Babylonian numerals - wikipedia Babylonian numerals See also : Babylonian mathematics Babylonian numerals Babylonian numerals were written in cuneiform, using a wedge - tipped reed stylus to make a mark on a soft clay tablet which would be exposed in the sun to harden to create a permanent record. The Babylonians, who were famous for their astronomical observations and calculations ( aided by their invention of the abacus ), used a sexagesimal ( base - 60 ) positional numeral system inherited from either the Sumerian or the Eblaite civilizations. Neither of the predecessors was a positional system ( having a convention for which ' end ' of the numeral represented the units ). Contents 1 Origin 2 Characters 3 Zero 4 See also 5 Notes 6 Bibliography 7 External links Origin This system first appeared around 2000 BC ; its structure reflects the decimal lexical numerals of Semitic languages rather than Sumerian lexical numbers. However, the use of a special Sumerian sign for 60 ( beside two Semitic signs for the same number ) attests to a relation with the Sumerian system. Numeral systems Hindu -- Arabic numeral system Western Arabic Eastern Arabic Bengali Gurmukhi Indian Sinhala Tamil Balinese Burmese Dzongkha Gujarati Javanese Khmer Lao Mongolian Thai East Asian Chinese Suzhou Hokkien Japanese Korean Vietnamese Counting rods Alphabetic Abjad Armenian Āryabhaṭa Cyrillic Ge'ez Georgian Greek Hebrew Roman Former Aegean Attic Babylonian Brahmi Chuvash Egyptian Etruscan Inuit Kharosthi Mayan Muisca Quipu Prehistoric Positional systems by base 5 6 8 10 12 16 20 60 Non-standard positional numeral systems Bijective numeration ( 1 ) Signed - digit representation ( Balanced ternary ) factorial negative Complex - base system ( 2i ) Non-integer representation ( φ ) mixed Asymmetric numeral systems List of numeral systems Characters The Babylonian system is credited as being the first known positional numeral system, in which the value of a particular digit depends both on the digit itself and its position within the number. This was an extremely important development, because non-place - value systems require unique symbols to represent each power of a base ( ten, one hundred, one thousand, and so forth ), which can make calculations more difficult. Only two symbols ( to count units and to count tens ) were used to notate the 59 non-zero digits. These symbols and their values were combined to form a digit in a sign - value notation quite similar to that of Roman numerals ; for example, the combination represented the digit for 23 ( see table of digits below ). A space was left to indicate a place without value, similar to the modern - day zero. Babylonians later devised a sign to represent this empty place. They lacked a symbol to serve the function of radix point, so the place of the units had to be inferred from context : could have represented 23 or 23 × 60 or 23 × 60 × 60 or 23 / 60, etc. Their system clearly used internal decimal to represent digits, but it was not really a mixed - radix system of bases 10 and 6, since the ten sub-base was used merely to facilitate the representation of the large set of digits needed, while the place - values in a digit string were consistently 60 - based and the arithmetic needed to work with these digit strings was correspondingly sexagesimal. The legacy of sexagesimal still survives to this day, in the form of degrees ( 360 ° in a circle or 60 ° in an angle of an equilateral triangle ), minutes, and seconds in trigonometry and the measurement of time, although both of these systems are actually mixed radix. A common theory is that 60, a superior highly composite number ( the previous and next in the series being 12 and 120 ), was chosen due to its prime factorization : 2 × 2 × 3 × 5, which makes it divisible by 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20, and 30. Integers and fractions were represented identically -- a radix point was not written but rather made clear by context. Zero The Babylonians did not technically have a digit for, nor a concept of, the number zero. Although they understood the idea of nothingness, it was not seen as a number -- merely the lack of a number. What the Babylonians had instead was a space ( and later a disambiguating placeholder symbol ) to mark the nonexistence of a digit in a certain place value. See also Mathematics portal Ancient Near East portal Babylon Babylonia History of zero Numeral system Notes ^ Jump up to : Stephen Chrisomalis ( 2010 ). Numerical Notation : A Comparative History. p. 247. ^ Jump up to : Stephen Chrisomalis ( 2010 ). Numerical Notation : A Comparative History. p. 248. Jump up ^ http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/experts-time-division-days-hours-minutes/ Bibliography Menninger, Karl W. ( 1969 ). Number Words and Number Symbols : A Cultural History of Numbers. MIT Press. ISBN 0 - 262 - 13040 - 8. McLeish, John ( 1991 ). Number : From Ancient Civilisations to the Computer. HarperCollins. ISBN 0 - 00 - 654484 - 3. External links Wikimedia Commons has media related to Babylonian numerals. Babylonian numerals Cuneiform numbers Babylonian Mathematics High resolution photographs, descriptions, and analysis of the root ( 2 ) tablet ( YBC 7289 ) from the Yale Babylonian Collection Photograph, illustration, and description of the root ( 2 ) tablet from the Yale Babylonian Collection Babylonian Numerals by Michael Schreiber, Wolfram Demonstrations Project. Weisstein, Eric W. `` Sexagesimal ''. MathWorld. CESCNC - a handy and easy - to use numeral converter Retrieved from `` https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Babylonian_numerals&oldid=862648042 '' Categories : Babylonian mathematics Non-standard positional numeral systems Numeral systems Numerals Hidden categories : All articles with unsourced statements Articles with unsourced statements from May 2015 Talk Contents About Wikipedia Asturianu Català Dansk Ελληνικά Español Français Galego 한국어 Հայերեն Bahasa Indonesia Italiano עברית മലയാളം Bahasa Melayu Nederlands Plattdüütsch Português Русский Slovenščina Srpskohrvatski / српскохрватски Suomi Svenska தமிழ் Українська 中文 17 more Edit links This page was last edited on 5 October 2018, at 19 : 08 ( UTC ). Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution - ShareAlike License ; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia ® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. About Wikipedia

Question: when did the babylonians began using cuneiform numerals
Answer: around 2000 BC