Decimal the Roman numerals did, an intermediate base of 5. Notably, the polymath Archimedes (ca. 287–212 BC) invented a decimal positional system in his Sand Reckoner which was based on 10 and later led the German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss to lament what heights science would have already reached in his days if Archimedes had fully realized the potential of his ingenious discovery. The Hittites hieroglyphs (since 15th century BC), just like the Egyptian and early numerals in Greece, was strictly decimal. Some non-mathematical ancient texts like the Vedas dating back to 1900–1700 BCE make use of decimals and mathematical decimal
Non-decimal currency accounting, because amounts are written down and calculated using the decimal numeral system (but when another numeral system is used, such as the vigesimal system that was common among ancient Mesoamerican civilizations or the sexagesimal system used by the ancient Mesopotamians, this advantage disappears). However, decimalised currencies also have disadvantages. The principal advantage of most non-decimal currencies is that they are more easily divided, particularly by numbers such as 3 and 8, than decimal currencies. A currency with 100 minor units to the major unit is divisible neither into 3 nor into 8, and furthermore 100 may be an uncomfortably