Abacus

The abacus was first used in around 2700 BC although the name abacus was not attributed until 1387 AD, this word coming from the Latin for "dust." Over the last few thousand years there have been many types of abacus including; Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Iranian, Persian, Greek, Roman, Chinese, Indian, Japanese, Korean, Native American and Russian abaci.

The abacus shown in this photograph is the variety which most people in the western world will be familiar with, it is based largely on the Russian version of the abacus. With the flooding of low cost electronic calculators now available the abacus is all but obsolete, mostly now used as a children's educational toy.