Been wondering for a while as to why Time alone seems to be measured in base 60, while rest of everything that we quantify was base 10. Finally got time to research this matter and decided to make a note of this for everyone interested to know. Of course thanks to wiki and google, the information noted here is of no original thinking.
After quite some research, I was pointed out that not only time, but a host of other aspects are quantified by base-60, and they include dozen, foot (12 inches), geometric angles (circle is 360, triangle totals to 180) etc.
So here goes the reason, our fingers. Fingers were the first tools used in counting since we came into existance. Since we have 10 fingers, we got the decimal number system. Its easier to count in multiples of 10 and 5. That is why mentally even today we are more comfortable in buying count of 10 apples or settle for a price which is a multiple of 5/10. We don't really stop at picking 33 wild strawberries , or do we?
This explains the decimal system, but what about base-60? For that see your fingers, except the thumb every other finger is divided into 3 phalanges. Now use your left thumb as a counter,and count all the phalanges of the 4 fingers of right hand (excluding right thumb). They add to 12. Now use the left pointer as the next counter and add all the phalanges of the right fingers (excluding right thumb), that results in a 2nd iteration of 12. So now you have counted 24. This will continue for 5 iterations (one for every finger in the left hand) and voila we get 5 * 12 = 60.
To further continue, since we cannot count beyond 60 using our fingers, base-60 was assigned and in general things were getting quantified by multiples of 12, like dozen, foot = 12 inches etc. Also we cannot go beyond 6 times 60 as excluding the 4 fingers used for counting, only 6 are left as iterators, so 360 becomes a full circle or completion. This is perhaps the reason why a circle is considered mathematically to subtend 360 degrees, and any geometrical shape >=4 sides has angles (n-2)*180.
Thanks sumerians, looks like Alexander had actually looted them and sent all their hard work to Babylonia and the Greeks duplicated their work.
Signing off.

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