ZORA SRPSKE MATEMATIKE

The very beginnings of Serbian history and science, from the settling of the Serbs to the Balkans until the 10th century, are known from a document written by the Byzantine emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus (905–959). According to this official history, Serbs came to the Balkans in the 7th century. However, there is another, alternative history, which teaches us that the Balkans were the original homeland of the Serbs, that they have been there for over 12,000 years and that their migration to the North (about 4,000 years ago) gave rise to all present-day Slavs, including the Russians. According to these concepts, Serbian literacy, and mathematical literacy as well, either emerged rel- atively late, with the arrival of Cyril and Methodius (9th century), or is the oldest in the world. This paper considers how the old Serbs wrote cyphers, small and big num- bers, which monetary units and units of measurement they used, when the first mathematical books were written, how a Serb named Lazar of Chilandary made the first mechanical clock in Russia in 1404, etc.