Old Persian Number Two

Old Persian numerals add from left to right. Ten followed by two makes twelve: 𐏓𐏒, a sequence in King Darius I’s Behistun inscription.

Old Persian cuneiform was a distinct script of wedge-shaped marks; its number signs resemble Assyro-Babylonian notation used in Assyria and Babylonia. The Achaemenids, a Persian dynasty, used it chiefly for royal inscriptions. The earliest securely attested Old Persian cuneiform inscriptions are King Darius I’s Behistun texts, around 520 BCE; the script may have begun under Cyrus II. An Achaemenid-era administrative record at Persepolis uses the numerals for an amount measured with a unit for dry goods. Surviving Achaemenid examples use 𐏒 numerically, with no separate emblematic reading. The system did not continue after Alexander’s conquest of Persia.