| A History of Numerology | ||
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Please note that the following contents are for information only. Many of the dates specified are approximate, and subject to revision. We are constantly working to add and improve the information. Please forward items for inclusion or notification of errors/items in need of revision to astrology@infodiary.com, and include reference: (author, title, publication, date) |
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When |
Who |
What |
| 150,000 - 35,000 BC | Neanderthals | Neanderthals emerge and become abundant. They are believed to be the first Humans to harness Fire, they invented medicine and carried out crude surgery, they are the first humans known to have had Religion, they buried their dead (sometimes with flowers, provisions and tools), they wore amulets or talismans (religious jewelry), and it is believed that they invented Language and Art. With their relatively large brains, they were very likely the first humans to actually count, or think about numbers. |
| 38,000 BC - 8,000 BC | Upper PaleoLithic Peoples | Upper PaleoLithic Art included Cave Paintings (featuring animals, hand designs, and occasionally, people or shamanistic drawings), Venus Figurines, and Geometric Designs. One common design was a series of seven parallel lines, or seven dots. It is believed that this recurring pattern has religious significance, and may be the earliest evidence of the sacredness of the number seven. |
| 8000 BC - 3300 BC | Lower Mesopotamian Hunter-Gatherers: MesoLithic Peoples | Clay tokens used to assist in counting and in transmitting bookkeeping information. Occasionally, these have been found inserted into clay envelopes. It is theorized that to prevent having to 'break the seal' of the clay envelope, pictures of the tokens were sketched on the clay envelope, and eventually, the writers skipped using the tokens at all, and just wrote on clay tablets. There is good evidence that this form of 'Writing' gave rise to the later forms of Sumerian writing. Note that accounting clearly predated other forms of writing, and this early evidence of bookkeeping, makes accounting the oldest documented profession. |
| 6000 BC | Early Sumerians | First Beer Brewed. (A
very significant event) Beer brewing required strict attention to measurements, and
the beer brewing traditions and rituals. What makes your heart feel wonderful, makes also our heart feel
wonderful. |
| 3300 - 2050 BC | Sumerians | Sumerians of Mesopotamia likely are first to
extensively use numbers in their daily lives, and are believed to be the first to
associate symbols with word sounds. They used markings on clay tablets to record
their thoughts, and some of the earliest of these markings represented numbers. The
first clay writings were pictographs, but later (3100 BC) they were using Cuneiform
(Latin for 'wedge shaped') markings impressed with a stylus for their writing. The
Sumerian number system is base 60, which is convenient for dividing and multiplying as it
has factors of 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20, and 30. The Sumerians also divided the
circle into 360 degrees as an echo of the days of the year. Fragments of this
Sumerian legacy live on in our modern expression of angles in 'degrees, minutes and
seconds' and our similar division of the day into 'hours, minutes and seconds' -all in
base 60. The word dozen derives from a Sumerian word meaning 'A fifth of 60'.  |
| ~3100 BC | Salisbury, England | First Phase of Stonehenge Building: A large circular ditch, with 56 pits around it. - 56 is just twice the number of days in a (sidereal) month: so it might be that the pits are related to the phases of the Moon. |
| 2700-2200 BC | Egyptians of the Old Kingdom Era | Egyptians of the Old Kingdom Era develop a
365-Day Calendar, Hieroglyphics, the Plow, and built the Pyramids. The first pyramid
is believed to be that of Sqqara from around 2700 BC. The three great pyramids near Cairo are believed to have been built between
2500 or 2600 BC. Construction of these pyramids with their perfect interior and
exterior geometries, and their precise alignments with the rising and falling of the stars
required sophisticated geometry and mathematics skills. Egyptians write with
Hieroglyphics (A Greek word meaning sacred carvings), on paper made from the papyrus
plant. Hieroglyphics evolve from being simple pictures to representing sounds,
and finally abstract ideas. |
| ~2100 BC | Salisbury, England | Second Phase of Stonehenge Building:  Huge stone
pillars and lintels were brought, and partially assembled around 2100 BC.
During this period the 35-Ton Heel stone was carefully placed inside to perfectly mark the
rising of the sun on Midsummer's Day. Finally before 1500 BC, the double
circle, with 30 pillars was completed. As of this writing the builders have
not been identified. Current thought is that the Druids did not build this
structure. |
| 2000 - 1700 BC | Babylonians | Babylonians of Mesopotamia inherit cuneiform number system from Sumerians. Cuneiform is used to record interest payments, loans, deposits. Service charges for safekeeping accounts ran about 1/60th of the value of the deposit, interest rates ran as high as 1/3rd. The Babylonian writing and number technology were inherited from Sumerians. They knew of the principle of the Pythagorean Theorem, and could solve algebraic problems. |
| 2000 BC | Hittites | Cuneiform becomes predominant in Middle East, as invading Hittites learn it from the Hurrians and other local cultures. |
| 2000 BC | Maya of Central America | Mayan Civilization emerges from the mists of time. The Mayan empire changes and grows, and their culture is still strong when their civilization is overthrown by Spain in 1542. The Mayan number system was a positional base 20 system which included a symbol for zero. |
| 1900 BC | Egyptians | Egyptian writings record numbers and math in base-10, using additive symbols. The Rhind papyrus was written about 1650 BC, and is a copy of a document that was 200 years older. |
| ~1600 BC | Salisbury, England | Third Phase of Stonehenge Building: The 30 pillar double circle of Stonehenge, was completed. As of this writing the builders have not been identified. Current thought is that the Druids did not build this structure. |
| 1500 - 1000 BC | Semites | Semites of the Middle East develop syllabic alphabet consisting of about 30 signs each of which is pronounced as beginning with a consonant sound and ending with a vowel |
| 1000 BC | Phoenicians | Phoenicians of the city of Byblos (site of today's Jebeil in Lebanon) condense original thirty signs to 22. This simplified syllabic written language spread quickly and far. Byblos is Phoenician city famous for export of papyrus for writing. City name is source of Greek word for book (biblia). Phoenicians use their letters to mean numbers. 'waw' means 6, 'qoph' means 9 and 'sade' means 900 |
| 900 BC | Greeks | Greeks begin to utilize Phoenician writing. The early Greek alphabet is very similar to that of the Phoenician, but eventually diverges, dropping some symbols, and adding letters corresponding to vowel sounds. The Greeks use letters to mean numbers. The word Arithmetic is from the Greek 'Arithmos' meaning 'number'. |
| ~700 BC | Zoroaster | Zoroaster (Zarathushtra) born, has revelation and founds Zorostrianism. The date of Zoroaster's birth are in some dispute, with claims as far back as 1400 BC. 700 BC may be more accurate however. Zoroastrians or Parsis believe that the world was created as part of a struggle between good and evil. The entire world is continuing a struggle of light or good against darkness or evil. |
| 700 - 600 BC | Etruscans of Italy | Etruscans of Italy inherit Greek alphabet. Although they adopted symbols from the Greek alphabet to express their language, their language was very unique, and is not believed to be related to the Indo-European languages. The Latins and Romans absorb much of Etruscan culture: Etruscans conquered Latinum in 600 BC, and later weaken and are absorbed by Rome by 350 BC. |
| 640 - 550 BC | Thales of Miletus | Thales was a clever mathematician, who, discovering fossils of sea life far inland, decided that 'water' was the fundamental building block of the universe. It is believed that Thales also discovered electricity, finding that amber, when rubbed would attract feathers or other small, light objects. |
| 600 BC | Hebrews | Aramaic, a branch of the early Phoenician writing of Byblos, begins to appear and becomes most common language of Near East from 300 BC to 650 AD. It is adopted by the Hebrew culture, and a form of it becomes Arabic. Phoenician writing has essentially squeezed out cuneiform writing as of this point, although cuneiform continues in usage by Zoroastrians to this day. |
| 550 - 329 BC | Cyrus the Great: Arcaemenid Empire | King Cyrus II unifies the Medes, the
Persians, Assyria, and soon later Babylon - His empire lasts 200 years, and makes
extensive use of Cuneiform, using Old Persian language. |
| 580 - 500 BC | Italy and Greece: Pythagoras | Pythagoras believed
that the universe was fundamentally mathematical in nature, that numbers controlled and
made up what we experience every day. He said: "The world is built upon the
power of numbers." He was very interested in all aspects of the world, and he and
his followers revolutionized geometry, algebra, music theory, acoustics, and
astronomy. He discovered that the morning star and the evening star were both
Venus. He founded the Pythagorean Brotherhood which was dedicated to the
reformation of life to a new standard of morality. The brotherhood was strongly
religious and believed that it was possible for the soul to achieve union with the divine,
and that symbols could have mystical significance and powers. "For as the
Pythagoreans say, the all and all things are defined by threes; for end and middle and
beginning constitute the number of the all, and also the number of the triad." -
Aristotle. The Pythagoreans believed that the forms of nature could be described and
generated using integers. He or his followers discovered irrational numbers
(non-repeating decimals that could not be expressed as fractions), and this presented a
problem for the Pythagoreans as these irrational numbers could not be reduced to nice
clean relationships of whole numbers. Notwithstanding their problem with fractions,
they proved the Pythagorean Theorem (which generates irrational numbers) and derived the
area of a circle using a concept of a large number of infinitesimally small triangles (not
so far from modern calculus). The Pythagoreans also revered 'Perfect Numbers'
which are the sum of their factors: 6 = 1 + 2 + 3, 28 = 1 + 2 + 4 + 7 + 14, 496 = 1 + 2 + 4 + 8 + 16 + 31 + 62 + 124 + 248 8128 = 1 + 2 + 4 + 8 + 16 + 32 + 64 + 127 + 254 + 508 + 1016 + 2032 + 4064 |
| 490 - 425 BC | Southern Italy: Zeno | Zeno of Elea is renowned for his 'Paradoxes',
which were likely created to shine a light on the problem that the Pythagoreans were
having with their holy numbers. Zeno wondered how it was possible to subdivide a
distance infinitely, and where the granularity of reality was. If it was
possible for reality to have some final measure beyond which it cannot be divided, why
could we not divide that measure in two? Zeno thought that it was likely impossible
for something without magnitude to exist. -And just when the modern world thought it had proved Zeno wrong through the discovery of the 'massless' photon, we discover that the photon does have mass, but, curiously, it does not have time. (Due to the relativistic effects of traveling at the speed of light, photons experience no actual time between their generation at the sun (or any star), and their impact upon our sunburned bodies. They are in both places at the same instant, from their time frame.) |
| 470-399 BC | Greece: Socrates | The Socratic method was to ask simple questions to get to the fundamental truth. Know Thyself was his motto, and by knowing himself he hoped to learn what was truly good. He was a barefoot sage in a simple woolen garment, without possessions or money to speak of. His desire: to know the nature of virtue. He was put to death by poison for 'Neglecting the Gods', and 'Corrupting the Young'. |
| 428 BC - 348 BC | Greece: Plato | Plato was a student of Socrates, and inherited Socrates belief that it was possible to learn absolute virtue and obtain truth. He believed that there was a tangible world that we sense around us, and which changes continually, and a true world of unchanging ideas, which is the true reality. The true world is the archetype, the blueprint or template after which the world we experience is fashioned. Plato was perhaps first and foremost a mathematician, and founded an academy at Athens which survived until 529 AD when all non-Christian schools were closed by the emperor Justinian. |
| 146 BC | Rome | Rome conquers Greece: Greek influence on Rome becomes strong. |
| 4 BC - 28 AD | Jesus Christ's Life | Jesus' beliefs were simple: worship God, and treat each other kindly and fairly. Christian Apocalyptic prophecy included some numerological elements. |
| 70 AD | Destruction of Jerusalem | Following an irksome revolution, Jerusalem is destroyed in a fairly complete manner by Romans. |
| 100 AD - 1100 AD | Jewish Mystics | Merkava system of spiritual exploration
emerges. Merkava involves contemplating the throne of God as described in Ezekiel 1. Merkava practitioners ascend through Seven spiritual spheres, each guarded by angels who could kill the unwary explorer who was not equiped with the correct magical seal. Influenced by Gnosticism, this belief system was subsequently an influence on Cabbalism. |
| 100 AD | Teotihuacan , Mexico | Pyramids of Sun and Moon built. Pyramid of Sun has base dimensions of 722 by 755 feet |
| 100 - 170 AD | Claudius Ptolemaeus (Ptolemy) | Ptolemy documents 1022 stars, and proposes a universe centered on the earth, with the stars and heavenly bodies fixed in sheets of crystalline material that move about the earth. |
| 300 AD | Mystically Inclined Jewry | With the writing of the Sefer Yetzira, Cabalism or Kabbalism, a form of Jewish Mysticism emerges. Cabalism works to bring it's practitioners closer to God, through the contemplation of the 10 aspects of God believed revealed in the creation (the Sefira, or Sefiroth), and the 22 Letters of the Hebrew Alphabet. Properly arranged, the ten Sefiroth have 22 direct paths between them . Cabalism an intensly numerological art, making use of a Gematria (numeric interpretation) of the Hebrew Language. |
| 391 AD | Alexandria, Constantinople | Christians determined to wipe out pagan learning wipe out last remnants of vast Library at Alexandria. |
| 410 AD | Alaric the Visigoth | Rome is Sacked by Alaric. THE DARK AGES BEGIN. Roman knowledge valued by the church is preserved in monasteries. Other knowledge is lost to the west, particularly mathematical and numerological knowledge. Greek, Pre-Christian and Pagan knowledge is preserved by Muslim Arabs and Egyptians, and Christians of Constantinople. |
| 529 AD | Justinian I, Byzantine Empire | Under Emperor Justinian, Eastern Orthodox Christianity becomes state religion of Byzantine Empire. Other religions are outlawed. All non-Christian Schools and Academies closed, non-christian documents usually destroyed. |
| 570 - 632 AD | Muhammad's Life | Muhammad taught that he received a revelation from the Angel Gabriel that was intended to help guide people to true worship of the one God. |
| 651 AD | Islamic Disciples | Compilation of Koran Completed under authority of Caliph 'Uthman: Koran means 'Recitation' - Koran was originally only passed on verbally. |
| 980-1037 AD | Avicenna of Persia | Avicenna compiled 'The Book of Healing', and 'The Cannon of Medicine', reviewing all of the knowledge valued Persian culture especially that knowledge preserved from the Greeks and Romans. His encyclopedic works helped to preserve and organize ancient knowledge, |
| 1100 AD | Unknown Jewish Mystic | Sefer ha-bahir appears in France. This is a Cabalistic text in Aramaic and Hebrew that contains the first decent explanation of the 10 divine eminations (Sefirot). |
| 1100 AD | Adelard of Bath | Adelard of Bath brought some of the lost knowledge of Greek Mathematics back to Europe from the Islamic countries, where it had been preserved and supplemented by the work of Islamic scholars. |
| 1582 AD | John Dee and Edward Kelly | Origin Enochian Magic: John Dee and Edward Kelly derive a Numerological/Gemmatrical Magic system from their communications with Angels that they encounter in visions. |
| 1887 AD | Order of Golden Dawn | Hermetic Order of golden Dawn formed by Samuel Mathers, William Westcott and William Woodman. - Advanced Enochian Magic concepts. |
