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The National Research Institute for Cultural Properties in Nara announced a discovery: a wooden strip containing part of Japan’s oldest known multiplication table.
The ruins of the ancient Japanese capital, Fujiwara-kyō, are in the Takadonote and Daigote areas of Kashihara City. According to the historical chronicle Nihon Seki, Fujiwara-kyō served as the capital from 694 to 710 AD, before the court moved to Nara. Fujiwara-kyō was the first Japanese capital built on a Chinese model.
What We Know About the Discovery
At the site of the Emon-fu guard office in Fujiwara-kyō’s central government district, archaeologists uncovered a wooden strip that contains part of the oldest multiplication table found in Japan.
The strip, measuring 16.2 cm by 1.2 cm, has been dated to the late 7th to early 8th century AD, Arkeonews reports.
Researchers think the table was used in government offices and other places where calculations were needed. In the early stages of the investigation, they could read only some of the numbers.
When viewed under infrared light, the following inscriptions can be seen on the wooden tablet:
9 x 9 = 81
4 x 9 = 36
6 x 8 = 48
The numbers were written in kanji, the Chinese characters used in the Japanese writing system.
The table begins with multiplication by nine. The first five equations are recorded horizontally in a single line. Because the equations are not arranged in the clear sequence typically seen in a complete multiplication table, researchers initially suggested the artifact might have been a personal calculation board.
“If the multiplication table were complete, the wooden strip with all the recorded equations would be 33 centimeters long,” said Kuniya Kuwata, chief researcher at the National Research Institute for Cultural Properties in Nara.
“At first, I thought ancient Japanese multiplication tables only had two to three equations per row, so I was surprised to find this one had many,” Kuwata added.
Previously discovered tables in Japan consisted of two to three rows. This five-row example likely corresponds to models from the Chinese Qin and Han dynasties.
Research confirmed the writing style on the multiplication table dates to the late 7th century. But researchers say the table could also have been made during the Kofun period (literally old burial mound), which ran from the mid-3rd to the 7th century. They suggest it may have been used in designing burial mounds, a common practice at the time. Those monumental mounds were built for emperors and other nobles.
Another theory holds the table was used by people responsible for security or other administrative duties—perhaps to count work days and calculate taxes for officials.
The results of the research were published in the annual bulletin of the National Research Institute for Cultural Properties in Nara.
