A 3,700-year-old Babylonian clay tablet reveals the oldest known trigonometric table, showing ancient scribes used precise triangle ratios.

What it tells us about the past: This round clay tablet, which is in the collection of the Ashmolean Museum at the University of Oxford, is one of two dozen examples of ancient Babylonian mathematics ...

Eric Mack has been a CNET contributor since 2011. Eric and his family live 100% energy and water independent on his off-grid compound in the New Mexico desert. Eric uses his passion for writing about ...

In recent years, there have been all kinds of anthropological breakthroughs radically shifting our ideas of ancient life and the capacities of our prehistory predecessors — from the discovery of the ...

Mathematics in Mesopotamia : Where did mathematics begin? ; Political history in Mesopotamia ; The number symbols ; Arithmetic operations ; Babylonian algebra ; Babylonian geometry ; The uses of ...