2024-05-06 20:40:05 +00:00
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2024-10-29 18:27:12 +00:00
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date: 2020-07-06
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2024-05-06 20:40:05 +00:00
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id: fcbdb286-af0e-484f-8a2d-dd5b2e18ff5b
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title: The Chaldeans
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---
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The Assyrians fell at last to one of their subject peoples, the
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Chaldeans, who rebuilt Babylon and won a lustrous place in history for
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their intellectual achievements in astronomy, medicine, and mathematics.
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They used a base-12 system (as opposed to our base-10 system) and were
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pioneers in the measurement and division of time, which is why the year
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has twelve months, the hour has sixty minutes (five times twelve), and
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the minute has sixty seconds. They were terrific urban planners and
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architects—it was a Chaldean king who built those Hanging Gardens of
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Babylon, which the ancients ranked among the seven wonders of the world.
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