1800 BCE
Old Babylonian Math Tablet Copied
About this moment
Babylonian mathematics (also known as Assyro-Babylonian mathematics) is the mathematics developed or practiced by the people of Mesopotamia, as attested by sources surviving mainly from the Old Babylonian period (1830–1531 BC) to the Seleucid period from the last three or four centuries BC. With respect to content, there is scarcely any difference between the two groups of texts. Babylonian mathematics remained constant, in character and content, for over a millennium. In contrast to the scarcity of sources in Ancient Egyptian mathematics, knowledge of Babylonian mathematics is derived from hundreds of clay tablets unearthed since the 1850s.