The Babylonian legacy of counting time came from our phalanges — and today it is present, for example, in eggs.
Everyone knows: an hour has 60 minutes. But why 60 and no other number?
The answer dates back to an ancient practice of Mesopotamian civilizations and is, as incredible as it may seem, in our hands.
More than 4,000 years ago in the region of modern-day Iraq, the Babylonians created the sexagesimal systemrelying on the number 60 to count and measure. But the choice was not ‘for nothing’: it was born from practical observation of the phalanges of the fingers.
Count an hour on your hand
Today, in the only counting we do with our fingers, each finger is worth one. But the sexagesimal system is different.
First, let’s look at one of our fingers other than our thumb. We see three fractions (or, better said, three phalanges). Using the thumb of one hand to count, you can count 12 fractions on each hand.
The reader’s mind may be confused at this point: so what about 60?
To reach 60, one finger of the free hand is lowered each time a counting cycle of 12 is completed with the thumb of the other hand: 12×5=60.
The Babylonians, influenced by the Egyptians, divided the day into 24 hours. To subdivide these hours, they turned to this simple but effective system that shaped the way we think about and organize time and was essential to astronomy and everyday life.
The impact of this system has surpassed the measurement of time. THE tendency to group objects in dozens, such as eggs or rosesalso originates from the logic of the number 12, which was practical for division and calculations: 12 is easily divided by 2, 3, 4 and 6.
Furthermore, the division of the circle into 360 degrees, another multiple of 60, also comes from this Babylonian tradition, and is still fundamental in geometry and astronomy today.
