Plimpton 322, a 3,700-year-old Babylonian clay tablet, was shrouded in mystery after it surfaced in the early 1900s. Scavengers likely found the tablet in what is now Iraq and sold it to an antiques dealer, who then passed it on to an American antiquities enthusiast named Edgar Banks.
Banks, who was also a diplomat and roving archaeologist, worked for a time at the American consul in Baghdad. His global exploits are thought to have inspired the fictional character Indiana Jones, the protagonist of the famous film franchise.
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