The first method of counting has been argued to be counting on fingers. [better source needed] This evolved into sign language for the hand-to-eye-to-elbow communication of numbers which, while not writing, gave way to written numbers.Tallies made by carving notches in wood, bone, and stone were used for at least forty thousand years. These tally marks may have been used …

The Hindu–Arabic numeral system is a decimal place-value numeral system that uses a zero glyph as in "205".. Its glyphs are descended from the Indian Brahmi numerals.The full system emerged by the 8th to 9th centuries, and is first described outside India in Al-Khwarizmi's On the Calculation with Hindu Numerals (ca. 825), and second Al-Kindi's four-volume work On the Use …

Greek numerals are a system of representing numbers using letters of the Greek alphabet.They are also known by the names Milesian numerals, Alexandrian numerals, or alphabetic numerals.In modern Greece, they are still in use for ordinal numbers, and in much of the same way that Roman numerals are in the West; for ordinary numbers, Arabic numerals are used.