Two fragments of a 3,800-year-old clay tablet show a collection of geometry exercises and questions in Akkadian script that would have confronted young Babylonian scholars. Here students are asked to calculate the areas of various subdivisions of squares, useful knowledge in a society where farmlands were often laid out in long rectangular strips of different sizes.

Mesopotamia- The Mighty Kings, Alexandria, Virginia- Time-Life Books, 1995, p. 16.

Photo credited to The British Museum.

See also-

• Mathematical Tablet from Ebla, c.2350-2250 BCE
• The Rhind Mathematical Papyrus, 1575 BCE
• Mathematical Cuneiform Tablet, 19th century BCE
• Tell Harmal Mathematical Tablets
• Polygon Tablet
• Clay Multiplication Table