I have a wonderful book in front of me called “From One to Zero: a universal history of numbers” by georges ifrah. chapter 9, roman numerals: a vestige of prim

I have a wonderful book in front of me called “From One to Zero: a universal history of numbers” by georges ifrah. chapter 9, roman numerals: a vestige of primitive origins? starts like this: —————————— I V X L C D M They are obviously letters of the roman alphabet, but this does not mean they have an alphabetic origin. The signs L, C, D, and M are not the original forms of the numerals 50, 100, 500, and 1000; they are altered forms of much older numerals. known instances of the use of L, D, and M as numerals do not go back much farther the the first century AD […] ————————— The chapter goes on to illustrate the resemblence with etruscan numerals and the tally marks of ancient shepards counting sheep, see the “tally marks” section of the wikipedia page, or borrow the book from archive.org, page 131 to 146 or so. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etruscan_numerals#Tally%20Marks https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etruscan_numerals#Tally%20Ma... https://archive.org/details/lish00geor https://archive.org/details/lish00geor