Our main information about the civilization and mathematics of Babylonia, ancient and more recent, comes from texts in the form of clay tablets. These tablets were inscribed when the clay was still soft and then baked. Hence those that survived destruction are well ______ . They date mainly from two periods, some from about 2000 B.C., and a larger number from the period 600 B.C.-A.D. 300. The earlier tablets are the more important in the history of mathematics.
