What base was the Ancient Mayan counting system in?

Flynn_17

Shells and lines. A line was 1. A shell was 5. Apr 04 05, 2:45 PM

ogicu8abruok

Although it did include those symbols, a shell was zero and a line was five, while a dot was one. The "base" means how much each place is worth. Since we have the ones, tens, hundreds, etc., we use base 10. Apr 04 05, 2:48 PM

Flynn_17

Ah, that's it. I haven't done history for 7 years, Oggie, I lose these little nuggets of info. I dropped it as soon as I could. Always hated History. Apr 04 05, 3:10 PM

ogicu8abruok

I hate history, it's the math I enjoy. Apr 04 05, 3:11 PM

Flynn_17

Urgh. I hate both. Much more a biology man, me. Apr 04 05, 3:26 PM

TabbyTom

Like the early Celts, the Maya used the base 20. Apr 04 05, 3:53 PM

ogicu8abruok

Hooray! Apr 04 05, 4:20 PM

peasypod

Just to add to Tabby's answer, the Gauls of ancient France also used the base 20 system. The Sumerians, the Babylonians, and others after them used a base of 60 - convenient because 60 can be evenly divided by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20, and 30. Apr 04 05, 7:21 PM

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