The Cache is NOT at the listed coordinates…to obtain the correct coordinates, you will have to do a bit of math conversion. While I’m not very good at math, I love history…I enjoy finding out how we got to the present from the past.
One of the centers of mathematics in the ancient world was Mesopotamia, “the land between the rivers,” which is located in modern day Iraq. Here was the center of the Babylonian civilization, although that term encompasses a variety of cultures and empires. The earliest of them though were the Sumerians…the oldest known civilization, pre-dating even the Egyptians.
The Babylonians had a number of cultural and scientific achievements including: stepped pyramids, the colossal city walls of Babylon and one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, the Hanging Gardens. They also had advanced astronomical knowledge and were able to predict complex astronomical phenomena with sophisticated mathematics.
The Babylonians used a base 60 (or sexagesimal) system of counting and the echoes of this are still felt today…why do you think we have 60 minutes in an hour…or 60 seconds in a minute? Why are there 360 degrees in a circle? For all of that, you can thank those mathematicians 4,000 years ago!
Most cultures today use a base 10 (or decimal), positional system…where there is a place for ones (100), a place for tens (101), a place for hundreds (102), etc …where we use number from 0-9 and then it rolls over to the next place.
The base 60 system is similar, but they counted up to 60 (or 600), before rolling over to the next place…which would have been a multiple of 60 (think 601) then the next place value would have been 3,600 (or 602).
So…the number 4,056 in our positional system would be expressed in a base 60 system as: 1,7,36.
Why? The (1) equals 3,600 (1 x 3,600)…the (7) equals 420 (7 x 60) and the (36) equals…well, 36. If you add them up: 3600 + 420 + 36 = 4,056.
Now for the fun part! The cache is located at the following coordinates: N 32 24.XXX W 85 0.YYY
To find the missing coordinates, convert the following base 60 numbers to something more recognizable:
XXX = 4,17
YYY = 3,26
You can check your answers for this puzzle on GeoChecker.com.