There seems to be a snag then. Very briefly,

1 2 3 originally was signed as fingers dragged through mud/clay/sand

Chinese 3 horizontal lines: - = _=

Roman 3 vertical lines: | || |||

These must go back many many thousand years

Traders need for speed and convenience caused them to combine these lines cursively

- or | became the adze/axe/anchor/angle/ankh scepter 1 with one angle notch at top (the flat bottom base line was applied later), this was a ship's metric instrument

= or || became 2 with top and bottom horizontal lines attached with a curve giving 2 angles (Z), note one angle on left, one angle on right

_= or ||| became 3 with 3 horizontal lines attached with curves giving 3 angles (invert the sum sign, note 2 angles on left, one on right)

all the larger numbers seem derived only from the count of angles, 4 - 9 with 0 having no angles at all due to pure curvature (in Hindi it was simply a dot).


How did the ancient Egyptians write their numerals? Phoenician script?