Yup, 12, 60, and 360 are all "superior highly composite numbers." It's certainly plausible that the Babylonians simply assumed 12 zodiacal signs as a convenient simplification or idealization for the 12.36 months in a year in the same way that they assumed 360 degrees as a convenient simplification/idealization for the 365.24 days in a year!
Alas, I haven't seen any evidence if this is, in fact, what they did. I've seen that there's a number of modern scholarly works digging into Babylonian star catalogues and astrological tables, it might be interesting to check a few of them out one of these days.
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Date: 2024-03-14 01:18 am (UTC)Alas, I haven't seen any evidence if this is, in fact, what they did. I've seen that there's a number of modern scholarly works digging into Babylonian star catalogues and astrological tables, it might be interesting to check a few of them out one of these days.