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A circle turns three hundred and sixty degrees

Not a hundred, not some tidy round number

Why does a circle have 360 degrees?

Because four thousand years ago, Babylon didn't count by ten

It counted by sixty, on the knuckles of its fingers

And six times sixty is three hundred and sixty

Almost the number of days in a year: each day, the Sun moves one notch along the circle of the sky

Four thousand years later, that base sixty is still here: the degrees of the compass, the minutes and seconds on our watches

Every circle that closes is Babylon, still counting on its fingers