Historically, it was not just a matter of using the whole finger, as some people do in our modern times; but it was more complicated in that every finger was utilized for its knuckle, two joints and three bones (one joint and two bones for the thumb) and all of them, on both hands, were used to count up to 9,999.

There are descriptions of the method from the Middle East, Asia, and other places. Paintings exist from more than four thousand years ago showing Egyptians counting in this way, and it was common in classical Greece and Rome.