I mean unless people had 6 fingers it would seem counter-intuitive to use any numbering system that does not have a base that is a multiple of 5. Or am I missing something?
In: Mathematics
Sexagesimal systems of measure were adopted pre Babylon (somewhere around 3500 BCE). The system was used for time keeping as well as for other systems of measure including weight and distance. By the 13th century, these timekeeping standards were generally wide-spread throughout the Eurasian continent. The decimal system didn’t make its mainstream debut until the late 1700s. While it was relatively easy to apply this system to things like distance, area, weight, etc., applying the changes to timekeeping standards would require far more drastic changes.
You’re missing the inherent advantages a sexagesimal system has when used for specific things.
60, the base number, can be factored down to 1 extremely easily- 60, 30, 20, 15, 12, 10, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. With this system, it’s very easy to calculate fractions of a whole, which made it very popular in ancient societies that had trading economies.
Obviously, this system has largely been superceded by base-10 decimals today. However, it remains popular for specific uses like timekeeping and geography for the same reasons- both rely heavily on subdividing a single unit into smaller pieces, and they’re things humans have been doing that specific way for thousands of years- so change will be slow.
We now count the five fingers on each hand and the two hands we have which gives us a numerical system which is a multiple of two and five. However a lot of other numerical systems also count the three knuckles on each finger to get numerical systems that are multiples of three as well. You can try it out yourself by counting the number of knuckles on one hand using your thumb you get twelve knuckles on the remaining four fingers. If you then use the five fingers on the other hand to count as normal you will be able to count to sixty on your fingers.
We do not actually think that this was the most common way to count in the bronze age. When we see numbers being written down they appear to first count to ten before starting over on the next digit. However after sixty they also start over again. And we have not found any artwork or textbooks which show how they counted on their fingers. But as the number system is a multiple of three it is very likely that they somehow counted the knuckles on the fingers as well somehow.
The time system is very ancient, inherited from the ancient Mesopotamian empires that used a base-12 system instead of a base-10 system.
They preferred the number 12 because it’s a highly composite number divisible by 2, 3, 4, and 6 and you have 12 knuckles (minus the thumb) on one hand to keep count.
60 is 12×5, or a full hand of knuckle counts. 12 hours of day and 12 of night, and each hour is divided into a full hand of minutes.
There were attempts over the centuries to convert to a decimal time system, but none have unseated 4000 years of traditional timekeeping.
Base 60 was used by the Sumerians
If you take your left hand and use only the knuckles of the fingers, ignore the thumb, you have 12
The other hand can be used as a multiplier.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/science/71273903/roger-hanson-the-origins-of-the-number-60-as-a-counting-method
60 is a “highly composite number” meaning that it divides well into a lot of different numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20, 30, 60. While 10 divides into 4 numbers 1, 2, 5, 10. So you can get “quarter to 3” and have it be a simple fraction.
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