Phoenician Number One

One unit took one mark; repeats and larger-value signs built totals.

The earliest reported notation for one is a single stroke at Karatepe, around 750 BCE. No numerals survive in the earliest Phoenician inscriptions.

From the seventh century BCE, Phoenician numerals recorded rulers' years and goods on stone, clay, papyrus, and coins. Colonies in North Africa and Spain kept using the system until Roman and Greek conquests in the second century BCE. Numeral systems descended from Aramaic, an ancient language and script, used comparable building blocks.