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Surface area computation in ancient Mexico: documentary evidence of Acolhua-Aztec proto-geometry. (English) Zbl 1202.01017

Summary: Two codices from the Valley of Mexico painted ca. A.D. 1540 show hieroglyphic drawings of household agricultural parcels. Decipherment of these indigenous manuscripts has revealed important information about Mesoamerican science before the Conquest. Reported here are documentary evidence from the Codex Vergara of surface area computation and results of a search for geometric algorithms that may have been employed by Acolhua-Aztec surveyors. Unappreciated for five centuries, the Acolhua-Aztec art of cadastral recordkeeping attests to their development of mathematical thought.

MSC:

01A12 History of mathematics of the indigenous cultures of the Americas
01A07 Ethnomathematics (general)
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