Editing Sexagesimal (section)

===Babylonian mathematics===
{{main|Babylonian cuneiform numerals}}
The sexagesimal system as used in ancient [[Mesopotamia]] was not a pure base-60 system, in the sense that it did not use 60 distinct symbols for its [[numerical digit|digits]]. Instead, the [[cuneiform (script)|cuneiform]] digits used [[10 (number)|ten]] as a sub-base in the fashion of a [[sign-value notation]]: a sexagesimal digit was composed of a group of narrow, wedge-shaped marks representing units up to nine ([[File:Babylonian 1.svg|20px]], [[File:Babylonian 2.svg|20px]], [[File:Babylonian 3.svg|20px]], [[File:Babylonian 4.svg|20px]], ..., [[File:Babylonian 9.svg|20px]]) and a group of wide, wedge-shaped marks representing up to five tens ([[File:Babylonian 10.svg|20px]], [[File:Babylonian 20.svg|20px]], [[File:Babylonian 30.svg|20px]], [[File:Babylonian 40.svg|20px]], [[File:Babylonian 50.svg|20px]]). The value of the digit was the sum of the values of its component parts:

[[Image:Babylonian numerals.svg|470px|center]]

Numbers larger than 59 were indicated by multiple symbol blocks of this form in [[positional notation|place value notation]]. Because there was no symbol for [[0 (number)|zero]] it is not always immediately obvious how a number should be interpreted, and its true value must sometimes have been determined by its context. For example, the symbols for 1 and 60 are identical.<ref>{{citation|title=Topics in Contemporary Mathematics |first1=Ignacio |last1=Bello |first2=Jack R. |last2=Britton |first3=Anton |last3=Kaul |edition=9th |publisher=Cengage Learning |year=2009 |isbn=9780538737791 |page=182 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Aji2yzbopxgC&pg=PA182}}.</ref><ref name="lmnz"/> Later Babylonian texts used a placeholder ([[File:Babylonian digit 0.svg]]) to represent zero, but only in the medial positions, and not on the right-hand side of the number, as in numbers like {{val|13200}}.<ref name="lmnz">{{citation |url=http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/roots-of-unity/2014/08/31/look-ma-no-zero/ |first=Evelyn |last=Lamb |journal=[[Scientific American]] |series=Roots of Unity |date=August 31, 2014 |title=Look, Ma, No Zero!}}</ref>