Storiascopio · Era 3 of 12 · primary year 4
Babylonian mathematics
about 1800 BC · Larsa, Mesopotamia (now Iraq)
In short
The Babylonians counted in base 60, and from them we have inherited the 60 minutes in an hour and the 360 degrees in a circle. They could solve difficult problems, such as working out the area of a field or the square root of a number. A famous tablet, called Plimpton 322, contains a table of numbers linked to right-angled triangles. It was written more than a thousand years before Pythagoras was born.
Why it matters Every time we look at a clock we are using a Babylonian idea without knowing it.
Source: INAF Media, “Il teorema di Pitagora al tempo dei Babilonesi” (in Italian)
Where we are in the era “River civilisations”
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about 4000 BCEvent 17 of 25about 1200 BC
Your turn
Name ______________________ Class ______ Date __________
When did it happen? Find the date at the top and write it here:
Tell it in your own words: what happened?
Draw the scene below.
storiascopio.com/en/event/babylonian-mathematics/ · free worksheet, you may photocopy it for your class