The main contribution of the Sumerians and Babylonians was the development of writing with their cuneiform script, an advance that allowed record keeping and knowledge to be preserved and passed down through the generations. Many of these records, preserved on clay tablets, have been discovered by archaeologists and translated, revealing information about the daily life of these ancient people. These tablets also allow modern historians to delve into the past and explore the sophisticated mathematical techniques of these people, the very foundation of the explosion in mathematics of the later Greeks. The Babylonian Numerals - Astronomy and Base 60 While we tend to call the mathematics of this advanced civilization Babylonian, other great cultures such as the Sumerians and Assyrians also contributed to the development of an advanced civilization in the Fertile Crescent. The Babylonians developed a system for writing down numbers, using symbols for singles, tens, and hundreds, showing that they probably used a decimal system for everyday life. This system allowed them to handle large numbers comfortably and perform all of the major arithmetical functions. However, there is no evidence that they used a number for zero, and they did not use fractions.
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