Why Base 60?

Speculative phase:

The first thing that I immediately thought of when asked why base 60 is time. There are 60 seconds in a minute and 60 minutes in an hour. I also know that 60 is much larger (6 times larger) than 10, and that 10 is a factor of 60. In our Monday class we discussed how there are 365 days in a year (except when it is a leap year) and that there are usually 30 or 31 days in a month (except February who loves to be special). From these observations we know that 365 is really close to 360 (a multiple of 60) and 31 is really close to 30 (a factor of 60). However, I wonder how this observation connects to base 60.

Research phase:

After doing research I discovered some cool facts about the significance of 60. Two of them I had already thought of are that 60 is a highly composite number and its role in time. I completely forgot about its role in circles (for example, a circle is divided into 360 degrees, which is a multiple of 60) and in the unit of degrees that are subdivided into minutes and seconds. I also learned about its role in languages. For example, in French there is a base 60 counting method (for example, 72 is called soixante-douze which translates to sixty-twelve in English). On the cultural side, 60 is significant in China and Japan because age 60 indicates a complete cycle. Since there are 12 animal signs and 5 elements, which means that there are 12 × 5 = 60 unique combinations. In these two cultures turning 60 is a time for celebration, and in Japan this celebration is called Kanreki. In Hinduism 60 is also important because it represents the completion of half the supposed human lifespan (120 years), and they have a celebration for it called Shashti Poorthi.