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The system actually originated in Sumer and was popularised by the Babylonians and is the first positional system known to history. The system was a form of cuneiform writing and was used for recording economic information. It consists of two symbols that resemble “<” and “Y” to an extent. “<” corresponds to what we know as “10” and “Y” would be equal to the decimal “1”. So for example, one would write “21” as something reminiscent of “<<Y”. Babylonians used the cuneiform symbols to express numbers between 1 and 59. For larger numbers, they used a place-value system based on the powers of 60 -
a sexagesimal system.
Fun fact:
The Babylonian system is still in use today in a way - nowadays, we use it to express time - it allows us to write that the time is eg. 3:17 (3 hours and 17 minutes) instead of 3.28(3) in the decimal system. Same applies to angles (a full circle has 360 degrees = 60*6) and geographic coordinates (one degree is 60 minutes and one minute is 60 seconds).
Cover image source: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/321937
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