Mathematical Susa Texts VII and VIII. A Reinterpretation
Jens Hoyrup1993, Altorientalische Forschungen
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Abstract
In an extensive paper published due to the kindness of the editorial staff of the present journal, I have suggested a geometrical reinterpretation of so-called Old Babylonian "algebra". 1 Among the texts analyzed in the paper were the mathematical texts No. XVI and No. IX from Susa, which turned out to contain highly illuminating didactical commentaries of a kind not known from the Babylonian core area -be it because teaching in a peripheral area felt a need to make explicit what could be left to a stable oral tradition in the core, or simply because the Susa teachers had a bent for loquacity. Text No. XVI turned out not to contain solutions of problems but only a didactical discussion of transformations of linear "equations" of two unknowns (as usually, the us ("length") and ("width") of a rectangle, with the usual values 30 ' and 20' [nindan] 2 ). No. IX contained initial didactical discussions of the transformations of complex into simpler second-degree "equations" followed by use of the technique just taught for the solution of a sophisticated set of equations. These texts are not the only Susa texts to contain illuminating didactical commentaries. In the present paper I shall analyze two further texts, of which one contains an explicit explanatory part, while the other employs some of the concepts introduced in the former. An extra reason for reanalyzing the two texts is that the treatment given by
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