Rumi Number Seventy

They grew from Coptic or Greek-Coptic numeral traditions. Coptic is the historical language of Egyptian Christians, written with an adapted Greek alphabet. Rumi numeral 70 is a dedicated-value sign, not a place-value digit. The system was used from the 10th through 17th centuries across Egypt, the Maghreb (North Africa), and al-Andalus (Muslim-ruled parts of Iberia).

In handwritten books (manuscripts), Rumi signs numbered pages and marked chapters and quires, the folded bundles of sheets used to make a book. They also appear in religious, scientific, accounting, and mathematical writing and on astronomical instruments. Moroccan legal and commercial records used a later Rumi/Fasi form until around the 17th century.

Some scholars propose that zimām, a separate Arabic accounting numeral system, influenced Rumi/Fasi. The earliest recognized related Mozarabic/Toledan forms appear in manuscripts from the 12th and 13th centuries; Mozarabs were Iberian Christians living under Muslim rule. The Unicode chart shape comes from a copy of a manuscript by the Marrakech mathematician Ibn al-Bannā (1256–1321) and resembles Maghrebi forms from the 16th century.