Our ancestors were far more advanced than we give them credit for. I'll bet that the Egyptians had similar ways of calculating Trig in order to build their massive temples & pyramids... we just haven't found it yet.
Quote:
A 3,700-year-old clay tablet has proven that the Babylonians developed trigonometry 1,500 years before the Greeks and were using a sophisticated method of mathematics which could change how we calculate today.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/08/24/3700-year-old-babylonian-tablet-rewrites-history-maths-could/Quote:
Babylonian mathematics used a base 60, or sexagesimal system, rather than the 10 which is used today. Because 60 is far easier to divide by three, experts studying the tablet, found that the calculations are far more accurate.