You don't have to learn 60 different symbols, you only need two: https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/HistTopics/Babylonian_numerals/ https://mathshistory.st-a

You don't have to learn 60 different symbols, you only need two: https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/HistTopics/Babylonian_numerals/ https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/HistTopics/Babylonian_... An advantage of a small base is that you can use different symbols for each numeral and make reading much quicker/easier/less error-prone. 60 is probably too many to be optimal, but most alphabets work well with a few dozen.