number
Ten
A count of fingers in many cultures and a base for decimal notation. Sacred tens and ordinary tallies are different jobs.
Mesopotamian tradition
Ten appears in Mesopotamian tradition.
MUL.APIN list measures and decade counts seat ten among ordinary working numbers of the sky tables. A named ten in that compendium, not decimal as a modern slogan and not a decade dump alone.
from Hermann Hunger and David Pingree · MUL.APIN, 1989 (this edition); tablets earlier
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Chinese tradition
Ten appears in Chinese tradition.
Wilhelm’s Yijing transmits the Ten Wings (Shiyi) as the classical commentary suite around the Changes. A named ten-count in that wings speech, not a Decalogue dump and not sixty-four as the hexagram total.
from Richard Wilhelm / Cary F. Baynes (translation) · I Ching (Yijing), Wilhelm 1924; Baynes English 1950
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Ninety is associated with Ten.
In Agricola’s De Re Metallica, if the tunnel is ninety fathoms long it will reach the middle of the bottom of the last shaft when ten fathoms remain — ninety and ten mark that tunnel-shaft measure split.
from Georgius Agricola; Herbert Clark Hoover and Lou Henry Hoover (translation) · De Re Metallica, 1556 Latin; Hoover English 1912
associated with · sourced · documented
sources
- MUL.APIN · Hermann Hunger and David Pingree
Hermann Hunger and David Pingree, MUL.APIN.
- I Ching (Yijing) · Richard Wilhelm / Cary F. Baynes (translation)
The I Ching or Book of Changes, trans. Richard Wilhelm, English Cary F. Baynes.
- De Re Metallica · Georgius Agricola; Herbert Clark Hoover and Lou Henry Hoover (translation)
Georgius Agricola, De Re Metallica, trans. Herbert Clark Hoover and Lou Henry Hoover (1912).