but may be highly exceptional. It is not known whether or not these documents contained the Coptic numerals. Apart from these Coptic documents, it is generally accepted that, from that time on, the numbers came to be written only in the Arabic letters, Arabic numerals, or the Siyaqat letters(17) of Turkey. III. The al-Tur Documents As a result of nine seasons of the excavations at the al-Tur site on the Sinai Peninsula,(18) we discovered approximately 1,400 pieces of documents including small fragments. The greater part of these documents dates from the first half of the 16th century and is written in Arabic, with a small number of exception written in Greek, Coptic or Ottoman Turkish. Most documents are concerned with commercial affairs, such as the letters of traders and the accounts, and others are poems and the fragments of Koranic or Biblical manuscripts. Of these documents the commercial letters and statements of accounts 60 ORIENT ON THE USE OF COPTIC NUMERALS IN EGYPT IN THE 16 TH CENTURY are written with the Arabic scripts and some odd symbols which resemble the Greek or the Siyaqat scripts. It took me some time to realize that these odd symbols were the Coptic numerals.(19) And then, I successfully discovered that, in the al-Tur Document No. 145, there was the number "25" written with both the Arabic letters and the Coptic cursive numerals (abuqti) on the same spot for the same commodity. This made me more confident that the odd symbols are the Coptic numerals. TM-145 Private commercial letter, Paper, 9.7cm×19.8cm. (Pl. 1) TM-145 (Recto) TM-145 (Verso) Fig. 1 [Transliteration of TM-145] (Recto) Vol. XXVIII 1992 61 1-lam-mim(20) 2-al-Hamdu li-llahi Rabbi al-'Alamin 3-alladhi yu'allam bihi al-'amm al-'aziz Nimr sallamahu Allahu ta'ala wa alladhi nu'arrifuka bihi'arrafaka/ 4-Allahu ta,ala kull khayr i'raf al-'amm anna ya Abu Nasr Allahi tu'ti Sutita/5 -illa ashrafayni(21) dhahab wa ta'khudh lil-'iyal khamsa (himms(22)) ma't wa khamsin nisf(23)/ 6-wa khirqat(24) bi hawashi(25) min kull bud tursilhum ma' kull man hadar wa innaka/ 7-ta'khudh min Yuhanna fulus khamsat wa 'ishrin nisf al-hisab/ 8-25 9-baynana wa baynaka wa tusallim 'ala al-Hajj Khidr(26) wa arsalna lahu/ 10-qa'imat wa tuhasibuhu bi ma'rifatika fa inna ma(27) tawakkuli/ 11-aslan 'ala Allahi wa 'alayka fi al-hisab wa tursil/ 12-tu'arrifna wa tutayyb khatiruhu wa in sha' Allahu yiji 'Isa/ 13-wa yuqabil Qibali wa tusallim 'ala al-Sharif(28) Nasr/ 14-wa 'alayka kathir al-salam/ mim 'indi Sulayman 15-bin Kharifa (Verso) yusallam li yad al-'amm al-'aziz Nimr wa Jirjis sallmahu Allahu(29)/ [Translation of TM-145] (Recto) Praise be to Allah, Lord of human beings! This is (a letter) to inform (my) dear uncle Nimr, -may the great Allah save him!-, and also to inform you may the great Allah tell you all good things!-, to inform the uncle, oh! abu Nasr Allahi, "Give two Gold Ashrafi coins to Sutita (Sutayta) and take 550 half coins for children." And, in any case, send young sheep (khirfa) in my enclosures by anyone who will come (to me). You get money of 25 nisf (half) from Yuhanna, then we will settle accounts with you. And salute al-Hajj Khidr, and (tell him that) we sent the list to him, then you can settle accounts in your way, for, my trust in accounts is originally on Allah and you.

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