Salve Romani!
 
Are you studying the ancient Romans or have a personal interest in the most significant empires of the Western world?
 
Do you think that the generals and conquest are all well and good but it's the day-to-day lives of normal people that gets the fire in the belly going?
 
Then look no further than our version of the Roman "pocket calculator"!
 
Our ancestors (the world over) needed a way of counting big numbers (we all run out of fingers and toes at some point). There are indications of the beginnings of the abacus in the 3rd Millenium BC in the Middle East, but the earliest find of a true abacus, or counting board, comes from the Island of Salamis and is dated to about 300 BC. 
 
It was the Romans, however, that had the amazing idea of fixing rivets (loosely) to a sheet of Bronze, creating a complete and portable "calculator".
 
All sorts of people in the Roman empire would have needed to use an abacus, whether you were a merchant trading at a market, a government offical calulating duties of a recent import, a mathematician trying to solve a problem for the emperor, an architect building a new temple, or an administrator in the legions in charge of distributing grain to different cohorts, having someway of calculating lots of big numbers was one of the many things that kept the empire going for so long.
 
Now you can own your very own piece of Roman history, We'll leave it up to you which role you want to fill!
 
There are only three confirmed Roman abacus finds that we are aware of; one in Paris and one in Rome (both provenance unknown), and another found relatively recently in a cemetary in Aosta. All three of these have exactly the same layout in slots, the only difference however, is the number of rivets. It appears that the first two are missing rivets, whereas the Aosta find seems to have all of them. Another difference is that the etchings (numerals) are visable on the first two but no longer on the Aosta find (probably from spending nearly 2,000 years underground).
 
There are other examples, however these are only references. The British Museum has a model, believed to be an 18th C copy and Marci Velseri detailed and depicted one in his letters (circa 16th C). Both of these (among one or two others) have three slots in the right hand most column for fractions (the finds mentioned above have only a single slot for, presumably, the same function).
 
You have a choice of two models. One based on the Paris find (with the number of rivets from the Aosta find) and the other is based on Velseri's depiction. You can therefore either choose which style suits you best, or you can go for both to experiment, because (and we'll let you into a little secret here) no one actually knows for sure how the fractions columns work. Perhaps you might be the one to crack the code!
 
What's included:
All the components needed to construct your own Roman Abacus
Instructions on how to assemble your Roman Abacus
Information about the history of the Abacus and instructions on how to use it.
 
Not included
Glue (we recommend a fast setting PVA glue)
Sandpaper for smoothing edges and surfaces before assembly (we recommend 180 grit)
 
ATTENTION: Contains small parts. Not suitable for children under 3 years of age, or any individuals who have a tendancy to place inedible objects in their mouth. Parental supervision recommended.