If you hate math classes, and the sight of a plus sign either bores or terrifies you, you might find the kind of math that the Aztecs used more to your liking. The ancient mesoamericans had a system all their own, and they used very indigenous symbols to represent equations.

Instead of numerals and operation symbols, Aztecs used drawn representations like hearts, arrows, arms, and bones. These symbols were used in trade arithmetic and land surveying.

Aztec arithmetic was instrumental in measuring and documenting the size of agricultural lands. This provided ancient rulers with a reference for taxation, making it easy for traders and governors of the American Indian nation to go about business.

All this was figured out in a study led by mathematician Maria del Carmen Jorge y Jorge of the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Working with geographers and using one of the oldest known Aztec numerical systems, she was able to make sense of roughly 60 percent of all the equations she worked on.

The researchers say that the calculations were mostly spot on, while the remainder were just a little bit off. They also stressed that the Aztecs had a fraction system unlike any other used today.

"We found these smaller units of measure that we call monads that have the role of a fraction," del Carmen says. "We don't like to call them fractions, though, because they were considered as unitary entities like inches, seconds or minutes."