a MUCH better photo of the icosahedron

[Martin Fuller]

Your guess is confirmed by a font found via wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasta%27l%C4%ABq
then to the CRULP link. The digits are unicode 06F0 to
06F9.

Two more pictures via google search: icosahedron tipu
sultan picture

www.scran.ac.uk, item 2.11, same picture as Neil's
first link (nb. it is reversed left-to-right). Has the
comment: "Icosahedron box, each side with a
mathematical value, and containing two manuscript
notes, one a diagram of the 20 sides." That manuscript
could be very useful if anyone can find a copy!

www.invaluable.com, first item on page, has a picture
of the box with the lid open.  It then mentions that
the contained manuscript was lost but luckily had been
annotated.

           101
  21                   81           901
      501   *    201
  *                   *  71?  701?   *     ??
        401   301
   ??       *       61            ??   601
    * 41         91 *
           51

--- "N. J. A. Sloane" <njas at research.att.com> wrote:

> my guess is that the 5 faces around the prominent
> vertex (*)
> facing the viewer read 
> 
>           101
> 
>      501   *    201
> 
>         401   301
> 
>