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'''Babylon''' was the main city of ancient [[Mesopotamia]]. [[Hammurabi]] was Babylonia's greatest ruler during roughly 1800-1750BC.
'''Babylon''' was the main city of ancient [[Mesopotamia]]. [[Hammurabi]] was Babylonia's greatest ruler during roughly 1800-1750BC.
[[File:Babylon-map.jpg|thumb|190px]]
The region between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates was the center of the [[Sumerian]] civilization before 3500 BC. The Sumerians built cities and irrigated their land. They had a legal system and even a form of postal service. They developed a form of writing called [[cuneiform]], based on wedge-shaped symbols made by pressing a stylus into tablets of wet clay, and a system of counting using base 60.
The region between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates was the center of the [[Sumerian]] civilization before 3500 BC. The Sumerians built cities and irrigated their land. They had a legal system and even a form of postal service. They developed a form of writing called [[cuneiform]], based on wedge-shaped symbols made by pressing a stylus into tablets of wet clay, and a system of counting using base 60.
This old Babylonian numbering system is likely to be the reason why we still have unusual base systems for things like time (hours, minutes and seconds), 24 hours in the day, the old Imperial measurement system etc. The beauty of this system is that numbers which are multiples of 12 (such as 24, 60, and 144) are all also divisible by 2, 3, 4, and 6, whereas 10 is only divisible by 2 and 5 - so it's easier to count halves, quarters and thirds in a base 12 system. <ref> http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/HistTopics/Babylonian_mathematics.html </ref>
This old Babylonian numbering system is likely to be the reason why we still have unusual base systems for things like time (hours, minutes and seconds), 24 hours in the day, the old Imperial measurement system etc. The beauty of this system is that numbers which are multiples of 12 (such as 24, 60, and 144) are all also divisible by 2, 3, 4, and 6, whereas 10 is only divisible by 2 and 5 - so it's easier to count halves, quarters and thirds in a base 12 system. <ref> http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/HistTopics/Babylonian_mathematics.html </ref>
==External links==
* [http://edsitement.neh.gov/view_lesson_plan.asp?id=633 "Hammurabi’s Code: What Does It Tell Us About Old Babylonia"] lesson plan
==See also==
* [[Code of Hammurabi]]
==References==
==References==
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