How Babylonians counted to 12 on one hand?

The Babylonians counted to 12 on one hand by using their fingers like a special kind of number game.

Imagine you're holding your hand up, just like when you count how many toys you have. Now, instead of counting each finger one by one, the Babylonians used something called finger segments, which are the little parts between your knuckles.

Each finger has three segments (like links in a bracelet). If you use all the segments on one hand, that's 3 segments × 4 fingers = 12!

So instead of counting just 5 fingers, they counted the smaller bits on each finger, like counting how many blocks are stacked up. It’s like having a mini number tower on your hand.

This made it easier for them to count bigger numbers too, kind of like when you use both hands to count more toys after you’ve used one hand for the first few!