Administrative Timekeeping in Ancient Mesopotamia

ADMINISTRATIVE TIMEKEEPING IN ANCIENT MESOPOTAMIA* BY R. K. ENGLUND One of the ostensibly unassuming but, for want of better examples, often cited contributions of the Sumerian to modern culture has been the sexagesimal division of the hour into 60 minutes (medieval Latin: (pars) minuta prima, "smallest part of the first order"), of the minute into 60 seconds ((pars) minuta secunda, "smallest part of the second order"). Unfortunately, even this contribution is laced with borrow- ings and bears no direct relation with Sumerian tradition. Texts of the 3rd millennium B.C. attest to no Sumerian hour, no minute in the modern sense