Aug. 25, 2017 - An ancient tablet may have just given researchers new insight into the minds of the ancient Babylonians, long known to be expert civil engineers. The clay text may demonstrate that this civilization built its monuments and canals with a higher degree of mathematical understanding than historians had thought. Discovered sometime about a century ago, scholars of ancient mathematics have been studying it for decades. New findings by Daniel Mansfield and Norman Wildberger of the University of New South Wales, Sydney reveal that the text may have been a complete table of trigonometry. If that’s true, it would be by far the oldest ever discovered. Until now, a Greek trig table from about 120 B.C. was considered the first. Plimpton 322 predates that by more than a thousand years. READ: Ancient Tablet May Show Earliest Use of This Advanced Math

Ancient Babylonia is remembered as a marvelous civilization.



Researchers may have just discovered they were even more advanced than we thought.



While exploring Iraq in the early 20th century, an archaeologist discovered this tablet.



It has long been accepted that the tablet, Plimpton 322, was used for complex mathematics.



Its exact use has been in question.



Daniel Mansfield and Norman Wildberger of the University of New South Wales, Sydney, say they've discovered how it was used.



In their new interpretation, the tablet would have been a complete and accurate trigonometry table.



An equivalent trig table created by a Greek astronomer around 120 B.C. has been considered the first.



If the findings are accurate, Plimpton 322 would push the origin back over a thousand years.



This tablet, or one like it, may have helped engineers build some of the monuments and canals for which the Babylonians are famous.