China's first abacus museum has opened with a collection of over 600 abaci in Qixian County of North China's Shanxi Province, according to sources from www.chinanew.com on March 3.
The abaci, all collected by Zhou Baolin, a local resident, vary in standards, shapes, materials and lengths.
In terms of standards, the collection contains seven-bead models of two-up, five-down; five-bead models of one-up, four-down; and nine-bead models, one-up, three-middle and five-down.
The abaci differ in shapes from square, octagon, trapezia, triangle to double-fish, and the materials also have a wide variety including gold, silver, copper, iron, bone, jade, agate and crystal.
Their lengths range from six meters to one centimeter with the longest one allowing 12 people to work together and the smallest a decoration.
The elite collection contains an ivory seven-shift abacus with seven rhombic beads, two-up and five-down from the Ming Dynasty ( 1368-1644), a five-shift abacus with copper rods and red agate beads, one-up and four-down, and abaci once used by Emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) and the Empress Cixi of the late Qing Dynasty.
The 11-shift abacus used by Emperor Qianlong caps the collection with a gold frame, more than 20 colorful gems and 77 china beads outlined with various bright flower designs.
Nowadays abaci serve as a complement to computer in China's finance and accounting sectors.
Chinese craftsmen have built a spectacular four-storey pavilion with 668 abaci, copying the ancient Danfengge Pavilion, in Qixian county.
Experts said that abaci appeared and faded out in many countries, however they survived in China, where their origin was previously believed to be in the Eastern Han Dynasty (AD 25-220), based on the earliest record found in an arithmetic book from that period.
However the finding of eighty-six clay beads from the Western Zhou Dynasty (1000-771 BC), identified as those used for calculation, dates the origin of the abacus to at least 2,700 years ago.
The Abacus: History
Why does the abacus exist?
The abacus is a mechanical aid used for counting; it is not a calculator in the sense we use the word today. The person operating the abacus performs calculations in their head and uses the abacus to keep track of the sums, the carrys, etc. The device evolved from a simple need to count numbers. Merchants trading goods not only needed a way to count goods bought and sold, but also to quickly calculate the cost of those goods. Until numbers were invented, these counting devices were used to make everyday calculations.
Modern Times
The abacus as we know it today, appeared circa 1200 A.D. in China; in Chinese, it is called suan-pan. Beginning in about 1600 A.D., use and evolution of the Chinese abacus was begun by the Japanese via Korea. In Japanese the abacus is called soroban. It is thought that early Christians brought the abacus to the East (note the vertical direction of both the suan-pan and the Roman hand-abacus).
Recent archeological excavations have revealed an Mesoamerican (Aztec) abacus (Nepohualtzitzin), circa 900-1000 A.D., where the counters were made from kernels of maize threaded through strings mounted on a wooden frame.
In detail