From<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.livescience.com&#x2F;53518-babylonians-tracked-jupiter-with-fancy-math.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.livescience.com&#x2F;53518-babylonians-tracked-jupiter...</a><p>&gt; &quot;It&#x27;s not an actual trapezoid that describes the shape of a field, or some configuration of the planets in space,&quot; Ossendrijver told Live Science. &quot;It&#x27;s a configuration in a mathematical space. It&#x27;s a highly abstract application.&quot;<p>&gt; &quot;Actually, this particular tablet has ugly handwriting,&quot; Ossendrijver said. &quot;It&#x27;s slanted. It&#x27;s like cursive if it were written very rapidly. It&#x27;s very abbreviated. He left out everything that is not absolutely necessary to follow the computation.&quot;<p>You can read the details here:<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;science.sciencemag.org&#x2F;content&#x2F;351&#x2F;6272&#x2F;482.full" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;science.sciencemag.org&#x2F;content&#x2F;351&#x2F;6272&#x2F;482.full</a><p>The supplementary materials give a full transcript of the tablet you linked (one of several):<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;science.sciencemag.org&#x2F;content&#x2F;sci&#x2F;suppl&#x2F;2016&#x2F;01&#x2F;27&#x2F;351.6272.482.DC1&#x2F;Ossendrijver.SM.pdf" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;science.sciencemag.org&#x2F;content&#x2F;sci&#x2F;suppl&#x2F;2016&#x2F;01&#x2F;27&#x2F;3...</a><p>&gt; 1 The day when it appears: 0;12, until 1,0 days, 0;9,30.<p>&gt; 2 0;12 and 0;9,30 is 0;21,30, times 0;30<p>&gt; 3 is 0;10,45, times 1,0 is 10;45.<p>&gt; 4 After completing 1,0 days, until 1,0 days 0;1,30.<p>&gt; 5 0;9,30 and 0;1,30 is 0;11, times 0;30 is 0;5,30.<p>&gt; 6 0;5,30 times 1,0 days is 5;30. (erasure) 10;45 and 5;30 is<p>&gt; 7 16;15, the total. From appearance until station the motion is 16;15.<p>The actual trapezoid is mentioned in another tablet, which is also translated.<p>To see how the numerals actually work, just look up Babylonian Mathematics. It&#x27;s a pretty simple base-60 system.