I think that there are several thing that brought us to 12. First it is very easy to divide, this is why we use 12 hours clocks and between 2 octave the ear is

I think that there are several thing that brought us to 12. First it is very easy to divide, this is why we use 12 hours clocks and between 2 octave the ear is able to distinguish 1/12 of an octave as 2 different sounds, it might be possible to do better but it would be unpractical because it would be more difficult to found chords that sound good. Arabic music use quater tones (24 quater tones per octave).