Experts translated this 3700 year old tablet, and the discovery they made is rewritten history. At Australia's University of New South Wales, a team of academics is pouring over a slab of ancient clay. Slowly they come to a shocking realization about the rows and columns etched across its surface, and it's a revelation that will change everything we think we know about mathematics. The story begins back in the early 1900s when American archaeologist Edgar Banks was exploring an area that today is part of southern Iraq. As a lover of antiquities, Banks spent much of his career buying up ancient artifacts during the dying days of the Ottoman Empire. In fact, Banks was so fascinated by treasures from the past that some have speculated he may have been the inspiration for George Lucas' fictional archaeologist Indiana Jones. And at the beginning of the 20th century, he made the discovery that would make him famous. It was around this time that Banks came into possession of a strange tablet. At approximately 5 inches wide and 3.5 inches tall, it was covered in mysterious etchings. Banks told people that it had been discovered in Sankara, which is thought to be the site of Larza, an ancient Samarian city. But Banks didn't hold onto the relic, instead selling it in about 1922 to George Arthur Plypton, a New York publisher. Then sometime in the mid 1930s, Plypton donated it to Columbia University. Since that time, the discovery has been known as Plypton 322, and it has attracted attention from academics around the world. Within some 3,700 years ago, the tablet originates from a time when the Babylonians ruled Larza. An ancient people that thrived in central southern Mesopotamia, they left many relics scattered around what is now modern-day Iraq. Considering the era, the Babylonians were an incredibly advanced civilization. In fact, they've been credited with inventing many objects still used in modern times, such as the Cedar Plow and glazed bricks. On top of that, their thought to have been pioneers in astronomy, medicine, and literature. Additionally, the Babylonians are known today for their impressive grasp of mathematics. So when experts interpreted the scratches and lines in Plypton 322, as rows and columns of numbers, many scholars came forward in an attempt to interpret the find. However, the true meaning of Plypton 322 remained elusive. Then Dr. Daniel Mansfield from the University of New South Wales, School of Mathematics and Statistics, stumbled across an article about the tablet while preparing a lesson for his students. In Trey, Mansfield teamed up with Dr. Norman Wildberger and associate professor at the university. Soon they realized that the inscriptions on the tablet bore similarity to Wildberger's work on trigonometry, as laid out in his book, Divine Proportions, Rational Trigonometry to Universal Geometry. Simply put, trigonometry is a type of mathematics that deals with the relationships between the angles and lengths of triangles. Thought to have been invented by the ancient Greeks, the method has many practical uses that have helped mankind to understand the world around them over the years. For example, trigonometry allows geographers to calculate distances and astronomers to measure how far away the stars are. It's used to help cars, airplanes, and ships to navigate, as well as in a multitude of modern disciplines such as meteorology, architecture, and computing. In 2005, Wildberger released his book, in which he laid out his ideas for a new form of trigonometry, dubbed Rational Trigonometry. It was a radical approach that did away with many of the method's traditional concepts. However, Wildberger's ideas were largely dismissed by mainstream mathematicians. Nonetheless, Wildberger and Mansfield believed that Plympton 322 was a reflection of these same ideas. With four columns and five rows, the tablet appeared to record numbers using what's known as a base 60 system, instead of the base 10 that we used today. According to experts, the tablets contain special numerical patterns known as Pythagorean triplets. Generating these values, however, would have been a long and arduous task. So what exactly was the purpose of this strange document? Wildberger and Mansfield believed they finally solved the mystery. Although previous researchers had claimed that the tablet was some sort of ancient teaching aid, Wildberger and Mansfield's research revealed that it could be something much more amazing. According to them, the object is a trigonometric table, the oldest of its kind ever found. Our research reveals that Plympton 322 describes the shapes of right-angle triangles using a novel kind of trigonometry based on ratios, not angles and circles. Mansfield told UNSW Newsroom in August of 2017. It's a fascinating mathematical work that demonstrates undoubted genius. What's more, the tablet predates Hipparchus, thought to be the father of trigonometry by over a thousand years. And not only do Wildberger and Mansfield believe that Plympton 322 is the world's oldest trigonometric table, but they assert that it's the most accurate too. Yes, as Wildberger and Mansfield consider the base 60 system to be better at dealing with exact fractions, they claim that the calculations on the tablet involve less guesswork. As a result, then, this 37-year-old discovery could be a revelation for modern mathematicians. This is a rare example of the ancient world teaching us something new. Mansfield told the Daily Telegraph in August of 2017. More over Wildberger and Mansfield believe that when the tablet was created, it could have had many uses in fields such as surveying and architecture. For now, though, it sits and safe keeping at Columbia University Rare Book and Manuscript Library in New York. But if the mathematical duo are to be believed, this is only the beginning of what could be a very important new chapter in academic thinking. The mathematical world is only waking up to the fact that this ancient but very sophisticated mathematical culture has much to teach us, Wildberger said. Please share this video with your friends below.