The Sumerian ternary system and the concept of number

Abstract

It is well known that Sumerians and Babylonians used a numeration system of base 12 and 60. We still have influence of that system in our nowadays counting of the hours of a day, twelve plus twelve, each hour has 60 minute and each minute 60 seconds. Also the circle has 360 degrees.What is not so well known is that the Sumerians in an earlier period used a ternary system of numeration; the first notice about that system is in Thureau-Dangin (1928). Later Diakonoff (1983) described it in good details and recently, Balke (2010) studied the system and described it with more precision. Still the use of this system and the concept of number involved are open questions. I will answer to those problems making a formalization of the system and showing how it could be related to a cosmogonic design